Range lead to ingots went OK

[onondaga]

First time for me at this. I always had a good source of wheel weight but that is gone. Two days ago I took my grandsons to my shooting club. We were alone on the range and I asked the boys if they would collect some scrap from the berm to use for making some more boolits. They grabbed an empty brass collection bucket and we went to the berm. I had not done this before, but in about 20 minutes we had the bucket about half full!

Today I melted the scrap down, it was mostly big caliber pistol bullets that were jacketed with the bases open and a lot of deer slugs and my cast .45 cal. rifle boolits too. The pistol jackets emptied out when melting and stirring well, some I gripped with a tweezers and tapped into the pot. I picked out all the jackets, fluxed and poured ingots.

I got 22 ingots totaling 23 pounds on my scale. I will hardness test the ingots in 10 days with my Lee tester. I will be asking the boys to help me with this again. They sure shoot a lot of boolits and slugs that I cast and it was nice to take home more than we shot!

Gary

[leadman]

Young people are very susceptiple to the effects of lead so it would be good to make sure they wear gloves and/or wash immediately after handling the lead.

I know we were not concerned about this when young and seem to be o.k., except for that darn twitch and CRS. !!

[grullaguy]

As someone new to casting, I struck out looking for wheel weights. Went to the berm and never looked back!

[cgm]

My only source of lead is my club's berm. Since this club caters mostly to competitive NRA conventional pistol shooters, most of the bullets mined from the berm are cast lead centerfire reloads with a lot of 22's and, some jacketed.

I have no idea what the hardness of my mix is. However, it seems to be plenty good for pistol bullets at target velocities. I get no leading and accuracy is good......Of course, we are talking about one handed shooting at 50 and 25 yds so, I'm not looking for nor am I capable of benchrest accuracy.

I think you will find your range lead fine if you keep velocities low.

[1874Sharps]

Onondaga,

Yes indeed, mining the berm is a great source of lead. As the old timers used to say, "Thar's lead in them thar hills!" Or was that gold?

I get most of my lead from the berms, too. By separating out the jacketed (goes into the soft alloy bucket), muzzleloading boolits (goes into the pure lead bucket) and hard cast boolits (goes into the hard alloy bucket), I can get different alloys for the three different types of boolits I cast. It does not yield alloy of a known composition (except for the pure lead), but it is close enough and works.

[Defcon-One]

The unltimate form of RECYCLING and it is fun! Nuff said.

[sargenv]

I've been collecting from the berms and the hardness comes out between 8 and 14.. it really depends on the source.. hard cast tends to be about 16, muzzle loader stuff and shotgun slugs tend to be pretty soft.. It's a good source.. if you can get ahold of some linotype to sweeten your softer lead, then that's something you tend to be able to get here.. I'd suggest you get one of the hardness testers if you want to be certain you are making things hard enough for your uses.

[onondaga]

I couldn't resist doing an initial hardness test with the Lee tester. Tests were very consistent on the range lead and indents were .082" plus or minus .001" on all ingots so BHN is about 7.4 This lead is so soft, I don't think it will appreciatively harden at all in ten days, but I will check it then.

In addition to the range lead, I made a second batch of ingots today from some plumber's lead pigs I have had for over 20 years. They were very consistent with the Lee tester also and indents measured .095" plus or minus .001 putting BHN about 5.5

I do want to cast some 12 ga. slugs and some muzzle loading round balls and R.E.A.L. soft bullets for muzzle loading. So, this soft stuff will be fine. My standing inventory also includes Linotype so I can alloy more #2 Lyman if I want. Nice to get free stuff.

On the safety issue, the boys were the first to say, "Grampa, lets scrub our hands." as soon as we got home. We all had visibly dirty hands from mining the berm. Next time we will wear gloves.

Gary

[Jal5]

It is my main source of lead too. Nobody mines the berms at my club and all I do is pick it up off the top without disturbing anything. A large coffee can gets filled up in less than an hour so its all good. IIRC I picked up enough last summer/fall to make 20#s of ingots for my target shooting. WW are very hard to find around here at any price.

Joe

[fredj338]

I will mine the berm @ my club form time to time. To be efficient, use a screen & several buckets. Pluck out teh alrger rocks & stuff then smelt it all down. I do not sort, just cast into ingots & treat that as one alloy. It's mostly around 9-10BHN. It can be used just like that for most of what I shoot. Make sure those kids wash there hands & wearing dust masks & gloves while digging those little gems up isn't a bad idea.

[grullaguy]

Because our range is mostly full of jacketed bullets, I separate any cast bullets I find. I have a batch melting down right now. These will be stamped with a C and later mixed with the jacketed and unkown lead and a smidge of pewter. It must be working as I have had no leading and get good mold fill out. I am shooting better groups with my cast bullets as well, but I can't say if that is not mostly due to the mild recoil of my handloads. I don't shoot a big volume of ammo so I can afford to be a little anal.

[lwknight]

All ranges vary. I think th e ones around and near big cities have almost fully jacketed bullets and will yield near pure lead. Out in the country where more people use lead bullets you could get a lot of commercial cast which would be most excellent.

[Freightman]

I found a glory hole while mining the other day, in a spot there is no shooting I noticed a lot of lead lying around. So I took my shovel and bucket made into a sieve and started digging. In thirty minutes I had 3/4 five gallon bucket full. When I smelted them down there were no jackets and very little dirt and rocks. 100# scrap 84# lead. The old range was used as early as '46 and the shooting pits have been moved many times so I just found an old pit.

[mold maker]

Having mined for several years, almost all the local PD range lead is 12 BHN. This is from JFP, LEO ammo. There are also a good amount of 12 ga slugs that are near pure lead.
I find that using a pair of long needle nose pliers, keeps your hands clean and is easier on the back.
When you find the concentrated layer at the bottom of the disturbed earth, you will often find almost solid lead up to 5-6" deep.
I have well over a ton in ingots, and am still actively collecting. I use a set of hand trucks with bungy cords to carry 2 5gal buckets, screen, shovel , and drinks to and from the berms. I usually bring 250-300 lbs home in a half day.
I had to put a crain on my pickup bed to lift them aboard.

[CLAYPOOL]

Bought more today @ $ 1.00 a pound. Got to sort threw the barrel and junk the trash. The boss said paying 45 cents a pound, or selling @ $ 1.00 a pound. Thats the cash spread...