Bullet trap ideas for recycling lead

[floodgate]

JiminPHX:

"It is kind of strange though. If I go into an auto parts store here in town & ask for windshield washer fluid that doesn't freeze, a lot of the guys don't know what I'm talking about."

Which brings up something I have been puzzling over; though we get mild freezes here, and hard freezes at higher elevations, all of the washer fluids I see in the local home improvement stores and auto parts places is marked "Good down to 32*F (0*C)" or something similar. Has the older, freeze-proof stuff we used to be able to buy been taken off the market for some reason??? ("Nanny strikes again!"). One place did have an anti-freeze WW fluid additive, but they were very cagey about what it was, how much to add, and offered it sorta "under the counter". WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

floodgate

[Scrounger]

Yes, Floodgate. A fella in a gun shop (claimed to be a 'Forensic Chemist') was telling us that a good way to get rid of cats and birds without the neighbors knowing about it was to put out a bowl of the old type antifreeze. They drink it and they're history.

[floodgate]

Scrounger:

That is certainly true for the old radiator type antifreeze (ethylene glycol), but that also attacks paint and wax, and was NOT the additive used in windshield washer fluid, since that blows all over the finish; I thought that it was one of the alcohols, maybe methyl alcohol (which IS toxic, but not as nasty as glycol). I'm still a bit baffled.

Doug

[13Echo]

Antifreeze poisoning is a terrible way to die. The Ethylene glycol in the antifreeze tastes sweet. Once in the body it is converted to small crystals that clog vessels and the kidneys. Most animals die in agony with renal failure and seizures. I had a dog killed by some SOB that way. It wasn't pretty and it made me mad enough to want to feed some to whoever did it.

Jerry Liles

[Scrounger]

Jerry, I am just relating the story, I would never hurt a cat or dog. Any killing of animals has been limited to hunting.

[JIMinPHX]

The only place here in town where I've found the freeze proof windshield washer fluid is by the gas pumps at Fry's. Auto Zone, Pep Boys & Checker don't seem to carry it in this area. I don’t think that there’s anything cagey about buying it, it just costs more & since it doesn’t really freeze here in the valley anyway, they just don’t sell the expensive stuff because most people don’t need it. The last time that I went up through Flag, I made sure that I had some in the reservoir of the truck before I left. It was about 20 degrees once I got up over about 7,000 feet. Once up there the stuff is as common as dirt & can be had anywhere. It just ain’t easy to find here.

[Ricochet]

The labels I've seen on windshield washer fluid in the past have mentioned methanol and ammonia.

[brshooter]

I'm in Northern NY and looking at a gallon of windshield washer fluid, rated for -25 degrees F and contains Methyl Alcohol & contains a bittering agent. VOC content exceeds 35% so sale is prohibited in Texas,non-Type A areas in CA, certain counties in GA and Maricopa County, AZ. Picked up another gallon rated at -40 F, contains Methyl Alcohol and Propylene Glycol.

[floodgate]

brshooter:

That prolly explains it, as I AM in California (*sob!*).

floodgate

[PatMarlin]

I bought some windshield wiper fluid here in CA that was not supposed to freeze, and by the time we got up to Spokane it was frozen solid..

[JIMinPHX]

Phoenix is part of Maricopa County, so I guess that explains a few things. I have no idea why they would ban it here.

[Scrounger]

Guys, in case you haven't noticed, liberals have moved into all the great retirement living places like Phoenix, Tucson, Denver, Las Vegas, Prescott, et al. They move there because they are so different and immediately start turning them into the places they left.

[sundog]

Scounger, now THAT'S a rather astute observation that mostly cannot be argued with!

[mauser1959]

I do not know if this idea will help you or not, but we use rail Road plates ( the base plates that ribbon rail sits on) as reactive targets and have not put a hole in them yet ; and we have shot them with some pretty big bores. If put on a 45 or more degree angle I think that it would take a pretty strong rifle to shoot through them . I know that my 44 magnum loads do not shoot through the plates. And on top of that the plates are cheap ; read that free for the taking. Either weld them up to the size that you want or because they already have 4 holes in them you could bolt them into the size that you want. Those plates carry millions of tons of frieght and have no damage done to them , so it would be a heck of a bullet that would hurt them as long as they are on an angle. Though I am sure that a Armor piercing round would go through them.

[Ricochet]

My Dad always called those "fish plates."

[JIMinPHX]

Guys, in case you haven't noticed, liberals have moved into all the great retirement living places like Phoenix, Tucson, Denver, Las Vegas, Prescott, et al. They move there because they are so different and immediately start turning them into the places they left.

Yes & that really fries my oysters.

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
I was thinking that a 30 degree slope would be better than 45.
What degree slope did you use?

[spurrit]

That's on my list of things to try next. I was thinking of making some adjustable length legs for the back of my test trap so that I can vary the angle of the back plate until I get what I'm looking for. If you could let me know what angle you used, that would give me an idea of how much range of travel I should build into the adjustable legs.

Thanks,
Jim

Use all thread for the legs.

[JIMinPHX]

Well, I hope that everyone is starting off the new year well. I decided to start off by trying a few more trap tests.

I started off with a 15” long box full of rubber mulch. The first shot that I took at it was with a .45. A 200-grain LSWC at 800fps penetrated 14-1/2” & wound up facing backwards in the box. I then switched to a .357. a 158-gr TC at 675fps penetrated 9” & stayed facing forward. A 130-grain RNFP at 1350FPS came out the back of the 15” long box. The two recovered boolits looked like they had gently coasted to a stop on a mountain of cotton candy. Except for the engraved lands & grooves, I could see no damage.

Next I set up bullet trap Jr., my little 3/8” steel plate trap. I started it out at 30 degrees & had at it with the .45 shooting a 200-grain LSWC at 800fps. The boolit still broke up into small fragments as it had before, but almost all the material was in the trap area this time. Next I changed the backstop angle down to 35, then 40 degrees. Results looked the same. The cardboard that I had used to close up the holes on the sides & bottom was still in tact.

The next thing that I did left me with a little feeling of trepidation. I set up a 11” long box full of the rubber mulch in front of the steel trap at a 35 degree angle & let a 150-grain Remington PSP fly from a 30-30. I thought that for sure I would poke a hole in that poor little metal test trap. To my pleasant surprise, the steel withstood the challenge. I could tell the spot where it had hit the backstop because that was the one clean & shiny spot on the whole surface. Everything was cleaned off of it, the mill scale, the lead residue from previous shots, everything. The biggest piece of the jacket that I found in the trap looked like about 20-25% of it. The core was powder & was mixed with the other powder in the trap. A lot of the rubber mulch ended up in there too, probably about 2 cubic inches of it.

I recovered about 650 grains of material total from the steel trap. Considering that I had sent 3 x 200 + 1 x 150 = 750 grains downrange at it, that is a huge improvement over my recovery ratio from the last time that I used this thing. I’m over 85% recovery now & more than 90% of that was in the trap chamber where it belonged. I still haven’t welded up the two little openings on the ends of the trap chamber & I have a little gap there between the metal & the wood, so I think I’m still loosing a little lead there. I expect that the recovery ratio should be over 90% if I close this thing up properly on the bottom.

Separating out the rubber mulch from the powder was a pain. I ended up using the salt water trick. It worked well, but was a little messy. I only mixed up about a cup of it. When I later removed the cardboard strip from the top two inches of the trap, it had some spatter marks on the inside, but almost nothing had gone through it.

I had really planned on making this into a big welding project with a lot of high tech calculations to choose the right materials, make an efficient decelerator chamber & keep the weight down so that I would be able to move the big behemoth thing around. Now that I’ve seen what I’ve seen, I’m kind of liking the box full of rubber concept. The convenience of getting whole bullets back is just too much to ignore. That lead powder from the steel trap is kind of a mess to deal with. I’m thinking that maybe I’ll make up a wooden box full of rubber with a steel back plate just as a safety to stop the fast movers that sneak through the rubber. That will probably be my next step.

[PatMarlin]

Keep up the experiments. I would like to build one, but we have stumps and logs to shoot into. I'll reclaim it when the wood rots..