I'm fortunate to have my own range only 100 yds. from the house. In my younger days I'd mine the backstop every 5-6 years, but now it's been over 20 years. At age 78 it's not as easy as it once was & my boys are grown & are not around to help.
Anyway: I mined about 4' of it recently. In the past I didn't go out of my way to gather the .22rf stuff, but after learning about 50/50+2 on this forum I've taken a new interest in Pb (formally it was strictly COWW). I don't shoot jacketed HG boolits, but friend occasionally deposit some into the backstop. The majority of the recovery consisted of: boolits I'd cast from COWW, .22rf & a very few J types from friend's guns.
I separated the cast from the others. I considered the J types & .22rf as pure Pb & my cast as COWW.
Smelting the cast boolits was uneventful, but when I began to smelt .22fr & J types the smelting pot top edge turned a yellow color. It had an almost powdery appearance. I was stumped @ this because everything melted came from a pure source.
After fluxing with paraffin & removing the impurities & empty J jackets, the remaining metal had a gold color. I could skim the gold off & see silver underneath, but when I removed the gold layer, more came to replace what I skimmed. The same situation happened when I fluxed with sawdust.
When I poured the metal into ingots (muffins in my case) the silver metal poured from beneath the gold film & the gold film remained on top & in the pot. The muffins look better than any Pb that I've ever recovered. It does not have the slightly purple hue that pure Pb normally has & has a shine similar to silver. The thumbnail test is consistent with Pb.
I suspect that the copper coating that is used on some .22 rf ammo may have produced the color, but I'm often wrong. If so: why did it return after being skimmed off?
Photos:
#1. .22 rf & J boolits in pot
#2. alloy after fluxing
#3. Pot after allo poured out: gold film remained in pot
#4. Pb muffins (they look good to me)
I welcome any explanation from forum members.
Henry
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A real sport involves either gasoline or gun powder.......all others are just games