Home made bullet trap and houdini boolits

[2_Smithereenz]

I just finshished making a home made bullet trap, and it works quite well actually. I enclosed it on three sides and the bottom with metal, the backing is 3/8" AR400 plate.
On my first test run I put sand in the bottom of it to dampen the impact of the glancing bullets off the 45 deg. angle backstop. I thought this would keep them from jumping out the front of the box. My first 3 shots go into the box without a hitch, until I go to recover them.

24"x24" square bullet trap w/AR400 plate as backstop

http://i714.photobucket.com/albums/ww146/mohunter68/BulletTrap002.jpg


I knelt down and started feeling around for the lumps of lead and they weren't there? I ended up finding one sliver of the base of one of my solid nose boolits (.452 MP Mold using WW's) and that was it!
The piece I recovered was no bigger than a dime and not much thicker. I ended up shooting about 8 hollow point rounds into the trap and all entered the trap without coming out anywhere I could see. When I went to recover those, I couldn't find a single one!

As I'm scratching my head...standing there staring at my bullet trap trying to figure out how those darn things made it out of there....it dawned on me.
My bullets must be coming apart.

So fast forward to sifter and bucket. I sifted all the contents of the bullet trap and found shrapnel. No piece of boolit recovered was larger than a cornflake and most of the pieces were the size of your little fingernail.

I put a quarter in with the recovered pieces for size referrence

http://i714.photobucket.com/albums/ww146/mohunter68/Castboolitrecoveryfromtrap.jpg



So now I'm wondering if my Wheel Weight mix that I casted these boolits with is too hard? It's just straight wheel weight with no additives and I made sure there weren't any zinc ones in there when I smelted them down.
It makes really nice and pretty casts, but for some reason they disintegrate into shrapnel when they go off the backstop and into the bullet trap?

Should cast boolits be doing this? I really expected to find small mis-shapen lead slugs laying in the sand, so I could again melt these down into recycled boolits. Nevertheless all I've got is a handful of slivers of lead not worth messing with. [smilie=b:

Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.

[HammerMTB]

I don't think you will find complete boolits after they ricochet off a 45* plate. All the stuff I have seen (and I shoot Speed Steel every month) spatters all to bits.
Those bits will melt to liquid to be poured again, tho.
I'd love to have a boolit trap like that at my shootin' spot!
Just let the lead accumulate a while, then get a bunch at once.
How much does your trap weigh, anyhow?

[2_Smithereenz]

I don't think you will find complete boolits after they ricochet off a 45* plate. All the stuff I have seen (and I shoot Speed Steel every month) spatters all to bits.
Those bits will melt to liquid to be poured again, tho.
I'd love to have a boolit trap like that at my shootin' spot!
Just let the lead accumulate a while, then get a bunch at once.
How much does your trap weigh, anyhow?

Thanks for the repy Hammer.
So you don't think there is anything wrong with my WW mix that I'm casting with?
I was afraid it was too hard for some reason, but the boolits come out beautiful.

The Weight??? Uhhhhh............Damn Heavy! :mrgreen:

Just guessing I'd say it was around 150-200lbs??? I may be over exagerating, but I made it out of steel scrap I had here around my garage and the barn together.
If I would have had the money to buy the steel to make it all from new I could have kept the weight down some.

The 3/8" AR400 was a bit of overkill, and my boolits don't even scratch the surface. I'm sure it will stop a .243 or .270 or 30-06 bullet with no problems.
I used it because I got it from a place I used to work for FREE, they threw away stuff like that all the time and would let you have it if you asked nicely.

Those 2 skids on the bottom of it are 1/2" thick 2x2 tubing like Reese hitches are made out of. I put those on so I could drag this monster around with my ATV and make it portable. :shock:

I nicknamed it "TANK" Because it's built like one. :bigsmyl2:

[Blammer]

Nice! After a few hundred rounds you probably don't need the sand. :)

[RayinNH]

That's all we find when we clean out the indoor range at the club. The boolits hit a steel plate and then ricochet into a water tank. Jacketed just come apart as well...Ray

[Edubya]

Ummh... let's see; 11 rounds and you get a handful of lead shrapnel and a quarter back. Ya ain't gonna get rich that way but not a totally losing deal. :)

EW

[sagacious]

Looks good. Slivers and fragments is all you'll recover from a steel trap like that-- but lead is lead.

[geargnasher]

I get powder from mine, gave up on the sand since it just complicates smelting. Use a Steel plate in the bottom of the trap, too, and cover the bottom with a layer of lead ingots. As you shoot, the dust/fragments will accumulate on the ingots forming an almost solid layer of boolit metal, kind of like growing crystals from seeds.

Gear

[44fanatic]

recovered 590 pounds of jacketed scrap from an indoor range, didnt find allot that appeared to be lead by itself, but when all smelted, produced over 400lbs lead. Its there, just turned to dust and small pieces of lead.

[44man]

Your not supposed to shoot the quarter as is because they bounce off vampires! :kidding: They need better penetration. I don't see any expansion on it either.
Anyway, no boolit can stand up to a 45* plate. I don't even find the pieces you do. I make lead dust and would have to melt the dirt to get a boolit's worth.
I went to the rubber mulch in a box---a LOT of mulch in a long box.

[357maximum]

The only BAD thing I have seen with the rubber mulch trap I have is resisting the temptation to simply re-lube and re-shoot the boolits. :bigsmyl2:

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

357 . . . the problem is how do you fatten them back up! ;)

I also use rubber mulch . . . I have 16" deep, then a thin 1/8" steel plate and 1.5" of sand, it is 15" square and weighs 90 pounds before I start adding lead! it stops my 44 mag cast, and 7.62X39 FMJ, but if I shoot in the same place with the AK47 it will make a tunnel and tear up the metal plate! 270 will just keep on going

Boolits get stopped like the came out of the barrel . . . well unless they hit other boolits in the trap!

[357maximum]

You do not have to fatten them back up.............just "TIME" the lands with the grooves on the boolits.[smilie=l: [smilie=l:

Actually I have re-lubed a few 358446 boolits in the 38 and shot them again. The lyman sizer bumbed them enough to make them shootable again...........I do not recommend it as this was just a "can I do it" thing.

[2_Smithereenz]

Well then, I guess the general consensus is that this is normal and probably nothing wrong with my WW mix.
I guess I just had expectations of finding nice round wads of lead that I could just toss back into my melting pot, but I should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

At least now I know what to expect and I'll just let it all accumulate in piles of slivers until there's enough to mess with.:wink:
The good thing is that I don't have to worry much about eating a stray slug at close range, there won't be anything big enough left to do much damage to me! :rolleyes:

Thanks for all the replies guys!

[Shiloh]

Nice Job!

SHiloh

[Changeling]

Anyone have a picture of there rubber mulch set up?

[44man]

No, but mine is from scrap 3/4" plywood with 1/4" rubber or cargo belting on the front to staple targets to, easily removed to dump and replace. Mine is about 12" square and 36" long.
Darned if Whitworth didn't shoot through it once! [smilie=l:
Mine is stationary but if you want portable you need wheels! :bigsmyl2:

[geargnasher]

Anyone have a picture of there rubber mulch set up?

Yeah, lots of them here, from about the middle to the end.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=26627&highlight=bullet+trap

Gear

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

Yeah, lots of them here, from about the middle to the end.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=26627&highlight=bullet+trap

Gear

My pictures start at post #260 . . .

[ghh3rd]

Gosh I wish I lived where I could set up a boolit trap!

[JIMinPHX]

Yeah, lots of them here, from about the middle to the end.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=26627&highlight=bullet+trap

Gear

That's the thread that I started. In the beginning, I planned on making a 45 degree steel trap too. I got the same powdered lead results that everybody else did, then I started looking for other options. 357 max turned me on to the idea of using crumb rubber. That's what I use now for 95% of my shooting. I get 100% lead recovery that way as long as I don't miss the target.

On the steel traps, even if I kicked the angle back another 30 degrees, I still fragmented my lead badly. Dead soft pistol boolits gave me bigger chunks, but they still broke up too. About the only thing that stayed in one piece was air gun pellets up to 1,000fps. I guess that their hollow body design lets them absorb more energy as they smush.

I found that a lot of my lead loss was due to the lead splatter coming back out of the front of the trap. If you hang a paper target on that thing, you will see shrapnel marks that come out of the trap.

The metal on the sides doesn't need to be very thick. 1/8" hot roll doesn't even show a mark from the hottest stuff that I shot at it. After the boolit's first impact with the back plate, there isn't enough energy left to damage the sheet metal on the sides. Wood will get eaten away over time, but not sheet metal.

On most of the steel traps, I used 3/8" hot roll steel for the back plate. It held up fine until the boolit speed got up around 2,000fps. After that, the boolits took divots out of the back plate every time they hit. Even lead as soft as 12bnh & calibers as small as .22 did it. I suspect that AR400 may hold up a little better than that.

[geargnasher]

Sorry, Jim, I forgot to give you credit when I cited the sticky.:drinks: After poring over the 'net for many days a year or so ago I've determined that your thread has, hands down, the most in-depth information about boolit traps in cyberspace. I've said it before, but a big thanks again to you for posting all of your hard work and research, I've learned a great deal from your efforts, as have many others.

My end result is I no longer shoot steel at all since WW have dried up, so I developed a very effective sandbox target trap for boolit recycling only. I have my own rubber mulch trap that I use for "forensics".

Geadr

[2_Smithereenz]

That's the thread that I started. In the beginning, I planned on making a 45 degree steel trap too. I got the same powdered lead results that everybody else did, then I started looking for other options. 357 max turned me on to the idea of using crumb rubber. That's what I use now for 95% of my shooting. I get 100% lead recovery that way as long as I don't miss the target.

On the steel traps, even if I kicked the angle back another 30 degrees, I still fragmented my lead badly. Dead soft pistol boolits gave me bigger chunks, but they still broke up too. About the only thing that stayed in one piece was air gun pellets up to 1,000fps. I guess that their hollow body design lets them absorb more energy as they smush.

I found that a lot of my lead loss was due to the lead splatter coming back out of the front of the trap. If you hang a paper target on that thing, you will see shrapnel marks that come out of the trap.

The metal on the sides doesn't need to be very thick. 1/8" hot roll doesn't even show a mark from the hottest stuff that I shot at it. After the boolit's first impact with the back plate, there isn't enough energy left to damage the sheet metal on the sides. Wood will get eaten away over time, but not sheet metal.

On most of the steel traps, I used 3/8" hot roll steel for the back plate. It held up fine until the boolit speed got up around 2,000fps. After that, the boolits took divots out of the back plate every time they hit. Even lead as soft as 12bnh & calibers as small as .22 did it. I suspect that AR400 may hold up a little better than that.

Yes sir, all of that right there that you just said is Spot On Exactly what is happening inside my target! You hit the proverbial nail right smack on the head and you explain it so in depth, but yet in a language that even a simple man can understand.

I couldn't have explained it any better! Bravo Jim!! :D

I think I may have come up with a simple fix to my powdered bullets problem, or at least it may work to soften the impact a little bit for my particular situation.

A guy on another reloading forum suggested that I try some of that stuff they put down in barns and horse trailers. It's a rubber sheet that comes in 4x8 sheets about 1" thick, and you can buy it at Orcheln's, or some other Farm and Home stores like Tractor Supply and places like that. He said he paid around $30 bucks a sheet for it.
I'm going to get a sheet of it and cut 2'x2' squares out of it and double layer them and then either screw it or bolt it to the front of my trap. Then just shoot the heck out of it until it's shot all to hell, and then just throw a couple more peices on.
I should be able to get 8 - 2 ft. square pieces out of a 4'x8' sheet.

For me and my own personal situation I think that will work for me just fine, and I should still be able to recover most of my lead.
I chronographed my loads late yesterday evening and a 6 shot string with my 200gr. HP's averaged out to 885fps. the low was 850fps (I think) the Hi was 905
So those really shouldn't be that tuff to slow down? I can even back off another grain or so on my powder and get that down to closer to the mid 600's maybe?

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

I'd be very careful shooting rubber sheeting, unless it is like foam rubber . . . they may bounce back at you, like was mentioned in Jim's thread . . .

[Lloyd Smale]

Mine does the same thing. What you end up with is basicaly tiny pieces and dust. It doesnt matter much what alloy your using when it hits steal it dissingrates, at least at any velocity over 800 fps.