Operation Range Scrap

[helzbelz888]

This is my first post in the new forum. My buddy Brassfever turned me onto this website and we had a good idea to head up to a local shootin pit and look for bullets. We were trying to think of ways to increase our production and i had the idea of making a sifter. I had originally intended to make a wood frame but i got to lookin in the garage and i had a bunch of scrap angle iron that was an old bedframe i took apart.

I cut two six foot sections in two and made a frame. I whipped out the lincoln welder and laid a few beads


http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l584/jamesjsheldon/downsize.jpg

I cut a few shorter sections for legs and drilled holes in the frame i welded up. A few bolts, washers, and nuts from my fastener bucket and we were in business


http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l584/jamesjsheldon/downsize-1.jpg

Went to home depot and got some 1/4 inch hardware cloth and heres a few pics of the operation at the pit. Brassfever is in the pitchers sifting and shoveling

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l584/jamesjsheldon/DSCF5228.jpg
http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l584/jamesjsheldon/DSCF5229.jpg
http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l584/jamesjsheldon/DSCF5227.jpg

we got all the loose soil off the burm and had a bit of trouble with the packed soil and we decided to take a break and air-rate the soil and churn up the bullets that are under the soil. (sorry, videos you have to go to photobucket to watch for some reason they wont play in the thread)

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l584/jamesjsheldon/th_DSCF5231.jpg (http://s1125.photobucket.com/albums/l584/jamesjsheldon/?action=view&current=DSCF5231.mp4)

Brassfever wanted a turn

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l584/jamesjsheldon/th_DSCF5230.jpg (http://s1125.photobucket.com/albums/l584/jamesjsheldon/?action=view&current=DSCF5230.mp4)

we hauled in 73lbs of range scrap after 2.5 hours of diggin. After a bit of smelting we had a nice batch of ingots. We weighed the ingots and had 57lbs of ingots. Thats pretty decent at 79% recovery. we got enough lead to last us a good while.

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l584/jamesjsheldon/DSCF5238.jpg

[Stick_man]

First off, welcome to the forum. Great first post too! It is always good to see ideas that others have come up with for dealing with their favorite metals and hobbies.

Soon, as you get more sophisticated (sp?) in your designs, you will be adding to your collection abilities and that 79 lbs will turn into 100 or 150 lbs in just a couple hours. You will be looking closely at any area that has even the most remote possibility there has ever been any shooting there, wondering how much lead you could pull out of it.

Yep, the addiction has hit, the drive is there.

Happy casting!

[deepwater]

Welcome to the site.

Very nice post with great pictures and descriptions.

deepwater

[onondaga]

Your shooting videos played fine by just clicking on the images here. Looks like you dragged and dropped the links fine. Just type "click image to play video" and people won't miss them.

Gary

[BrassFever]

A good day of shooting and recycling for sure!

[perimedik]

Nice job, I am new too.
No range in my area will alow a berm harvest. So I have been hitting a bunch of tireshops for wheel weights. So far so good.

Keep up the good work and keep us posted.

[Jailer]

Save the copper jackets to recycle.

[BrassFever]

The plan is to hose off the jackets, pick out bits of lead, and let them soak in a bucket of vinegar in hopes that the scrap guy will not try to pay us "dirty copper."

[helzbelz888]

@perimedik i dont know if you have any in your area but the shooting pit we hit up was brimming with lead. its on public land. we sifted out all the bullets and piled the dirt back on. I think we had about a cubic yard of dirt by the end of it.

I think we pissed quite a few people off sitting in the best shooting spot sifting bullets instead of shooting. It was quite entertaining to hear them whine.

Do you guys think that the 1/4" hardware cloth was too small? we were thinking 3/8" would eliminate a lot of the smaller garbage and such.

[crawfobj]

Nice work! You couldn't get that much in 2.5 hours (or maybe days) of scrounging at tire shops around here.

Unfortunately, I can't mine any berms around here either, so I'll have to stick with scrounging...

[helzbelz888]

yeah i was really proud of our success rate for a first trip. I told all the guys at work what i did and they're giving up locations of all their shooitn pits to see how much i can get out of them.

[M-Tecs]

I think we pissed quite a few people off sitting in the best shooting spot sifting bullets instead of shooting. It was quite entertaining to hear them whine.



Normal range etiquette is that all shooting activities take precedes over non-shooting activities except for scheduled maintenance. Hopefully you left the berms in better shape than you found them. Mining public shooting areas can be a great source of lead if done properly or it can be a good way to start a fight with other shooters or the land owner.

[helzbelz888]

yeah we were only out there for 2.5 hours so its not like we monopolized the berm all day. we cleaned the trash out of the dirt and put the dirt back on the berm. no sense destroying the berm that gives up the lead to cast.

[kbstenberg]

Could I give you some advice on your heat source for your smelter? Instead of using those small propane containers, get a hose that attachés to the heater an the other end attachés to a larger tank. You can get 5 - 10 - 20 pound tanks

[ilcop22]

I'm with M-Tecs on this one. Even if it's "only" 2.5 hours, that's 2.5 hours of shooting time other shooters cannot enjoy. You may want to get consent from the land owner, try and block of some time to close the range in the future. You may find it fun to watch other shooters "whine", but I sure bet the people waiting to shoot didn't find it fun at all.

[helzbelz888]

well the only reason it was funny to hear them whine was because there's literally hundreds if not thousands of acres out there to shoot on(large tract of DNR land) and they were sitting right by us saying "i have no idea where else to go". its hill after hill of places they could shoot.

[BrassFever]

The particular berm we were mining was right next to 7 other equally good places to shoot. That and its public land. What difference does it make what I'm doing there, someone else still wont be able to use it. The way some of you guys are talkin makes me think you mine the berms at night!

[btroj]

You guys need to get off his back. Every shooting area is different. I would never mine the berm at my club if it prevented others from shooting, but I also shoot at a club with one berm. We pay a membership fee.
If you are shooting on public land, not at an established range, then first come, first served is ok with me. Their really isn't a protocol for this as it is not an organized facility.
Like much in shooting, one size fits all doesn't work here. His situation is different from mine. Different situation, different rules. It is that simple.

Brad

[Philngruvy]

i got to lookin in the garage and i had a bunch of scrap angle iron that was an old bedframe i took apart.



That bedframe angle makes great ingot molds also. Do a search and you can see pics of some made by other members.

[helzbelz888]

That bedframe angle makes great ingot molds also. Do a search and you can see pics of some made by other members.

reeeely! i am intrigued... and i like an excuse to fire up the welder... thanks dude! i really like the muffin pan ingots though. they seem to be the perfect size.

[bumpo628]

reeeely! i am intrigued... and i like an excuse to fire up the welder... thanks dude! i really like the muffin pan ingots though. they seem to be the perfect size.

Angle iron ingots stack nicer, though.
Plus you can pack them in vertically in your pot. Just size the ingots to the height of your pot and you'll be in good shape.

[bowfin]

It looks like those who were waiting could have picked up a lot of plastic bottles and other litter around that area, as I hoped you did also.

The sad truth is that most areas that allow free public shooting get horribly trashed. I have resigned myself to the fact that I will forever be picking up someone else's trash.

[izzyjoe]

when i go to the range, i get there before daylight or right at it. and i just pickup most pistol bullets at the 100yd line. i can fill up a large coffee can in 30min., and them set up and start shootin'. another good time to go is right after a hard rain, them boolits are layin' right on top of the dirt. and i have gone when it was raining very lightly, nobody will be out there then, just maybe a hard core caster.:cbpour:

[geargnasher]

Angle iron ingots stack nicer, though.
Plus you can pack them in vertically in your pot. Just size the ingots to the height of your pot and you'll be in good shape.

+1!!! Beats a muffin ingot any day. Just remember to cut the ends to give a little draft angle (like the sides of the muffins and for the same reason) or your angle-iron ingots can stick in the mould.

Here's an example of some I made that cast exactly one-pounders out of WW metal. You can stamp the inside of the mould with alloy composition using a letter stamp set like you'd find at Harbor Freight for three bucks and it will cast into the ingot, or you can just stamp the ingots like I do to indicate alloy composition.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=16205&d=1254796496
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=16640&d=1256530745

Gear

[frankenfab]

That bed fram is handy. I used some to make a wall mount for my plasma TV.

Welcome to the forum!

[helzbelz888]

that is SO COOL!!!!! i'm totally gonna do that.... i just couldnt envision what the mould would look like. thanks guys!!!!!

Yeah the shooting areas are really not conducive to sharing. We really just went out there dug for a couple hours and who knows how much time of that was digging because intermittently we'd give our backs a break and shoot. once we got into a rhythm it went SUPER fast. I think that when we do this in the future our take will be much higher.

I would make a warning to anyone that is going to try something similar to this... WEAR GLOVES!!!! heavy leather when sifting this ****. why do people have such a hard-on for shooting glass???? seriously...:Fire:

[docone31]

What about something like this for range scrap?
http://www.foundry.ray-vin.com/rotaryfurnace/rotaryfurnace.htm
It looks good to me.
The jackets would eject lead while they tumble.

[helzbelz888]

thats great if you're working on a large scale. I just dont think the vast majority of shooters shoot enough or harvest enough lead to justify a piece of equipment like that. Something like that monopolizes a lot of space and i'm sure is more expensive than the simple setup most people use. My garage is too jam packed with all my other stuff from my other hobbies.

[firefly1957]

Thank you for the post I have only picked up bullets from surface and recover a lot of lead.

[Bob Krack]

I would make a warning to anyone that is going to try something similar to this... WEAR GLOVES!!!! heavy leather when sifting this ****. why do people have such a hard-on for shooting glass???? seriously...:Fire:
No flame intended but the gloves are necessary to those that are not used to working with their hands. Good idea even if you are used to it.

The glasses are for eye protection. Your eyes, your choice.

Good seeing your efforts.

Bob

[btroj]

I don't think he meant shooting glasses, he meant why do people shoot glass bottles. He is talking about the glass shards in the berm or sifted material. That is how I read it.

[helzbelz888]

lol you're braver than i am if you're going to sift through glass shards from people shooting bottles, tv's/moniters and what not.

[grullaguy]

Today I was picking up lead on the range when a ricochet went wizzing by me. There are a number of ranges separated by high berms. My range was inactive, but I heard this one shot go up the mountainside from the adjoining range, hit something solid and then come whining back on my range. I decided to call it a day with about 30 lbs of lead.

[bandmiller2]

The janitor at the local police range is a friend of mine more than willing to give me buckets of spattered range lead.Also town water depts. usally have lead leed in pipes about 3' long between the main and residential pipe their not used anymore and they save them to scrap. Frank C.