Shooting range lead

[Bo1]

Is mixed (jacketed, and non jacketed) shooting range lead any easier, or harder to melt, clean, and make ingots out of than wheel weights?

[fordfan]

no just as easy

[rintinglen]

Not really, but the jackets floating on top make for a lot of dross. Also, TMJ bullets are b*****ds to get the lead out of. I will avoid them if I can.

[7Acres]

Isn't range scrap a lot softer than COWW?

[runfiverun]

sometimes,sometimes much harder.
depends on what part is from jaxketed, and what's from commercial cast, or 22's.

[Boolseye]

At my range there's been so much cast shot there over the years that the lead I mine is around BHN 12-14, air cooled.
I've smelted a ton of it–as others have said, it's just a matter of scraping off the dross and jackets. The jackets can be sold, but they have to be somewhat clean.

[nighthunter]

Range salvaged lead is well worth accumulating now that lead based COWW are becoming harder to find. Don't let anyone BS you about FMJ and TMJ bullets to be avoided. If you get them hot the lead is going to come out. The bullet manufacturer got the lead into the jacket in the first place. FMJ usually has an open base and TMJ are the same construction with a plug added to the opening after the lead core is inserted. I made a metal box to fit on top of my smelting pot. The box has small holes drilled in its bottom for lead to drip into the pot when it melts. When the range bullets are really hot I stir them with a steel rod and all the lead drops to the pot below. Doing it this way eliminates haveing to fish the jackets out of the smelting pot. A couple of good fluxes and the lead is ready to pour into ingots. This method also works with COWW.

Nighthunter

[snuffy]

Range lead isn't worth a darn.:kidding: Send it to me, I'll do this to it;

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The lead came from my clubs indoor range. It has angled steel plates with a sand trap. All the jaxketed bullets are busted open when they hit the steel plate.

This was a mixture of .22 lead, jacketed HP or soft points and some plated. It averages around 12 BHN and can be quenched/water dropped to around 22 BHN.

[tenx]

a lot of jacket bullet lead has a low percentage of antimony and no tin. tin is not really needed in swaging since it's primary benifit to lead is to reduce the surface tension and let it flow more freely and fill out in a mold. not to say it doesn't make a good bullet, it's just takes a different technique when casting. mixed in with other range lead it dosen't really matter, just seems to dilute the tin content a little.

[btroj]

I find range scrap to be easy to smelt and it casts well too. I use lots of it, it is the base metal for about all my casting these days.
It is a bit tougher than wheel weights as the jackets form a larger percentage of the total than do the clips in wheel weights. I can get range scrap for free so guess what I use?

[Andrew Mason]

Not really, but the jackets floating on top make for a lot of dross. Also, TMJ bullets are b*****ds to get the lead out of. I will avoid them if I can.

i take my TMJs and smash them with a hammer.
splits the jacket open and melts up just fine

[btroj]

I don't see why FMJ bullets are a pain. Get them hot and the lead comes out. Not any trouble at all.
The ones with no exposed lead either are plated or have a thin disc of jacket material over the base. The plated ones have such a thin plating that the lead comes out just fine. Those with a heavy jacket and the base disc aren't an issue either, the disc on the base opens up fine with heat and the lead comes out.

I don't hammer or cut these bullets. They just go in the pot. Never had any issues after better than 1000 pounds of ranges scrap from the berm.

[40Super]

I get the same range lead smashed up like Snuffy. The steel backplate shatters the bullets and most of the jackets are free of lead. By taking a bit of time and picking out as much of them before dumping in the pot, the jackets stay really clean and I get #1 copper price for them , which just about pays for the pail of lead. I have noticed that the softer bullets will squash into a disc and the harder alloys , like cast boolits will shatter into fragments. By sifting the big discs out and smelting separate I have gotten 2 general hardnesses of range lead .

[Forrest r]

I've been shooting range lead for a couple decades (30+ years). Most of the time the lead is 8bhn to 10bhn which is fine with me. Most of the bullets I cast are shot in 38spl's, 44spl's & 45's with the 357's & 44mags being shot in the 1000fps to 1200fps range. If I need the bullets to be harder I just water drop them.

Using range lead pays for itself in more ways than 1. The local scrap yards buy the copper jackets (#2 copper). I take 2 5-gallon buckets of them in a year (ya I use/shoot around 300# of cleaned lead a year).

This is what the last bucket of copper jacket I took in looked like.

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This is what the loacal scrap yard paid me for them.

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[chsparkman]

I don't hammer or cut these bullets. They just go in the pot. Never had any issues after better than 1000 pounds of ranges scrap from the berm.

I think you're lucky then. On several occasions over the years I have collected one or two plated bullets that were fully intact. When heated up, they have sprayed out a stream under pressure, once right in my face. Lately I take wire cutters to them before smelting. The hammer sounds like a better idea though.

[DennisMcharold]

There are no more lead WW to be found in my neck of the woods in Northern CA. I shoot exclusively range lead. I get it free from our local range. I have 5K lbs stored.