After closing the range this last Tuesday, my son and I walked the berms scrounging up bullets. We ended up with about 32# of bullets after 30 minutes of not too much effort. Now, I only have a small Lee melting pot but this was enough lead where I could see a need for something with a bit more melting capacity. I took an empty Coleman lantern propane tank, cut off the top and welded a long handle onto it making a deep ladle. Nothing too pretty but quite effective.
I started a fire in the fire pit in the back yard and my wife and I drank a few cold ones as I would put handfuls of the bullets into the melting container that was resting above a hot bed of coals. Every 10 minutes or so, I'd shake the "ladle" a bit before pouring molten lead out into a cupcake tin that I use for making ingots. Again, nothing fancy. It took an hour or so of sitting out with my wife on a nice evening recovering the lead. I was surprised by how the lead had shaken so cleanly out of so many copper jacketed bullets. In the small Lee pot, I have found it takes a fair amount of time to do so with needle nose pliers one at a time.
I still have some lead to recover from what was left of the shakings but up front, I recovered 24# of lead. It still needs to be fluxed good and all mixed together, but the dirt, copper and other contaminants are muck less than they were before.
24# of cleaner lead.
What was left of the shakings.
All things considered, a very relaxing evening.
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Originally Posted by bakerjw
