Fun with Berm Mining

[Jon]

I stopped at the range yesterday to see what I coud find for lead. Unfortunately, the ground is still frozen, but the snow had melted enough so that there was quite a bit laying on the top. My bucket sifter didn't work out so well with the wet soil mixed with bits of plywood from the backstop. So I spent an hour picking up the bullets on the top. Most of them were fmj with a few cast mixed in.

Let me say that FMJ and HP are not that fun to melt down. I had to pick out all of the jackets after the lead had melted out. I did get about 8 lbs of ingots out of 2 full pots worth of range lead. There's probably another 5 lbs or so to go.

I learned the hard way that a torch on the top of the melting pot isn't a good idea when dealing with range lead. I had a couple of bullets squirt lead at me. The 10lb pot takes forever to heat up so I was trying to help it along.

Any tips for seperating out the backstop material from the lead? I was thinking about bringing some water to float off the stuff, and then skimming the top. Then dumping the water, and running the mud through my sifter. The water could probably be semi-recycled for the next bucket.

Stay safe and just say no to the tinsel fairy :-) :coffee:

[docone31]

I melt it all in a cast iron pot. I push the jackets under the melt once it has gotten hot. Since the jackets are not fluxed, the lead flows from them. The residual crud from berm mineing I use as flux for the melt. In time, it stops clumping and I "shovel" it with a screwdriver blade.

[bigdog454]

I built a sluce box to get rid of the wood and light crud. You could use a corrigated drain pipe about 4 foot long, cut in half length wise put mining material at one end and flush with hose. The lead and other heavy stuff will stay in the pipe and the junk will slow out with the water.
The one I built using a 10 inch (aprox) wide by 4 foot piece of plywood and 1X4 sides has a small screen 10x12 close to the top and 3 wood slats to catch the lead. The sand etc falls thru the screen and bigger stuf flushes out leaving the lead to dump.

[FN in MT]

Between the FMJ's and the rocks....not worth my time.

Way back when I was a cop in Jersey we had a range that had an angled backstop that was nothing but SAND. Back then we practiced with either 148 WC's or 158 gr RN lead slugs. It was VERY EASY to mine that sandy backstop. I made a small sifter and could fill a 5 gal bucket in about half an hour.

Those were the days!!

FN in MT

[Jon]

So I think I found a little trick to melt the lead in my 10lb pot without the visit from the tinsel fairy. I held my Lee ingot mold over the pot, and stuck the tip of the torch underneath to heat up the range lead. It wasn't perfect, but it's quite a bit faster than waiting around for the pot to heat up.