Recovering Fired Lead Boolits

[tenx]

as much of an effort that goes into getting lead in the first place, what do most of you guys do in trying to recover it? i mean do any of you have a boolit trap of some sorts? i rely on public land to shoot (plenty of it in idaho) so i have been entertaining the idea of a portable trap. say a 30 to 55 gallon plastic drum on a small trailer with rubber mulch for a stopping material. i have the trailer and barrel, just waiting the funding for the rubber deco mulch. what do you think? seems better to me to salvage my expended boolits and save a few bucks and not have to scrounge lead. 3k of .45 cal. 200 grain boolits is about 100 pounds. not too hard to shoot 3k boolits during a couple or three range trips. just started shooting a 480 ruger, 400 grains downrange with every trigger pull, adds up pretty quick. what ideas do you guys have about recovering? thanks..............

[triggerhappy243]

If lead is really hard to come by, and you can weld, i would build a steel bullet trap on a trailer. Tow it to where you shoot, set it up and have at it.

[nannyhammer]

I use a plastic barrel filled with sand. Shoot one side, rotate and shoot some more. Once it's shot up pretty good I change barrels and sift the lead out of the sand to recover. Lead goes in smelt pile and sand goes in new barrel.

[scottfire1957]

Plenty of videos on youtube for bullet traps. Try some. Search, read, learn.

[runfiverun]

there's an excellent tutorial on building some simple traps right here in the sticky section.

but your idea of using rubber mulch should work just fine.
if you shake the barrel enough the lead will fall to the bottom on it's own, and you'll need some replacement lids.

[Smoke4320]

there's an excellent tutorial on building some simple traps right here in the sticky section.

but your idea of using rubber mulch should work just fine.
if you shake the barrel enough the lead will fall to the bottom on it's own, and you'll need some replacement lids.

This works well .. I started using a 55 gallon plastic drum filled with conveyor belt chips ..
it will stop a 5.56 jacketed commercial ( about 3100 FPS) fired at 50 yds with only about 50% penetration .. so should stop any normal cast bullet
at reasonable ranges

now the odd part . if you post targets directly on the barrel .. the holes will look like you shot from the opposite direction.. added a target holder to the front spaced 1" off and all is well

on the top sawzall about 1" down from the top then screw 3 or 4 strips of metal inside the top to form legs ..
These legs go inside the barrel to hold the top on
makes cleanout time easy.. Also when you shoot a big enough hole in the side for chips to fall out you can now slide a new piece of another barrel in the cover the hole ..

also drill a few holes in the bottom for moisture to drain out

I also did this to one of the caged farmer chemical tanks (about a 3'x3'x3' cube ) for a permanent 100 yd target..
cut big squares out of the bottom and lined with expanded metal to let bullets work their way to and out the bottom to a catch pan

[OS OK]

I built the trash can w/mulch and it does work as advertised.
Now I'm working on a steel trap so I don't have to maintain the mulch and the spattered lead will drop into a bucket.
Every time I open the mulch target, I get the same response out of me…"Dang, that's a lotta lead!"

I especially enjoy my friends here that deposit into my 'lead mine' too.