Range Salvage

[richhodg66]

I melted a couple of coffee cans of range lead from our pistol range last night. Most of it seems to have been FMJ pistol bullets, I think I ended up with almost as much copper as lead in the deal.

Anyway, my plan is to make a bunch of .30 caliber hunting bullets, either the Ranchdog bullet if it works well in my rifles, or my old Ideal 31141. To that end, it seems 50/50 WW to pure is the tikcet, but since pure is harder to come by and I'm guessing what they put in FMJs is pretty soft, would this stuff work as well as the pure lead to make a n expanding hunting bullet?

[Reload3006]

what goes into jacketed boolits is almost always pure lead. close enough for most.

[Larry Gibson]

That range lead alloy is going to be lead with antimony. I've a lot of it and mix tin with it + lead to get what I want. I usually starte with 2% tin with is enough and then ad 30% lead and adjust from there by adding more range lead or pure lead to get the BHN I want along with malleability.

Larry Gibson

[richhodg66]

Thanks, guys. I figured it was a good bit softer than wheel weights. I hate to use my limited stash of pure as I need that for muzzle loader bullets now and then.

Honestly, after sweating the lead out of all those jackets, I wondered if it was worth it, but it's about 30 lbs of free good melt. I really wonder how guys can afford to shoot that many jacketed bullets, those things are pricey.

[AndyC]

Folks who don't handload :)

[Jailer]

Save those jackets and turn them in at the scrap yard. You'll soon realize that your hard work of melting range lead is well worth your time.

[cf_coder]

Just make sure to pick out the steel and brass cases that you can find. If they find either in your batch, you'll lose a lot of the value.

[grullaguy]

Thanks, guys. I figured it was a good bit softer than wheel weights. I hate to use my limited stash of pure as I need that for muzzle loader bullets now and then.

Honestly, after sweating the lead out of all those jackets, I wondered if it was worth it, but it's about 30 lbs of free good melt. I really wonder how guys can afford to shoot that many jacketed bullets, those things are pricey.

I have been shooting the lead smelted out of jacketed bullets in my muzzle loaders.
From jacketed range scrap I cast balls, but to be safe I have a little roofing lead that I use for casting REALs.