Bullet trap ideas for recycling lead

[Wolfer]

I had the same trouble with the lead disintegrating when it hit the steel. Now I shoot into half of a plastic barrel filled with sand. A couple times a year I shovel the sand through a 1/4" screen ,sort out the lead, shovel the sand back in

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

Yes I know about the lead disintegrating. I recently built a boolit trapbut it seems to contain all of the lead chunks and lead "powder". I figure it will all melt down to the same thing. I am just really careful to not breath the dust when pouring my lead into my temporary holding container until I melt it down ( a rubbermaid container with a lid).

I made mine similar to the above models with the wall and the pipe. I made it out of 1/4" steel and my opening is 3' 3" x 3' 3". What can I say, I am a bad shot! The sides go back 4' to a 1' diameter 1/4" steel pipe (which is 4' long.... about a foot sticks out the bottom and that is where I hang my collection bucket). Works great and feels good to know EXACTLY where your boolits are going.

[Loki610]

Has anyone ever tried using one of those compressed bales of peat moss for pistol bullets? I can get the cubic yard plastic bales for $2 and it seems it would be easy to slip into a box as is, and very easy to separate the peat and lead by tossing in a basket, or dumping in water.

[Loki610]

I gave the bale of peat moss a try with a plinking .38 load from the carbine. 158gr SWC and 2.7grains of clays. Peat was in a 3.8 Cubic foot bag thats been behind my garden for 2 years, the peat is a little damp and very compact and the boolit made it in just far enough I cant quite reach it with the blade on my leatherman (maybe 4") One of these days I'll have to build a plywood box with a safety steel plate on the back and pump a bunch of different loads through her!

[pastorcurtis]

A lot of pages here, so this may have been done before. . .

I read a lot about sand in 5 gallon buckets and a lot about the rubber mulch, so I combined those. I tossed in an old piece of scrap iron plate in the bottom just to make double sure. It works just fine. Easy to carry, just about the same as a 5 gallon bucket of water.

[grumman581]

A lot of pages here, so this may have been done before. . .

I read a lot about sand in 5 gallon buckets and a lot about the rubber mulch, so I combined those. I tossed in an old piece of scrap iron plate in the bottom just to make double sure. It works just fine. Easy to carry, just about the same as a 5 gallon bucket of water.

From all I've been able to read, 24" of sand will stop anything, even up to a .50BMG...

I've read some testing where gravel was used instead of sand and it seemed to work better in that after being shot, the gravel above it was more likely to fall into the hole to refill it. It's just not that great for the recovering of the lead though since the bullets are more likely to break apart...

[JIMinPHX]

From all I've been able to read, 24" of sand will stop anything, even up to a .50BMG...

Where did you read that? Where there any other details? Was it wet/dry? Was it compressed by weight from above?

[CollinLeon]

Where did you read that? Where there any other details? Was it wet/dry? Was it compressed by weight from above?

http://www.survivalmonkey.com/50bmg-...ion-table.html

[rbertalotto]

Interesting........I would have thought wet sand or soil would have been more difficult to penetrate.

Learn something new every day!

[Jim_Fleming]

Apparently the water must be acting a lubricant. I totally agree I had ***.u.me.d water on the individual sand granules would increase the weight etcetera, thereby slowing the projectile down.

Interesting indeed!

Sent from my Evil Black Droid that sneers at all iPhones!

[CollinLeon]

Apparently the water must be acting a lubricant. I totally agree I had ***.u.me.d water on the individual sand granules would increase the weight etcetera, thereby slowing the projectile down.

Interesting indeed!

Sent from my Evil Black Droid that sneers at all iPhones!

Also it is interesting that the net nanny filter on this forum censored "assumed" when you put punctuation marks in the middle of it...

Of course, you could have spelled it as "áss.u.me.d" instead...

I was actually surprised that clay provided less protection than dry sand...

[DrCaveman]

I didn't have the time to read this entire 28-page thread, but my bullet catcher is made of wood. I swap out the back plate each time I go shooting, and it is a tougher material. 1/4" acrylic has been my choice lately, until it too gets perforated beyond usefulness. I used a sheet of prob 20 gauge steel as a back plate until I got quite a few rounds through that, and could no longer tell what was new.

In a nutshell, I use a long speaker box with the top removed. I can swap out filler material between the face (replaced each session) and the super strong back plate. Typical filler material is osb sheathing, softwood shelving, and 3/4" particle board. After a few cylinders/clips of shooting, I go check out the integrity of the filler material and rotate or replace as needed.

While I manage to get all the way through the entire catcher, and even miss the box, occasionally, I am looking at about 90% lead recovery throughout my last dozen shooting sessions. Sure, it eats up scrap wood, but I have a pretty good stockpile and more at my disposal.

This also provides pretty good penetration testing and bullet/boolit deformation. It is how I discovered that I cannot make XTP's expand at all, and that plenty of commercial cast boolits will survive 5 layers of 3/4" wood without any deformation whatsoever...just rifling marks.

The best penetration for today was my cast 158 swc in front of 17.4 gr Lil Gun, shot in a gp100 6" 357 mag. That busted through a solid 7 layers of 3/4" pine-core particle board. It is hard to imagine an animal hide slowing that down very much. Of course most of my AK rounds flew tHrough that whole thing. But I did catch a few. Key is to change my point of aim throughout the day. Or just shoot real bad!

[.5mv^2]

We have been shooting into a berm made from business papers and old tires. Last year we collected 65 pounds of bullets. I like Bob's design a lot. Time to get some metal and turn up my Miller. Bob, does the material you use contain rifle bullets?

[Jim_Fleming]

I finally used my 5 gallon bucket filled with sand, trick... It works like a charm!

I ran about 150 full house loads of 40 S&W 175 cast tc boolits into it. Nary a penetration!!

A friend of mine refused to believe it'd work? He pumped about 30 rounds of 444 Marlin into his bucket of sand, with Keith SWC's. No penetrations. Obviously his loads went deeper than mine, but no penetrations!

Sent from my most excellent Droid Razr, laughing at all iPhones!

[.5mv^2]

I have thought of making this sort of trap.

One thing keeps coming back to me was one birthday my wife wanted to shoot a TV that had died that day. Set it out on her berm and she got out a 223 rifle. First shot. Nothing dramatic small hole in the picture tube. Shoot again. Ouch!!! I was digging a copper jacket from my side. The second bullet must have bounced off of the back of the tube twice and came straight back nearly so. A 223 bounces off of thick glass twice and embeds itself into my side. Not sure of the angle probably 45 degrees.

After I think about it enough I decided take it would take more engineering than I am 100% confident of.

Sand or business papers sound safer.

[frankenfab]

I finally took some pictures of my finished trap. I would like to get it sandblasted and painted this year............

[WilliamDahl]

I finally took some pictures of my finished trap. I would like to get it sandblasted and painted this year............

Considering the fact that I see a couple of splats near the outside edge of one of the photo that you posted, it's not unreasonable to assume that there might be some where you completely missed the trap. Have you managed to give yourself a flat on either of the tires yet?

[frankenfab]

Nooo, that was for testing to make sure all bullets, boolits would be caught. A .270 at 30yds. (5 shots) on the very outside edge was completely contained. Also, I am not the only one shooting a the trap. I will let just about anybody that is reasonably safe deposit their lead in my trap!

[hightime]

Just a steel plate with two angle iron legs that swivel around to the front and flold back to carry.

Owen

[jmorris]

This is one I just put together 8' tall and just over 16' wide. The last photo is complete except to the last brace on the bottom edge (the part thats up in the photo).