Bullet trap for recycling lead – need help please

[Milltown353]

I read through all of this and I had an idea (Maybe good or Bad) about how to make lead recovery easier.

Now what would happen if you had a rubber mulch type catch. work on the calculation on far your particular bullet would travel before it stopped (I'm going under the assumption that the same loaded bullets out of the same gun will land within a few inches of each other).

Now here is the interesting part, you take and set-up a regular catch that would normally just turn the bullets into powder. Have that set-up in the back and when shooting lead bullets out of a particular gun, just have a few inches less then needed for when it stopped. So say you shot a .45acp load and it would land between 16-20'' in the rubber mulch, from there you only set-up 14-15'' of rubber mulch. In theory the bullet would exit out of the back of the rubber mulch, then just bounce off of the plate in the back and fall down into a catch. The bullet should stay fairly intact because of the low velocity at which it would hit the plate.

Has that idea already been thought of? Failed? If it wouldn't work can somebody explain to my why it wouldn't work?

If it worked you could build slots that could be taken in and out depending what you were shooting and how far it would penetrate.

It probably wouldn't be very portable, but I don't know.

[Saint]

I just posted in the special projects section a silent trap that i made using a 5 gallon bucket and 5 pounds of ballistic putty(duct seal). This is only a pellet trap but I am sure it could be used for regular firearms if enough putty was used. The only problem would be that a firearm projectile would go in really deep so the putty would have to be removed in order to retrieve the lead unless the bullet deformed enough on impact to kep it close to the surface. I would like to see someone tryit but sadly i have nowhere close to my home where i can set it up.

[JIMinPHX]

One of the trap sections that I made has cardboard on the front & the back. It was designed as an extension & it was intended to have the boolits come out the back side of it, then go into another trap. When the boolits come out the back, they bring a bunch of crumb rubber with them & they open up a pretty big hole in the cardboard. They would make a mess if you tried to have a little catch bin back there.

If you were to make the trap a little shorter than the expected stopping point of a particular boolit & then have a plate sitting there waiting to stop it, that does work. I fired some .38s into a 12” deep trap with a plate backup. When I removed the plate, all my boolits were right there on top waiting for me. They were about 3/4 of the way squished out flat.

[Tumtatty]

HI Jim,

As I reported earlier, my box stops pistol rounds just fine. The endgame for me has always been rifle boolits.

However I can't seem to get my box to stop them effectively!!!


The box is 24"
It has 3 bags of rubber mulch squeezed inside it
I installed 2 layers of steel which = a little under 1/4"

Today I fired:
6.5 X 55 Swede Mauser (170gr boolit with 14gr 2400)
8mm K98 Mauser (223 gr boolit with 19 gr 2400)

They tore the steel to pieces at 50yrds. Any ideas how I could make this box work? It weighs around 80 pounds as is.

I'm thinking that if I could get a large diameter PVC pipe of 4 or 5 feet and fill it with mulch and a steel backend that I might have some success.

I like shooting at 50yrds and would like to stay at this distance. At that range my boolits already drop 6" from point of aim so I'd rather not reduce the loads any further.


Any help would be appreciated.

Here are some pics:

[pps]

The rubber mulch has been a great idea. 1 1/2 bags ($12 worth) in a leftover filing box for 15 inches deep and a little duck tape. An old 1/4" thick steel base was leaned against the back of the box nearly vertical.

16 shots of Zero 158gr SJHP at 1200 fps from 10 yards were fired, 4 were recovered between the back of the box and the plate (9 were between 14 and 15 inches, expansion was variable and 13 of 16 were recovered with the remaining three going to wherever it is that all the missing socks go when they escape the dryer.

After duck tap repair, 8 shots of 185gr Beartooth LBT style boolits at 1204 fps fired at 10 yards, 5 recovered after hitting the plate. Enough energy was bled off that the plate was not dented and the lightest bullet recovered was 173gr.

Lastly 70 Hornady swaged 158gr LHP were fired at 850 fps, 10 yards (plate was removed) 4 were found in the berm behind the box, the remaining 56 recovered were between 10 and 13 inches from the front. The other ten bullets might still be in the mulch or in the berm.

86% recovery from 12 dollars of re-usable material isn't bad. No lead dust and boolits mostly in tact, and no dirt to dig through for crap laden lead. Weight is 35# and another 5# for the optional plate. Whoever came up with the rubber mulch idea deserves a beer

BTW: sifting through the material only took approx 5 min with the shop vac. The plastic seems light enough to go easily while the boolits drop to the bottom of the box. I'd bet that there might be a few boolits in the mulch left over that I dumped from the vac into the box, but they should be there for the next range session.

[Redneck]

Hello this is my first post, I've been lurking for quite some time.
I tried this idea, my box is 15x12 inchs and 30 inches long, I have a little over two and a half bags of rubber mulch in it and it will stop anything. I have fired 9mm, 38special, 250 gr 45 colt, 175 grain lee .323, and 7.62x54r and 8mm mauser steel core ammo into it.
Here are a few that I have recovered.

[Ricochet]

You could load most of those back up and shoot 'em again.

[JIMinPHX]

I was a little lazy this morning & I didn’t want to drag my 90# box trap out into the desert in this 100+ Phoenix heat, so I just grabbed my little steel 45 degree trap instead. I was testing out some cast .223 loads at around 2,000fps. The ones that were 13BNH made some little dimples where they hit the A-36 plate steel. The 23BNH ones made bigger dimples. Also, the material that I was able to recover out of the steel trap was mostly dull gray powder, some of which had sintered back together in the corners of the trap. I only recovered about 25% of what I sent down range. The rest must have just disappeared as dust. I had a lot of small holes poking back through my target from the rear.

To sum it up, A-36 steel at a 45 degree angle does not like lead boolits over about 1500fps or jacketed boolits over about 1000fps, regardless of how thick the steel is. I’m going back to the box trap next time, even if it is a bit heavy to lug around.

[JIMinPHX]

HI Jim,

As I reported earlier, my box stops pistol rounds just fine. The endgame for me has always been rifle boolits.

However I can't seem to get my box to stop them effectively!!!


The box is 24"
It has 3 bags of rubber mulch squeezed inside it
I installed 2 layers of steel which = a little under 1/4"

Today I fired:
6.5 X 55 Swede Mauser (170gr boolit with 14gr 2400)
8mm K98 Mauser (223 gr boolit with 19 gr 2400)

They tore the steel to pieces at 50yrds. Any ideas how I could make this box work? It weighs around 80 pounds as is.

I just saw this post now for the first time. Sorry that I didn't get back to you sooner. For rifle rounds, you're going to need about 3 feet of rubber mulch depth. 2 feet ain't gunna cut it unless you back it up with some real steel.

You might try stapling your cardboard on the front of your trap rather than on the back side of the 2 x 4 frame. That would give you another 3.5” of rubber depth & would be at least a small step in the right direction. You may end up having to build a small extension box like I did. My extension box was basically a 1 foot cube with cardboard on the front & back sides. I put it in front of the main trap to slow down the fast movers. A plain cardboard box full of rubber mulch in front of the trap may be enough to make it work. Either of these two options are for limited use only. The cardboard on the back side of the extension doesn’t last that long. Your idea of a PVC tube sound promising too.

[Meatco1]

Wouldn't filling a box with plain sand do just as well, besides being easier to sift?

Richard

[yondering]

I built one of these rubber mulch box traps, and started wondering about other materials as well. Sand might run out of the bullet holes pretty quick, but what about beauty bark? Same basic shape as the shredded rubber mulch, cheaper, and it floats, so you could separate the lead out by dumping it in water. Probably would require a longer box though.

[StanDahl]

I built one of these boxes this week and tried it out yesterday. I made it approx. 18" x 20" and 33" deep. The dimensions were made to fit an 18x18 piece of 3/8” steel plate that I got for the back. I made a slot for a 1/2 thick plywood false back at 24" to reduce the weight that I would have to haul around if I was just shooting pistols. Some of the 358430 (195gr) 38 specials went about 22", but none touched the wood.


False back

I don't recommend building a box trap in this way, but I recently got a dado blade and I'm looking for any excuse to use it - note the way the panels slide into dado slots in the 2x3's. This design isn't very strong if you try to lift it from the top.

I was afraid I’d hit the box at long range with some of my 45-70 “plinker” loads, so I screwed a target frame to the front for sighters. I was too lazy to wrestle the trap off of the dolly, but I was shooting straight enough not to blow out a tire. I usually have this range to myself, so next time I’ll just drive it out to the 100yd line. I've thought of including some sort of slots for a removable axle so I don't need to haul the dolly along with it, just an axle and tires.



What I had to know was what would happen if I fired a Trapdoor 45-70 with a 525 gr 457125 into it with 65 gr of Goex behind it. I pulled out the false back, added two more bags of mulch, and let loose from 100yds. These heavyweights were stopped just a few inches from the steel plate. I didn’t have enough mulch to fill it all the way, and two of the plinker 400gr bullets hit the target high enough to skim off the inside of the lid and plow through the wood above the steel plate. Fortunately, the damage was minimal. I'll be re-doing the back of the lid and raising the metal plate a few inches for next time.

This is a great idea! I’m not only saving lead, but now I can have some idea of how well bullets are engraving, how the gas check and lube performs, and what happens to the bases after they’re fired (the 457125’s were somewhat uneven despite a Walters wad). My trap is very heavy, but I don’t think I’ll need the steel plate in the future, wood will work fine ($60 wasted, but no regrets). Cutting the whole thing back to 24" and leaving the steel plate might be a better idea. It would take up less space and be easier to move around.

Lyman 457125, Lee 90268HB, Lyman 358430, RCBS 38-150KT, .22

Note big fat Trapdoor land engraving on 457125, all the way to the nose!

This is the "redwood" mulch exactly like in the packages shown a few pages back, there isn't much if any rubber residue on the bullets, it's very easy to separate.

[jameslovesjammie]

Stan,

Your package of bullets expired! You better send them to me. I'll make sure they're re-used properly.

James

p.s. I like your trap! I think I'm going to have to make one now!

[303Guy]

Finally got the corners chipped off my "tuit",

A round "tuit"! Hooh hoo! I should get me one of those!

[PatMarlin]

Great trap- outstanding Stan!!

Recycling is the key to our sport. Is that a used Tofu tray your boolits are sitting in? ..

[geargnasher]

I'm glad to see this thread is back from the dead! This was about the best homade bullet trap info the internet had to offer, and that's how I ended up finding this site late last year (the beginning of my "ruination"!).

Thanks to all for taking the time to post all the research and pictures, you guys saved me a couple hundred bucks in experimenting at least!

Gear

ps If I ever get a round "tuit" I'll get some pics of my traps up here, too

[Mk42gunner]

Now is the time to buy rubber mulch; the local Walmart has it on clearance for $4.00/ bag. I just have to find the time to build the box.


Robert

[Jim_Fleming]

Well guys I learned something today that I didn't like about my boolit trap...

It's my fault completely, let's get that disclaimer out of the way...

I put a small shelf/table on the front of it... Then I added a really nice steel swinger that is as lively as all get out when properly struck, etc.... uh-huh... I see the gray heads out there nodding... They know what I don't like...

Every time the steel swinger does it's job, and it does it damn well, (while we're at it!) the lead does NOT enter the trap at all! It spatters in a 360 degree area that's exactly perpendicular to the face of the steel swingers...

I guess I'll just have to go with lighter targets, (oil and water bottles, etc) that'll swing and bounce very nicely, but allowing the boolits to enter their proper home as should be... UGH!

Written with a grin, guys... Written with a grin!

I absolutely wasn't thinking about splatter and losing lead, etc...

[PatMarlin]

No matter- easy to fix. Just shoot more!

[ghh3rd]

Saw this post active again, and had a thought, why not deflect boolit into water trough/chamber. Water seems to stop boolits real well, with minimun damage. Course, you'd have to make sure the boolit trap was full of water before using

Sure wish I lived in the country...