Range lead ??'s

[butlersoldier]

I see a lot of references on the site to range lead. Other than indoor ranges how would someone go about getting said lead from the range? I have a small range in the back yard with a dirt pile backstop that has been getting a lot of use and I would to be able to recover as much lead as possible. Anyone with thoughts or instructions on how I could go about building something to trap as much of the flying lead as possible

[johnstonab]

Yes you can dig them outta the burm. YouTube it and tones of videos how to do it. Dig 'em out, rinse the mud off, LET DRY, dig out the fmjs, put all the rest in the pot to melt. The lead will melt out and jackets will float to the top. You have to crack the jacket on the fmjs, hammer/hatchet work. Flux the lead as normal.

Make sure they have dried out. Don't add any to the molten pot if there is any chance there is water in there, it will EXPLODE! If the pot is empty, ant moisture should evaporate long before lead melts.

[Nose Dive]

Yup...dig 'em up... Hit FMJ's with a ball peen...wash with garden hose on Friday night,...let stand over night...put ALL OF THEM IN THE SMELT POT and come up "SLOWLY" on the fire...be patient...go slow....and you should be fine. DO NOT ADD ANY OF THE 'mix range scrap" to the pot after you fire up.....KA BOOM... Fill the smelt pot 'full' to brim...you have alot of **** in there... GO UP SLOW...done it 100 times...no getting 'greeedy' and adding to the pot once the fire is on and you will be OK....FLUX....FLUX....FLUX.... mix in your alloy metals and you are ready to cast ingots or boolits.....

Nose Dive

Cheap, Fast, Good. Kindly pick two.

[2wheelDuke]

Something to sift the dirt helps. I've seen sitters built of screen, I've heard of sand flea rakes and kitty litter scoops being used. I've used an old fryer backer myself. High volume guys rig up powered machines like miners would use.

[btroj]

When the soil is good and dry tis easy to just pick the, put with fingers. My best day was tight at 60 pounds, all by hand.
I don't squash of cut any FMJ, haven't seen a reason after almost 1500 pounds melted down.

[Sergeant Earthworm]

Something I started doing a while back is to always use the same lane and the same target stand at the club range where I am a member. That way the lead is in the same general area and much of it came out of my molds. As for separating the dirt and debris, I put the recovered lead into paint buckets and let sit for a long time so it gets good and dry, then scoop it out three or four pounds at a time and put it into a coffee can. Shake the can with the lid on for about 20-30 seconds and most of the dirt settles to the bottom, pour out the projectiles into another container and empty the dirt into the trash. I always do this outside and wear a NIOSH dust mask just in case there is any lead dust generated. Then melt a pot at a time and skim off jackets and other undesirables, flux, and skim off the dross. As noted above, never never never add range lead to the pot after melting. Empty the melt out of the pot and repeat the process.

Something I am careful to avoid is putting tracers into the pot. Maybe I am over cautious, but I sure don't want an unburned tracer to ignite in the melt. Don't need that kind of excitement in my life. Not to mention that the range I use is near a military installation. If you haven't seen one before, an Armor Piercing Incendiary Tracer is the Fourth of July and New Years Eve rolled into one, especially in an enclosed area.

[tomme boy]

This is what I use when I have time.

60529

Works pretty good. The hard part is getting the slant right. If it is too much I get a lot of dirt. Everything goes into a box on the end then I pour them into a bucket. When I get home I put them on a metal screen to get the majority of the garbage out. Then into the frier!

[Jal5]

I stopped separating the FMJ, squashing them, etc. and put it all into the pot. Turn up the heat with a lid on that pot and I think I get 99% of the lead out without all the hassle. Flux often though, lots of crud floats on the top even after removing all the jackets. Joe

[runfiverun]

i get a lot of my lead behind the berm.
i usually walk around back there in the spring.

[RoGrrr]

I mine the berm, bring it home, wash with a garden hose in my sifter/strainer basket (shown in another thread in this forum under the subject - 186Lbs. You can also see it on imgur, as shown by my sig.file) let dry on the sidewalk and then pour into the smelter pot.
WHEN I smelt wet ore (which I do from time to time), I lay the first batch in the pot and allow it all to heat up. Once it's all melted and I've poured my first batch of ingots, I leave a couple inches in the 3 quart iron pot and pour in more ore. If it's wet, I "catch" it with a kitty litter scoop and gingerly lay it onto the molten lead and it all warms up and boils off the residual water. Some sizzle but I never had a visit from the tinsel fairy so I simply don't worry about that. I never dump it right into the melt, I catch it as I dump and lay it in.
Yes, I do wear safety glasses and cotton attire and leather shoes/boots.
I also never do anything about fully jacketed boolits, too much trouble to search and sort them out. I simply sell them off as scrap with the rest of the copper jackets.
I also smelt cast boolits and jacketed ones together. I don't care what BHN it is. I shoot it.