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Thread: Range Scrap vs. COWW?

  1. #21
    Boolit Grand Master
    Shiloh's Avatar
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    Four screens fills a 2 1/2 gal. bucketa bit more than 2/3's full. Thats all I fill it for weight and to not tear the bottom out of it.
    Four of these buckets fills a 5 gal. plastic bucket. Currently have four to smelt.

    Shiloh
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  2. #22
    Boolit Grand Master fredj338's Avatar
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    At 40c/# for good lead coww, I am buying all I can stack. The lead ww is going bye, bye sooner than later. So 1000# would be a good investment. Out here, the lead ww is pretty much dead. I am down o berm mining at the couple of private ranges I go to.
    Last edited by fredj338; 10-09-2014 at 06:17 PM.
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  3. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shiloh View Post
    Shotgun slugs are soft, massive chunks of metal.
    When "Mining" the berm, it really only consists of scraping the surface into my rectangle sieve with 1/4" screen on it.
    I pck out the rocks, clods, wads, chunks of plywood backer and have it smelted. My buddy has the smelter.

    Shiloh
    I love finding slugs, wish there were more, they are just what I need more of. No digging of berms here means no tools on the berm and no climbing on the slope only ok to pick stuff up on level just behind the target stands. Access to the area is only during cold range while people check targets. I will not hold up shooting to collect lead so I head back to the benches before the last target checker. Last two trips to the range it was very busy and I did not pick up any lead. Twice the range was cold and I did not even go down range to check my targets because I still had plenty of clean targets and had spotted my shots using a spotting scope.

    Tim
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  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by btroj View Post
    I just move the surface dirt with my hand or foot. No digging. It is amazing how much you can get by handpicking. Today was a bad day, it rained recently and the surface is pretty hard. I need lots more shooting to occur to loosen the surface. Despite all that I came home with 35 pounds. I love high volume handgunners!
    I am lucky if I get 10 pounds from a trip to the range, there is very little time to collect lead and the berm is very hard as the soil has a lot of clay in it. I can usually collet as much lead as I shoot so at least I break even.

    Tim
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  5. #25
    Boolit Grand Master
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    My club has multiple, independent pistol bays. With high berms between them I can have one to myself and spend plenty of time gathering spent bullets. I don't tie it up if others want to shoot but that is easy. I have a job where I am off one weekday each week, not many people shooting on Tues or Fri morning.

    A good day is 40 pounds, 75 is great. A couple years back my daughter and I hit 151 pounds in a day.

    Your comment about breaking even is the best thing to do. I figure if I always break even or run a surplus I can't ever run out!
    You will learn far more at the casting, loading, and shooting bench than you ever will at a computer bench.

  6. #26
    Boolit Master Yodogsandman's Avatar
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    My club just covered the berms in fresh bark mulch making it near impossible to mine anymore. I'd just started mining this summer in Aug!

  7. #27
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    Range Scrap vs. COWW?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yodogsandman View Post
    My club just covered the berms in fresh bark mulch making it near impossible to mine anymore. I'd just started mining this summer in Aug!
    So what's the rest look like? Is it grass covered or exposed dirt. I won't say I'm lucky because it sucks for good portions of the year. But there is no ground cover at the main range I frequent. The best time to go is after it's rained hard for the first time in a week or two. It washes a good bit into the natural drainage ditches that have formed. Just start at the firing line and work my way forward. The rain will wash a lot directly underneath the backers. I don't spend a lot of time picking up lead. I figure as long as I'm close to what I shot that day it will take me a long time to shoot it all up.

  8. #28
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    Well I was off work today and went to the range for a while. After I got done shooting there was nobody else there so I went to the end of the 50 yd range. Once I got looking there were bullets laying everywhere. I ended up picking up 13lb of bullets in probably 20-30 minutes, enough for about 400 .45 boolits, not bad.

  9. #29
    Boolit Grand Master

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    I've cast and shot lots of both, and both work well. Wheel weights are probably more consistent than random range lead, but they need to be sorted. Range lead may become easier to find than wheel weights. Its all going to become scarce, grab what you can when you can.

  10. #30
    Boolit Grand Master fredj338's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by lightman View Post
    I've cast and shot lots of both, and both work well. Wheel weights are probably more consistent than random range lead, but they need to be sorted. Range lead may become easier to find than wheel weights. Its all going to become scarce, grab what you can when you can.
    Exactly! I would rather smelt range lead, I know I will get no zinc there, but I will also have pretty soft alloy, on avg about 8-9bhn. Which is fine for 90% of mys shooting needs. I have enough ww alloy & lino to sweeten for the other 10% of my needs. Even water dropping range scrap gets me the bhn I want for higher vel/pressure loads.
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  11. #31
    Boolit Buddy jwber's Avatar
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    No problem with my free range scrap pickups mixed 2-1 with COWW and powder coated in 9mm.

    I haven't tried running straight range scrap at all...but figured the little bit of tin and antimony wouldn't hurt in the COWW.

  12. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by jwber View Post
    No problem with my free range scrap pickups mixed 2-1 with COWW and powder coated in 9mm.

    I haven't tried running straight range scrap at all...but figured the little bit of tin and antimony wouldn't hurt in the COWW.
    ain't much tin in COWW.

    Tim
    Words are weapons sharper than knives - INXS

    The pen is mightier than the sword - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

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  13. #33
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    Thought I would reply to this thread, specifically for people wondering what the lead is in jacketed bullets. This may not be the end all answer but since I was involved and can verify everything it is as solid info as I can come up with.

    I got a sample of range lead from an indoor range of a government entity and can verify with certainty that they only shoot jacketed JHP ammo there along with some shotgun slugs and OO buck but the majority is from .40 cal JHP ammo made by Federal.

    Took some scrap brass and fired primers up to be recycled and asked if they could hit my sample of lead with the tester gun. They did and here is what they said:

    97.+% - Lead
    2.+% - Tin
    less than a percent of copper

    The guy was puzzled by the copper but I wasn't. When I smelted this stuff down I got a layer of what looked like dirt but it was really heavy and if figured it was basically the copper jackets that had been pulverized when they hit the steel bullet traps. I figure that some of it was so small that it was incorporated into the lead when it was smelted? Not sure of that is how it works but it seemed like a reasonable explanation. I did ask to make sure that were no frangible rounds fired at the range and was told none.


    So at least in this instance, the lead used in jacketed bullets is very pure.

  14. #34
    Boolit Buddy jwber's Avatar
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    Pretty good amount of tin in there...

  15. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by Intel6 View Post
    Thought I would reply to this thread, specifically for people wondering what the lead is in jacketed bullets. This may not be the end all answer but since I was involved and can verify everything it is as solid info as I can come up with.

    I got a sample of range lead from an indoor range of a government entity and can verify with certainty that they only shoot jacketed JHP ammo there along with some shotgun slugs and OO buck but the majority is from .40 cal JHP ammo made by Federal.

    Took some scrap brass and fired primers up to be recycled and asked if they could hit my sample of lead with the tester gun. They did and here is what they said:

    97.+% - Lead
    2.+% - Tin
    less than a percent of copper

    The guy was puzzled by the copper but I wasn't. When I smelted this stuff down I got a layer of what looked like dirt but it was really heavy and if figured it was basically the copper jackets that had been pulverized when they hit the steel bullet traps. I figure that some of it was so small that it was incorporated into the lead when it was smelted? Not sure of that is how it works but it seemed like a reasonable explanation. I did ask to make sure that were no frangible rounds fired at the range and was told none.


    So at least in this instance, the lead used in jacketed bullets is very pure.
    Thanks for the data, I appreciate you sharing it with us. That lead is not pure at all. To be dead soft pure lead it needs to be more than 99% lead. Your data is close to mine not counting the copper. 2% tin is a nice amount of tin and is what is often recommended to be added to alloy to get it to cast nice full bullets. Playing with the alloy calculator 2% tin and half a percent copper get me a BHN of 9.2. My range scrap runs from 8 to 9 BHN. Pure runs from 5 to 6 BHN.

    Tim
    Last edited by dtknowles; 10-17-2014 at 02:44 PM.
    Words are weapons sharper than knives - INXS

    The pen is mightier than the sword - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

    The tongue is mightier than the blade - Euripides

  16. #36
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    I've done XRF testing of both these alloys (COWW and range scrap).
    the results have been surprisingly consistent.

    COWW is about 2.5% SB and lead across the board. I don't even measure it anymore. a random sample from a 200lb smelt has always been the same. Very little tin in the mix. Occasionally, I find one that has higher tin content, but its never been over .5% and is the exception rather than the rule to the point that in a large smelt, it's so diluted that it is immeasurable with XRF.

    Range scrap also has been very consistent at about 1% Sb and lead.

    Hornady A-Max target bullets have a 100% pure lead core (for reasons that will be more obvious to some than others)

    The upshot of it all is that strait coww is much too hard for 45ACP IMHO. I usually cut all my COWW 50/50 with SOWW (which have a Sb content of about .5% average) which gives me 1.5% SB 98.5%Pb across the board. Which is just about the same as range scrap.
    Thus, I use 50/50 or range scrap interchangeably for everything from 45ACP to 30 caliber rifles. If I need a different alloy, I modify to suit, but that just about covers 99% of my shooting. (PS. I often spike the range scrap to get it up to the 1.5% Sb range like the 50/50 mix if I'm really pushing it. just an FYI)
    Last edited by MBTcustom; 10-17-2014 at 04:34 PM.
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  17. #37
    Boolit Buddy
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    Well I've got over 2500 .45acp's cast to try in a new gun next year. After that I my jump over to 50/50 COWW with range scrap assuming I can collect enough scrap.

  18. #38
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    I have been looking into some of the new plated bullets and some are listing the lead as 13-18 bhn. I know that CCI is using Extreme plated for their aluminum cased ammo. So the rounds we have been finding in the last couple years that are completely jacketed are actually plated from Extreme. So it has to have something in it to get to 13-18bhn.

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BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
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