Range lead help

[MikeACP]

I picked up some range lead. 52.5lbs It's cast bullets,slugs jacketed. So any quess at all how much useable lead might be there? Also any thing special to smelting these? As I understand it,the lead should "flow out" of the jackets?

[bumpo628]

I heard that the jacketed bullets with the sealed bottoms will pop and spray lead unless you crack them open first. You could also smelt them with a lid on, but you need to be careful. I am still collecting range lead, so I haven't smelted it yet. I get such small amounts at a time I am able to sort through and hit all the CMJ bullets with a chisel so I don't have to worry about it later. If I were you, I would just throw it all in the pot, cover it, and wear riot gear when you check on it.

[MikeACP]

I heard that the jacketed bullets with the sealed bottoms will pop and spray lead unless you crack them open first.
Thanks, That's useful information.

[tomme boy]

I use a pair of dykes to cut into the bullets that are full jackets. You just have to break the case. I usually cut the nose. The local scrap yard is giving me #1 copper for the jackets. Thats $3.35 right now. So I try to pick up as many as I can get.

[MikeACP]

Thank you.

[evan price]

I chuck all mine into the pot and put a lid on it. Let it simmer at full heat a half hour or so- probably not gonna be any zinc in there to worry about so go full heat. You'll know it's OK when you can pour the lead out of the jackets. I use a mesh strainer I got at Walmart to pull out the jackets and then I pull out a handful at a time and tap/shake the strainer so all the lead jiggles out of them. Then into a galvanized bucket to cool. Then I spread them on a work table and use a junked speaker magnet to pull out the steel jackets, the copper ones get bucketed and saved for copper scrap.

The TMJ bullets can be trouble because they won't have a hole to let the lead leak out but most of them get damaged when they hit the target and it's OK. Plated bullets are not usually a problem, even the rifling damages the plating enough the lead comes out.

[MikeACP]

Thanks Evan. So with the lid on I don't need to worry much about the encased bullets? I finally performed my first smelt last weekend with Bob and a couple of other guys. It was a lot of fun.

[clodhopper]

My range has clay soil and many hollow point pistol bullets are jammed up with dirt. They do not squirt, but I cut them with diaganol cutters like I do the FMJs to let the lead out.

[grullaguy]

Range scrap is all I use for my cast bullets. I have experimented a bit and for my current recipe which is 1/3 cast bullets to 2/3 lead from jacketed stuff. I throw in maybe 10 % bird shot from the skeet range to add some antimony and then water quench my bullets. I have been shooting this through my 9mm with no leading signs.
When melting down the jacketed stuff, watch for FMJs that have nicks in them but are not really ripped open. The dirt and oxidation can prevent the lead from escaping until you are stirring and then the bullet will squirt at you like a clam. Now, I beat the h*** out of any jacketed stuff until I am sure the jackets are well ruptured.

[MikeACP]

Super, I have a few strips of stick on WW. Could I throw this in? Or better off leaving it?

[Jailer]

Super, I have a few strips of stick on WW. Could I throw this in? Or better off leaving it?

Smelt it separately. Stick on are almost pure lead and can be used to alloy or as trade material.

[evan price]

Thanks Evan. So with the lid on I don't need to worry much about the encased bullets? I finally performed my first smelt last weekend with Bob and a couple of other guys. It was a lot of fun.


Sorry I couldn't make it, I was in Dayton for family. Bob's got a good setup with that big wok-thing he uses.

I've had the TMJs with pinholes spit a real fine hair-thin streamer of lead before but it wasn't a problem, and with the lid on you'll be OK. I've found the odd intact TMJ still full of lead, I keep a small can of water to drop those in 'just in case' I maybe find one every time I smelt and that's in a 5-gal bucket worth of scrap lead.

I'd save the stickies separate- the bullet cores are usually pretty soft, no need to be softer, and the soft stuff can be swapped to people for hard lead. My father-in-law takes all the stick-ons and soft lead I get for his muzzle loaders.

[Centaur 1]

Here's a trick that I learned with scrap from our local indoor pistol range. The last bucket I got had over a thousand 9mm slugs that looked unfired except for the rifling marks. I cleaned them in my ultrasonic cleaner then I lubed them with a light coat of LLA. I then pushed them through a Lee .356" sizing die to make sure they were round. I'm sure that I get some gas blow by, but my Glock doesn't know the difference.

When you smelt range scrap the jackets float, but a thin layer of lead still sticks to them. I bought a bag of tea light candles from wally world that are made from granules of wax that are compressed into shape. They crumble into tiny wax balls the size of sugar granules. I sprinkle them on the copper jackets before I skim them from the pot. As the wax melts, the residual lead seperates from the jackets.

[MikeACP]

That does sound like a neat trick.

[Jailer]

Here's a trick that I learned with scrap from our local indoor pistol range. The last bucket I got had over a thousand 9mm slugs that looked unfired except for the rifling marks. I cleaned them in my ultrasonic cleaner then I lubed them with a light coat of LLA. I then pushed them through a Lee .356" sizing die to make sure they were round. I'm sure that I get some gas blow by, but my Glock doesn't know the difference.

When you smelt range scrap the jackets float, but a thin layer of lead still sticks to them. I bought a bag of tea light candles from wally world that are made from granules of wax that are compressed into shape. They crumble into tiny wax balls the size of sugar granules. I sprinkle them on the copper jackets before I skim them from the pot. As the wax melts, the residual lead seperates from the jackets.

A handful of sawdust before you skim will do this as well.