how to clean smelted bullet jackets

[clodhopper]

Very few jackets are pure copper, most are made of gilding metal 5% zinc 95% copper.
Those of you getting copper prices, spend it well, the boom won't last.
If you are useing water and soap try citric acid about 1/4 teaspoon to the gallon. Soap works good with citric acid.
Lemishine dishwasher detergent is a good source of citric acid. Avaliable at wall mart.

[dragon813gt]

My scrapyard classifies my copper jackets as red brass. i get 1.75 per lb. i don't gripe to much as most yards here don't want any of it.

That's because that's what it technically is. There is one yard by me that will give me #2 copper price because they apparently don't know what it really is. Want to guess where I take mine

[tomme boy]

The place I take mine, you don't have to clean them. Just make sure there is no steel or lead. They take old electric motors and burn the armatures to get the copper wire out of them. They then have a couple of guys that take a wire brush and get most of the junk off of it. They pour the jackets right in with the burnt wire.

[too many things]

twc has it right. if any of you get full copper price you may want to buy and sell.
run a magnet over them very good . If the dealer finds steel in them he wont give but steel price

[DHurtig]

My last trip to the scrapper I took all the brass doodads I buy cheap at yard sales, bullet jackets from range scrap and the tail end of 3 buckets of range scrap that I couldn't get any more lead out of.

I got $1.35 a pound for yellow brass.
I got $1.60 a pound for what they called sheet copper.
I got .20 a pound for what they called wheel weights even though I told them it was range scrap.

[sschultz]

I'll ask again can you smelt down the jackets. And if you can would that make differance on what the srappers pay you.

[tomme boy]

You could smelt them but you are going to use more $ to melt them than what they are going to pay you.

[Debo]

Could you expose some lead on the fmj bullets by touching them to a grinder? I have about 50 lbs to do and am not fond of swinging a hammer that many times.

[dragon813gt]

I'll ask again can you smelt down the jackets. And if you can would that make differance on what the srappers pay you.

Do you have the means to melt them? Gilding metal has a much higher melt point. You will get red brass price if you do this. If the yard will even take it. If they don't have an XRF gun most won't take metal they can't identify. It's easy to tell that they're bullet jackets when in the raw. When you melt them into an ingot it's anyones guess unless they have the means to test it.

[lylejb]

I'll ask again can you smelt down the jackets. And if you can would that make differance on what the srappers pay you.

It takes nearly 2000 degrees to melt copper, only 800 degrees short of the melting point of iron.

Could you do it? Sure, but not easily, and not likely cheep either.

You couldn't do it in a normal lead pot

It would likely cost you more to smelt copper than whatever you would gain by doing it.

[RP]

The scrap yard here also calls it red brass and its well worth selling the jackets to them. I have found out of the tons of lead I mined the jackets bring in more money then the lead and with a lot less trouble of shipping. Now my lead is a byproduct to my jacket mining. I only sell lead as pick up only due to the hassle.

[sschultz]

Thats the info I was looking for thanks

[Colohunter]

Could you expose some lead on the fmj bullets by touching them to a grinder? I have about 50 lbs to do and am not fond of swinging a hammer that many times.

I have exposed lead in jacketed bullets by crushing them with a vice. All you need is a small crack with exposed lead and it will melt out of the jacket.

[Sgtonory]

I tried something different today. I fluxed 4 to 5 times as I was removing the jackets. This was 400 pounds of range scrap so there is a lot of jackets. The jackets had very little to no lead stuck to them best I have seen so far.