Processed a Ton of Range Scrap

[alamogunr]

A couple of years ago I bought a ton of range scrap "cheap". It has been sitting around in buckets since then. I decided to get it cleaned up to free up some storage space. This was my first experience with range scrap. I will NEVER do this again! After almost 2 days of hard work , I managed to get about 1200 lbs of good ingots, 200 lbs of jacket material and about 600 lbs of dirt. I have dealt with dirty WW but they don't hold a candle to this stuff. The last time I did WW, I got about 85% yield. Admittedly there were about 4 buckets of truck weights that had a lot of 1/2 and 1/4 pounders in them.

I am sure the buckets of dirt have a substantial amount of lead oxide but haveing fluxed until I was almost out of candles and ready to go buy a case of cheap motor oil, I decided it wasn't worth the effort to try to salvage any more. I think I have some good lead even though I haven't had time to check hardness. I hope it is near pure lead. After cleaning the crap off the top of the melt, I saw the colors that I have read about from others. They are pretty.

Anyone else ever have this kind of experience with any kind of scrap?

The only good thing to come out of this (I hope!) is that copper and brass scrap prices are pretty high right now.

John

[garandsrus]

alamogunr,

My range scrap has come from an indoor range so far. It's not too bad to work with.

You will probably get all your money back from buying the range scrap by selling the copper jackets!

John

[felix]

Take large amounts of range scrap to the local car wash first. Best to do so in a pickup bed or at least a wide bucket with drainage holes. Wash the truck while you are at it. ... felix

[imashooter2]

My scrap comes from an indoor range with hard rubber over the armor plate. The scrap has mucho rubber dust in it and when smelted, the rubber burns off emitting large flame and thick smoke. On the up side, it fluxes as it burns.

Anyway, this is the only free lead I've been able to find, so I'm going to sock in as much of it as I can get.

[alamogunr]

Take large amounts of range scrap to the local car wash first. Best to do so in a pickup bed or at least a wide bucket with drainage holes. Wash the truck while you are at it. ... felix

I've done this with WW and it works fine. This stuff had so much dirt that trying to go thru 19 five gal buckets would have convinced me that the looney bin was my next stop. I've also used the car wash to clean the rest of the sheet rock off the shielding that I salvaged awhile back. Does a good job including removing most of the glue.

[Johnch]

The indoor range lead I get is about 1/2 way between WW and pure lead

LOL I have 10 buckets to do .
But luckey for me they just have steel plates .
So no rubber , but a fair amount of paper .

Johnch

[Four Fingers of Death]

Pretty good way of getting lead out here as we only use lead on pistol ranges as a rule. MIck.

The best I ever saw was an indoor range which only allowed lead with a huge angled metal boolit catcher.

[garandsrus]

imashooter2,

My range scrap has rubber in it also as we use shredded rubber for a backstop. I haven't tried this yet, but I plan to slowly pour the scrap into a bucket of water so that the rubber chunks can float to the top where I can skim them off.

My next step will be to smelt a heaping pot full of scrap. I can saftely do this while the scrap is wet if I start with an empty pot. This will allow any water in the scrap to boil/steam out of the scrap before it melts. It is CRITICAL that no more scrap gets added to the pot while it has molten metal in it! Doing so would definitely invite a visit from the Tinsel fairy.

John

[alamogunr]

imashooter2,

My range scrap has rubber in it also as we use shredded rubber for a backstop. I haven't tried this yet, but I plan to slowly pour the scrap into a bucket of water so that the rubber chunks can float to the top where I can skim them off.

My next step will be to smelt a heaping pot full of scrap. I can saftely do this while the scrap is wet if I start with an empty pot. This will allow any water in the scrap to boil/steam out of the scrap before it melts. It is CRITICAL that no more scrap gets added to the pot while it has molten metal in it! Doing so would definitely invite a visit from the Tinsel fairy.

John

One interesting thing I forgot to mention in the original post. Several buckets were wet from a rainstorm over the weekend. Even though they were covered with a tarp. Two of them had water running out when I emptied the bucket on to a sheet of plywood I use to spread the material out in order to pick out plastic shot wads, etc. I put them aside until last and found that there was so much dirt that I could slowly slide a shovel full on top of the melt and all I got was a sizzle. Didn't take long to dry out. I made sure that only one shovel full at a time went in the pot. Only thing I can figure is that there was so much dirt that everything floated and the dirt kept any wet lead (?) from getting under the surface. I will admit that I was ready to run just in case. Aside from my being stupid, does this sound like a good theory?

John

[andrew375]

Unless you have a lot of muzzle loaders on that range there will be very little pure lead. Jacket cores and .22s have 1%-2% antimony. Commercal cast bullets will be of linotype or similar.The good news is that the alloy you have is very good for casting, makes superb pistol bullets and responds well to heat treatment.

Just make sure you flux it well before you cast or your bullets will be full of inclusions.

[imashooter2]

imashooter2,

My range scrap has rubber in it also as we use shredded rubber for a backstop. I haven't tried this yet, but I plan to slowly pour the scrap into a bucket of water so that the rubber chunks can float to the top where I can skim them off.

My next step will be to smelt a heaping pot full of scrap. I can saftely do this while the scrap is wet if I start with an empty pot. This will allow any water in the scrap to boil/steam out of the scrap before it melts. It is CRITICAL that no more scrap gets added to the pot while it has molten metal in it! Doing so would definitely invite a visit from the Tinsel fairy.

John

I can't be bothered with that. I want to handle the lead as little as possible. The rubber burns off.