Range scrap: now that's interesting!

[jonk]

While I have a healthy supply of wheelweights, if I hit a day that's just right (like the morning after a good rain), I am happy to help myself to some range scrap. This weekend was just such a case, so on the pistol range I took a small bucket and trowel, and scraped about 15 pounds of lead into the pail (along with about 2 pounds of dirt).

Usually I find range scrap is a little softer than wheelweights, as most core material is pure lead or close to it, as are .22 bullets; and while commercial pistol bullets are often quite hard, the ratio at my range is such that it usually balances out to a BHN of about 7 or 8.

So I sifted the worst of the dirt out, poured into a pot, heated up the weed burner and melted it down and poured into ingots. 15 pounds of lead for 5 minutes work picking and 10 minutes work melting, not bad.

Using my Cabin Tree tester, I then proceeded to test one of my new air cooled ingots. The dial read .095 (!). For those not familiar with the device, that equals about a BHN of around 25-28. Surely there must be something amiss; I re-tested with another ingot. Same result. I re-tested with a known dead soft piece of lead to make sure the dial on the tester was reading properly; yep.

So I've got no idea as to what someone was shooting, but given that known dead soft material was mixed in, whatever it was, it was HARD. Like, harder than monotype hard. Kind of wondering if someone was making bullets out of pure 95/5 solder? Sure came as a surprise to me.

Usually I use wheelweights for general applications, range scrap cut 50/50 with pure lead for black powder cartridge and roundballs, and save the pure for my minie balls. THIS stuff however, is going to be used for high velocity rifle bullets- and I'm going to go see if I can scoop up more on the same lane asap!

[Four-Sixty]

I melt range scrap into a 5" lodge skillet and make a pig out of it. I also often use reclaimed shot as my source material to make similar pigs.

Comparing the two, I noticed the range scrap rang higher indicating to me it was harder when I hit the pig with a hammer versus that of the reclaimed shot. While not scientific, I was left with the impression that range scrap was definately not pure lead.

I have also melted lead from an old shower liner into a pig. The texture of the range scrap pig looked more like that of reclaimed shot than the smoother/shiner texture of the shower liner lead pig.

Could the alloy used to make bullets have changed much recently?

[bangerjim]

Check your Cabine against a KNOWN hardness sample. I did check mine and found it was on the high side...........right out of the box. It is easy to recal. I was reading 22 for 15bnh.....accurately & repeatable! You might want to consider getting a Harbor Freight digital dial indicator to replace that antique pointer dial it comes with. When the chart says 75........the digital indicator reads 75!!!! No more guessing looking at a dial.

Now I am dead on. 15 is 15. 22 is 22. But you absolutely gotta get some known hardness sample(s) to use for adjustment.

What did the spent slugs look like? Were they jacketed or hand cast? That will tell us a lot. Someone may have been shooting lino (or even foundry) hand cast rifle slugs and you hit a vein of them. Those are way to hard to shoot in most guns.

bangerjim

ps...........I checked my readings against a lab Brinell tester and my Lee "squintee" microscope hardness tester and all are within a very small acceptable margine of variation. After all, Brinell hardness is a relative measurement anyway.

[tomme boy]

None of the lead you pick up is pure. My range lead comes in around 13 every time. The cores of jacketed has a lot of antimony in them. If I water drop them they go to 18-19.

[Shiloh]

I use a LOT of range scrap. I mine the berms. I also scoop up the disintegrated bullets from the plate range. Hardly a dent made in my stash of WW this season.

Shiloh

[nvbirdman]

You may have had a lot of commercially cast boolits there.
The commercial casters use a HARD alloy so the boolits won't get dented too much while being shipped. If the average consumer has to choose between hard, undented boolits (that will lead the barrel) or softer boolits that don't look as pretty, most will pick the hard ones.

[Harter66]

It may be overkill but I sort mine .
Jacketed cores 8-10
22s 00B ML balls 6+-
Soft cast (ww?) 11-13
Hard cast 22 -25
All A/C pencil tested. W/C the cores go 15ish ,18ish for the soft, the hard cast goes 30ish.