Lead Recovery at Indoor Range?

[jjohnson]

Hi, guys!

I'm so new I don't even cast yet, but it's one of my winter projects.

Of course I'll need a source of lead... so....

I do have access to an indoor range, and I'm sure I could 'pan for lead' in the bullet trap to recover lead, but....

Although this range doesn't allow jacketed bullets, I am sure there are some there, in addition to plated ones for centerfire, as well as .22 rimfire bullets, which can be plated with God Only Knows.

So.... let's say I have set up for casting, and have the right weight of stuff to throw into the pot to melt down.... what happens? I'm sure you guys have done this. Let me guess... properly plated bullets don't melt at all, jacketed bullets' cores melt, so you have......what? to cast with? I mean, do you have something that resembles casting alloy that you can pour off, leaving a clump of the rest of it in a big blob?

Is there merit in doing this, as opposed to mail ordering lead from somebody who packs the USPS flat rate box with 70# of ready-to-cast alloy?

Thanks in advice for you guys giving me advice.

[wheelgunner]

I smelt recovered range lead from our indoor range all the time. The biggest hassle I have is the rubber media from the backstop (groung tires) mixing and and smoking like an SOB. We allow any bullets (jacketed, cast, frangible, etc.) The resulting alloy is plenty hard enough for my purposes (9mm, .40, .357, .45 acp target loads). If I want to drive them a little faster a 50/50 range lead to W/W mix works just fine. I get about a 50% yield by volume (not weight). IE a 5 gal pail full of range lead yields about 1/2 a bucket of scrap. About 30 % or so of this is copper jackets, which I suppose I cold seperate out for sale to the scrap yard but i don't spend the time. I've stockpiled a ton, maybe a little more and plan on continuing to stockpile as much as I can.

[mooman76]

The garbage will float to the top and you just discard.

[DeanoBeanCounter]

Don't forget the safety part. The fully jacked bullets have a habit of popping or blowing up. Smash them with a hammer or cut to the lead with a wire cutter (dikes) or something so they don't build up pressure. AND use a lid on your pot.
Any dirt or grease will serve a flux. You can keep the empty jackets to sell as scrap or just through them away. But be green, recycle them, your recycling the lead.
My $0.02 worth.
Dean
PS just saw this thread
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=42603

[shotman]

I well trade if you want email me shotman

[Larry Gibson]

Also watch out for the occasional live round. These are most often .22LR from indoor ranges but I've found everything else up through .44 magnums. They make life interesting at the melting pot if not sorted out!

Larry Gibson

[imashooter2]

I just put back a bit over 400 pounds of indoor range scrap on Monday:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=42278

With range scrap, every bucket is different, but I estimate mine as 25% jacketed, 25% commercial cast and 50% .22s over time. It casts beautifully as is, water quenches harder than ACWW and air cools soft, but harder than pure.

[lead Foot]

The best way I know too melt scrap lead is too get a large camp oven (cast iron) with a lid.Place on a fire and put two cast boolits on top. When the two boolits melt on top it's ready. Remove lid and discard the crap on top. It can withstand live 22 rounds two. You should only use your bottom pour pot for good alloy.
lead Foot.

[Owens]

Scrap works great. I get (free gratis) all I can carry from the indoor range on the facility where I work. Backstop is steel plate, so even the jacketed stuff is well spattered.

I pass it first through a screen to separate the lead 'sand'. This gets put aside for a separate smelt, as it is particularly trashy and seems to have some metal that doesn't want to melt. When I do a melt with this sand, there is a heavy scuz that rises. There is a lot of lead in it, but about 1/5 of whats added to the pot gets skimmed and a spoon full is HEAVY. The sand also contains a lot of other trash. This screening also lets me look for live rounds, bolts from the backstop, shotgun wads and the like. Set some of the sand aside to fill benchrest bags with!

Throw it all in a iron pot on the turkey burner, melt, flux, skim cast ingots. Latest batch of refining resulted in 3 buckets of scrap reduced to 268 Lyman ingots. Well worth the time and effort.

[imashooter2]

There is a lot of lead in it, but about 1/5 of whats added to the pot gets skimmed and a spoon full is HEAVY. The sand also contains a lot of other trash.

I don't do the screening, but have noticed the same thing as you when I skim the fine stuff that my wire strainer doesn't take off. The powder is very heavy...

[Owens]

I don't do the screening, but have noticed the same thing as you when I skim the fine stuff that my wire strainer doesn't take off. The powder is very heavy...

Yep. Not sure what it is. At times I think its from some sort of powdered metal bullets or similar. The stuff that I screen out I will eventually refine, but Because of the odd behaviour, I tend to do all the screened stuff in separate cookings. Just works better for me. Guess that I'm also concerned about contaminating a good batch of bullet lead.

[GSM]

The powdery stuff is probably the frangible rounds - compressed metal "beads". They shatter into a bunch of little pieces when they hit something hard or something hard hits them (like a sledge hammer on a garage floor).

[Owens]

frangible rounds

THATS the words I couldn't remember!!!

[imashooter2]

I can't see very many frangible rounds being shot where I get my stuff. I'd lean more towards pulverized plating and jacket material.

[Airweight38]

I smelt indoor range lead, too. Thankfully, we don't use much rubber at our range. Just lots and lots of sand, rocks, clothespins and 2x4 fragments to fish out. It's still really smokey. Probably would not do it in my garage again, even with the door open and fans going. It's very practical to smelt this stuff though. Just plan on having a buttload of dross. It's kind of cool the first time you do it. It's not every day you see rocks float.