lead shot worth the trouble?

[dale.l]

my local club has steel target matches. I went out there today and got 5 5 gal buckets, probley a ton left. Does this stuff make good bullets? Theres alot of dirt and grass clipings but mostly lead. What is the best way to get most of the dirt out. I melted some down it looked good, pertty hard too.

this was my first time melting lead hope to get a mold this week

[dale.l]

they use active #9. If it worth it I will get more tomorrow before we shoot trap

[JIMinPHX]

A 5 gallon bucket probably holds about 300 pounds. Recovered shot casts very well for me. It is very close to being the same a WW alloy with a pinch of arsenic & maybe a little extra tin thrown in. It comes up around 13bnh air cooled & around 23bnh water dropped for me. It's a great all around casting alloy. It's actually my preferred alloy to work with for 90% of what I shoot. If I were you, I would get all that was available. If you don't want it, somebody else will.

[dale.l]

Im going to get all I can. I will put it in 55gal barrels behine my shop

[bumpo628]

Nice score. Get all you can before they have to pay to have it cleaned up by the eco-nazis.

[JIMinPHX]

Im going to get all I can. I will put it in 55gal barrels behine my shop

Those are going to be pretty heavy.

[dale.l]

I melted some down today, it takes forever to melt from all the dirt and grass lots of black soot. any tricks to cleaning to trash out before melting? If I can't find a easier way Im not getting any more

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78/Dalejr1/xlr020.jpg

[JIMinPHX]

Actually, the grass is probably good to leave in there. It will help to flux the lead.

[badbob454]

you could dry pan it with a gold pan shake and roll around and the lead will work its way to the bottom , or will work easier with water i find shot all the time when goldpanning,,,, might try winnowing it by a good fan , blow away the lighter stuff ... and the lead will drop straight down

reccomend taking all the old dirt back to the range so you dont possibly contaminate your groundwater..

[L1A1Rocker]

Toss it in the air like what was done in days gone by to separate wheat from chaff. I'd love to be able to get your deal!!!

[onesonek]

"I melted some down today, it takes forever to melt from all the dirt and grass lots of black soot. any tricks to cleaning to trash out before melting? If I can't find a easier way Im not getting any more"


Just my thoughts Dale,,,,,,
Smelting reclaimed shot takes time no matter what. Yes you can pre-clean it to some degree, and maybe get rid of some of the soot,,,I'm not sure? But time is spent with that also. I guess everybody has their own definition of easy, and values their time differently.
If you were somewhat near me, I would pay you for your time to get it for me if you don't want it.

Now, what I would do,,,,,,
Is get or make a 2 screen sieve, something like using 2 sieves out a combine. Maybe a bean and oat size, or smaller, then fabricate a rocker seperator with them. This would seperate most of the larger stuff. With the shot and smaller dropping into a tub with enough water flow to carry away the dirt. This won't get rid of all the pebbles, but they will float out in the smelt. You could gold pan these out however, but a dutch oven's worth will take time also. One could also make a re-circulating sluice, for use after the pre-screen.
There are many ways to skin this cat in my mind, simplist is to just smelt it down as is. But I certainly wouldn't pass it up, not when you got $1000+ of lead sitting there for the taking.
Wish it was within a couple hr. drive of me!!!!

[leadman]

Gold pans with the ridges and a running water source are the easiest way to get rid of the debris, but it still takes time.
The graphite coating on the shot causes it to take more heat to melt it. Also if there is any oxidation on the shot it will take longer.
Once you get a pot melted only remove about half of it for ingots, then add more unmelted shot. This speed up the melting process. Sometimes you have to use a big spoon and squish the hot shot on the side of the pot to get it to melt.

As Jim said this is a very good casting alloy.

[garym1a2]

I would try a very high temp turkey burner setup with plenty of flux. The good stuff will melt and settle on the bottom. The grass will burn off and the steel shot and sand floats.

[Stick_man]

What area are you in? You may be sitting on a goldmine there, whether you get it for yourself or to sell to others here. Odds are somebody among us is close to you and would be happy to help out with your dilemma.

[cajun shooter]

Lead shot is sold in two alloys. One is what is called chilled shot and it is almost pure lead and soft. The other is Magnum shot and it is quite hard so that it does not deform as much and delivers better patterns. Midway, Grafs, and Midsouth all sell a plastic pan that is designed to sift brass and media after tumbling for around $12 or so. It would work to help clean that shot. You have a very valuable product and are lucky to have such a source. I bet every caster on this forum would jump at the chance you have.

[Freightman]

I ask the president of our rifle and pistol club if I could mine the pistol berms? "he said knock yourself out" only problem is it is way to hot to do anything, so I think that that will be my job for the cold days of winter, I have got about 1000# smelted this summer but gave up when the temp went above 100 and stayed there. Wish I had better sifting equipment , guess I need to do some creative inventing while it is hot.
By the way the scrap makes beautiful boolits as is and medium to hard.

[JIMinPHX]

If you don't want that material, I'm sure that plenty of other people do. If you boxed that stuff up in USPS flat rate boxes & sold it for $0.50/lb, I would expect that you would find a steady stream of customers here.

[zomby woof]

You have lots of mass there. It's going to take some time and heat to melt that lead. You need more heat, no zink to worry about. Crank it up.

[Spector]

I built three wooden frames out of 1x4. Covered two of them with hardware cloth and the third one with stainless steel window screen. I put an axle through the box with the window screen and added spoked wheels and a fold up handle.

I put short pins in the bottom edge of the frames containing the hardware cloth. These along with holes drilled into the top of the frames that sit below. The pins lock the three frames together when I agitate the frames.

When it is assembled the top frame has the largest size hardware cloth. It catches rocks, sticks and grass when I shovel on the dirt and shot. The next frame down, which contains a smaller sized hardware cloth, catches smaller rocks, sticks and small pieces of grass and larger shot that would be appropriate for waterfoul. The dirt goes on through the window screen in the lowest frame and the remainder of the shot is caught.

It will however catch small rocks that are approinmately the same size as the shot. Once when the remenants of a hurricane moved throgh our area I tried to blow the small rocks out of the lead shot by dropping it onto a plastic sheet in the wind. It worked to a limited degree, but some small rocks remained. Then I washed it and dried it.

It still takes a lot of heat to melt it because of the lead oxide that coats the shot. Personally I'd just screen it and not worry about the rocks, small sticks or grass pieces. I used a magnet to remove steel shot from the lead, but even that is a waste of time if you are going to melt it because the dirt, rocks, and steel will float so it can easily be skimmed off and the small pieces of dried grass will servee in part as flux.

I used an old Coleman stove the first time I smelted 25 pounds of recycled shot. Even though I screened, winnowed and washed it I lost a lot when I fluxed and skimmed the top. A friend loaded some in 12 gauge shells. It did not equal the Federal stuff WalMart sells, but it is usable.

I am going to smelt it over wood the next time I do it. I have a plumber's pot, but I bought an old stainless steel pressure cooker that I will use the next time. I have around 200 lbs. to smelt.

No zinc to worry about and recycled shot casts fine with a little tin added............Mike

[mac1911]

I get as much shot as I can from our trap range. The easiest way to clean is to smelt it.
I use a turkey fryer 20psi burner and a dutch oven. a quick way to seperate the loos e light stuff is with a leaf blower, this kicks up lead dust though.
Melt and enjoy.....your bucket doesnt look to dirty I would love to have that batch.
Looks like your getting everything from shot to bullets.

[shotman]

take a shop vac . make a loop about 4ft circle. the shot will stay in hose and rest of junk will go in vac. You can only do about 15/20 lbs at time , then dump the hose

[badbob454]

take a shop vac . make a loop about 4ft circle. the shot will stay in hose and rest of junk will go in vac. You can only do about 15/20 lbs at time , then dump the hose

wow , what a good idea !! makes me wish i had some to try it sounds effortless and no lead dust in the air..:cbpour: