Weird Lead For Jackets Question

[b2riesel]

So I was out at the range today getting rid of my 9mm stash testing out a 9mm barrel that I dropped into my S&W M&P .40. Read about it being a simple drop in and shoot conversion at ar15.com and went to Midway and bought myself a $60 9mm replacement barrel. So, when I'm done I sweep my brass up..and about 10lbs of some LEO brass and put it in my bag. Walking out I noticed six 5 gallon buckets full of range lead. I go inside and notice they have Bullseye powder for $20...everyone else around here tries to get $28.99 for a 1lb bottle and I absolutely hate buying powder online...if you don't buy enough..the Hazmat fee just eats you up. I buy two bottles and he asks do I need anything else..and I causally ask about the lead...he says they usually just take it to the scrap yard and get $10/bucket. I was floored...anyway I ask to buy and he ask what I'm going to do with it.

I tell him that I'm just going to smelt it into bricks..then when I get my dies...I'm going to mold up some 120gr 9mm bullets and put them upside down into some 9mm brass and swage them into Boolits for my S&W M&P .40. He proceeds to tell me how this lead isn't going to work for that....tells me others have tried it...the bullets don't want to fall out of the mold...they splinter...blah blah blah...I just think he's full of **** and he just doesn't want to sell me a bucket of lead.

Anyway...he say's if I want to really give it a try...he'll give me a bucket for free since I shoot there 2-3 times a week in the winter and I do buy powder and primers there...and if I want more...if things work out...he'll sell them to me for the same thing he sells them to the scrap yard for...the price fluctuates...and whatever he can get there...he'll sell to me.

I personally don't think he understood what I was talking about. I think he was talking about just molding normal lead bullets...and even still...probably a friend of his had problems with his molds...or didn't know what he was doing...and screwed up his pours. I've never heard of range scrap acting like he described. Has anyone else?

So, he even carried it out to my Honda for me...and then looks at me funny and asks, "You say you are using 9mm brass for jackets? You can take a bucket of mixed brass if you want and pick out the 9mm...you shoot .40 or .45?" All I could do was smile ear to ear....my scales show the lead at 153lbs....with 5 more buckets waiting on me 'if' this works out. Looks like I'll be smelting some lead this weekend....at work :)

[ReloaderFred]

I always hear about deals like this, but have never fallen into one. You did good!

Fred

[41magfan]

I love that you'll be smelting at work!!!

[mold maker]

Don't wait to try it. Go back tomorrow and buy what he has. Somebody has handed him a line, maybe to keep the price down.
I have several tons of range lead smelted and am still getting more. It isn't pure lead, but cast nicely. I swaged some .44s today from .40 Glock fired brass and range lead. It did take some grunt pressure on the press handle, but it formed nicely.
Don't take the results of your swaging and show it to the range guy. It will cause the price of lead and brass to go up.
Remember, the jackets from smelting will sell to the scrap dealer as dirty red brass. Trade it for soft lead instead of money.

[b2riesel]

I love that you'll be smelting at work!!!

What else am I supposed to be doing at work?...I mean besides milling back up rams for the Rock Chuckers, annealing brass with the torches...which I need to do about 10,000 .223 necks....or fully anneal 5,000 9mm.

But seriously...I'm a lead man on a factory floor...and I get really bored doing 12 hour night shifts....It's either do something constructive...even if it is personal....or go sit in my office and clicky click on the Internet all night...I'd rather keep my hands busy with tools.

[41magfan]

I worked 11 years on nite shift when things were slow I used to bring in all kinda stuff to pass the time. (Rebuilt fishing reels, carbs you name it).

[DukeInFlorida]

Nice deal!

I agree, go back right away, and tell them that you did some overnight testing and all worked out well. And, buy every ounce that you can!

You'll need to do some casting reading if you want to shoot bare cast bullets (without the swaged jackets).

But, for brass jacketed cores, the range brass is typically about 1/2 pure lead, and the other half has some kind of alloy metals in it, usually like wheel weight composition. No matter whatsoever. Melt them all together (there's no way to sort pure lead from the alloy in the range lead buckets) . They'll make GREAT cores for swaging.

Wish I found a deal like that.

[BwBrown]

So... where do I park my car to get this bucket of free lead carried to? It'll be the burgundy four door.

Surely do appreciate it! ctm

(I don't normally Laugh Out Loud - only Chuckle To Myself.)

[b2riesel]

Went back today and put 5 more buckets in my car. I left some brand new buckets for them to refill. Should be a once a month deal. I bought all they had.

I smelted for a few nights at work in our welding department...with the nice exhaust systems. I welded up a square bowl and put some legs on it...25lbs or so of lead will fit comfortably in it...made a bracket with a thumb screw to hold the torch in place...and used a digital heat gun to get surface temps of the lead...then adjusted way down...until about 700F. The lead has a lot of copper/brass jackets, steel shot and plastic from shotguns...and target paper. I used a big magnet to quickly remove the steel shot...hand sorted out the plastic..and let the paper be the flux. I drilled a hole in the bottom and used a steel air nozzle fitting with a bolt head on a T-handle to open and close the bottom front side pour...with the torch in the middle.

Anyway, I poured 100 1.2lb muffins and still had some lead left...but I was tired and 100 seemed a good stopping point. I'll pour the remaining mix in with the next bucket I do. I air cooled and using the graphic artist pencil test....the 2B pencil etched the surface...while the 3B pencil left writing....so what do we call that? A BN of 12?

These should work pretty good as jacketed hollow points....and shouldn't put too much stress on the dies. BTW...when I got bored...I had a bottom of the bucket situation where it was mostly brass and other metals...and very little lead....so I heated my bowl up to 2500F...and watched all the colors start to swirl...and then let it cool slowly..and inserted a piece of heat treated steel keyway...and let all the metals cool around it...then when I thought I was in the 800F range...I just lifted the top off the lead and all the other metals were still attached as a hunk of crud...the BN was slightly lower than a 3B.

[DukeInFlorida]

Sweet!

Color me: ENVIOUS

[b2riesel]

I'm envious of you guys with fireplaces....after seeing pics of annealing brass in a wire basket..hundreds at a time...I'm super jealous. I may have to go camping soon....build a fire..and while everyone is drinking and talking about glory days...I'll just stick in a basket of brass to anneal.

[redneck rampage]

I use a turkey fryer burner to anneal brass works great.

[b2riesel]

A little update on this thread. I've gone back and collected 10 5 gallon buckets with an average weight of 130lbs....with up to 40% waste after smelting due to everything from copper jackets, to plastic shotgun innards, to steel shot, to paper, to just dirt. I'm about half done smelting this batch and have about 350lbs of muffins. Using a small muffin pan I'm dropping 11 oz muffins. Using the pencil test my muffins test out at: A 2B pencil etches...a 3B pencil writes.

Funny thing: I was molding up some Lee 356-120-TC and I was tossing the first few ones back in because of a tiny wrinkle on the side of the cone....and then I just laughed out loud...all by myself...nobody around...thinking...these don't have to be perfect you moron...you are going to smash the hell out of them when you swage them inside a brass jacket. I weighed the ones that had the wrinkles and other cosmetic imperfections and they weighed within a tenth of a grain or two from the perfect ones later....all around 122.7...give or take a tenth of a grain.

So...whenever BT can get me a 9mm to .40 die...hint ;)....I already have ~10k 9mm brass and ~10k 122.7 grain lead cores ready to start experimenting. I did notice one thing that surprised me in a good way. With a 20lb bottom pour and a 6 banger...you can create a huge pile of lead cores in no time. The rest of my range scrap is going to go into muffins. I was told I can pick up about 800lbs/month if I wish to pay whatever the scrap yard will pay on the day I pick up...price goes up..I pay more...if price goes down..I pay less.

[sargenv]

I find with the 6 cav mold and not much trouble, you can make between 1200-1300 cores per hour. I then seat the cores using a Dillon 650 and some other dies to seat the cores into the brass to prep them for the final formation. The 650 with the 9mm conversion kit works very well.