What’s the best way to clean recovered range lead?

[Tazlaw]

Hello all!
I’m new to casting (haven’t even casted a boolit yet, but I have made my first muffin pan ingots!). So go easy on me please 🤓

Anyway, I have recently gained access to a range, shooting into a dirt berm. I can get several hundred pounds pretty quick, but it has some dirt on it. I washed the first batch with water hose, took quite a while and messy. Then had to let it dry. I’m looking for the best way to clean it up before melting-or should I clean it at all? Any advice would be appreciated. Obviously when you melt it you have to skim off the dross and flux it.

[lightman]

Spreading it out in the driveway and hosing it off is probably about the easiest way. You can melt it with it being wet if you fill the pot up before applying any heat. Just don't add lead to a pot that already has molten lead in it. Also, anything thats in the lead will float to the top, including any dirt or gravel.

Oh yeah, Congratulations on finding a good source of lead!

[Misery-Whip]

Do your berm mining in the summer when there is less mudd. Let it bake in a black bucket in the sun to further dry it, then scoop into screens and shake off the dirt. Then smelt it.

A little dirt dont hurt, just scoop it off the top with the jackets

[Winger Ed.]

I shake to settle the heavy stuff and rake the trash off, then maybe wash & let it dry a few days.

After that, I start feeding the pot, melting, skimming, fluxing, and making ingots.
I do it outside, later on at night when everyone has their doors & windows closed
because it will smoke and stink something fierce.

[fredj338]

Most of the time I don't bother cleaning anything. My buddy berm mines for me & he washes it & dries it on a tarp in the sun for a day.

[Bookworm]

I have rendered outdoor range scrap both ways:

I used to just dump it in the pot dirty, and skim/flux/skim until clean. A whole pile of work, a whole pile of junk in the pot.

Now, I just wash it with water, in a bin. I can get about 90% of the junk off that way. I wash it a few days prior to rendering, spread it out to dry. I've never had a problem, and it's MUCH easier to render clean.

[Tazlaw]

Thank you folks!

[GregLaROCHE]

I screen mine first dry and then wet. Best to screen at the range if possible. It’s best to let it dry in the sun. Saves a lot of propane. The small fines mixed with sand aren’t worth the propane and time to mess with IMO. Flux with sawdust or equivalent and remove the copper jackets long with any other junk. Pour into ingots.

[Rcmaveric]

I dont wash. All the dirt and crap will float so why waste the time. It doesnt really save any time to wash.

When I was washing it, i didnt wait for it to dry. Fill the stock pot and light the flame. Using a lid really helps lock the heat in and spead it up.

Drain the pot to the last inch and refill

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[Mitch]

i put mine on a heavy screen leave it for the rain to wash it off.works great if you have the time to wait.

[kevin c]

Others may think differently, but I'd treat range scrap from an outdoor berm, washed or not, dried or not, to be potentially water contaminated, and would only process it starting from an empty pot. Not adding such scrap to molten metal reduces the chances of a visit from the tinsel fairy.

[GregLaROCHE]

I’ve found that when wet, especially with a lot of fines that usually contain sand and gravel, it takes a lot more time and propane to render it down. Of course start with a cold pot if your scrap is wet. Never add anything, even with the least amount of moisture on it, to a hot pot.

[georgerkahn]

Years back I was faced with similar challenge, working with a buddy where he did the digging, and I did the cleaning. I bought some 1/4" square hardware cloth and got two five-gallon sheet-rock mud buckets. I cut the tops, leaving only about four inches of sides off each bucket, and then rolled the hardware cloth about the pair (bottoms out) to make a drum. At each center was drilled a hole to accommodate a wood push broom handle to be its axle. The challenge was affixing the hardware cloth to the bucket ends, but I used three-inch strips cut from remaining bucket; 1/4"-20 nuts and bolts through -- to hold it together. On one end -- was the easy assembly ) I was able to run the bolts from outside in, with no difficulty; BUT, putting the other side together was a challenge. We ended up snipping out maybe a four to five inch circle of the hardware cloth close to (left) end, to accommodate getting my hand in to fasten that end together. A larger, pre-curved piece of hardware cloth was then put on, from inside, using pig rings, to hold it in place. Using the handles from an old BobCat brand gasoline push mower -- this worked quite dandy. The "trick" we learned, however, was to put quite small amounts in at a time -- the stuff is (duh!) quite heavy, and the recovered lead often would stick together in clumps. However, simply pushing-pulling back and forth in a galvanized tub with maybe six inches of water was sufficient to get the great majority off. THEN, it would be dumped/spread and "finished" on driveway with generous garden hose spraying. Finally -- we didn't wait for it to be 100% dry -- the COLD lead was placed in a pot above a single-burner propane stove with a fairly low flame. Important note is a wind-shield was necessarily added -- a few feet of aluminum flashing standing on its edge -- to keep heat up and thwart wind. But -- the bottom line -- albeit it was by no means quick -- we did, that summer, reclaim many, many hundred pounds of great alloy. As it melted, we skimmed off anything and everything that floated to top. The only "flux" we used was wax -- canning, old candle pieces and ends, or whatever we had at the time... The thus recovered "alloy" was poured into muffin tin ingots -- and, after each getting one-half -- in my case, at least, produced many thousands of H&G 50 .38 S&W Special mid-range bullets used in Bullseye shooting...
BEST!
geo

[Rich/WIS]

The range I mined had sand backstops so didn't have mud/dirt issues and sifting in 1/4 inch hardware cloth while mining removed most of the sand. Rattling around in the buckets meant most of the remaining sand filtered to the bottom of the bucket. Would dump the scrap back through the hardware cloth before smelting so there wasn't much left with the scrap. Did pick out any obvious trash as the berms also caught a lot of wads and broken clay birds as the range was also used one afternoon a week when we shot sporting clays.

[murf205]

Tazlaw, welcome to the addiction, you will like this site a lot. There is LOTS of knowledge here and some friendly people ready to help-there are no dumb questions so feel free to ask. Congrats on a spot to mine lead, you cannot have enough on hand.

[Preacher Jim]

Taz friend of mine cleans lot of range lead. uses a cement mixer and hard ware cloth screen to filter after running

[dverna]

I like the idea of using a cement mixer, but only if the rotating action will knock off the dirt and then the contents can be sifted. Having to use water adds a muddy mess to deal with, and a drying process.

I built a bullet trap last year and it is filled with sand so I am not expecting to need to deal with mud. Time will tell.

Cannot overstress what others have said. Moisture is very dangerous if it gets into the melt. Use a full face shield when smelting. Have a bucket of water at hand if you get lead on you.

[GregLaROCHE]

You can by sives at in the masonry department at stores like Home Depot etc. They are normally available with different size screens. Also anything organic like wads or pieces of target, I leave in. It turns into carbon and works like flux.

[samari46]

Cement tub about 1/3rd full and hit it with the pressure washer. Dump out the dirty water and repeat as needed. I cut open one or two of the heavy 6mil contractor trash bags which are black and dump the freshly washed lead and lead alloys from mining the berm. In the summer will stick my hardware cloth strainer on top of the heat pump with a black bag that has some holes. and dry the goodies that way. Only takes about an hour or so. Once dry, stick it in a plastic pail and put it in the garage. Frank

[flagman1776]

Your lead can have moisture if you are starting cold but if you have a trace of moisture on something when you add it... you can get a steam explosion. I was a scuba diver once and we were casing diving weights. We had a steam explosion which blasted 5 pounds of molten lead onto the textured ceiling of my buddies' parents condo. Lucky we weren't killed. Washing is a great idea but dry it then let it sit in a dry place for a few days. It's not worth your life or your eye sight.