Diggin´in the dirt....

[jayjay1]

I can clear a 30 years old backstop of a rimfire shooting range.

So there are only .22lfb bullets in, what means poor lead.

But the problem is, that they have a steel back stop and only dirt under it.
So there are lead fragments, mainly dust I would say, mixed up with dirt, stones, leaves, old wood and plants.

Today I was there for roundabout three hours and did only some pound of lead, but there is so much more.
I just droped the whole scrap in the pot and gave it some fire.

I had 80-90% of sh.. and only a very little bit of lead.
I had to flux and clean and flux and clean.... and at the end there was very little lead produced.

I need help in how I can make this just more efficient.
Is there a way to seperate the dirt from the lead?


Begging for help.
:oops:

[Garyshome]

May not be worth the trouble?

[osteodoc08]

What kind of dirt? Is it siftable?

You could always rig up a jig with coarse screen, run dirt with water and retain the bigger hunks of lead. Beware the fairy.

From the sound of it though, it may be more trouble than it's worth.

[jayjay1]

No, not siftable.

The lead is as small or smaller than the dirt.

[merlin101]

Ever see movie where a guys panning for gold? Very time consuming and my not be worth it.

[Hickory]

Not wanting to hijack this thread, but I have a question.

A guy I know who is not only a boolit caster, but a welder, he built a melter to extract lead as describe in the OP. The thing was a type of cement mixer that he built that mounted to a tractor's 3 point hitch.
Gas flames were injected into the mixer until the drum was nearly red hot.
The lead exited through holes in the lower and larger area of the drum and the dirt came out the opening in which it was thrown in.
It was slow and costly, but netted him several tons of lead.

The dirt that was left behind was sterilized in that the high heat killed all the weed seed.
Here is my question;

I'm sure minute amounts of lead was left behind in the sterilized dirt.
Can plants absorb the lead into the plant like it does other minerals like zinc, magnesium, copper and other metals?

[jayjay1]

Ever see movie where a guys panning for gold? Very time consuming and my not be worth it.

Had the same thought this afternoon.

Have no idea if it will work and have to handle wet lead, but will give it a try.

Thought about using two pots and always start again with wet lead, so the water steams out before the lead is liquid.

Looking for an old pan in our household.
:oops:

I´m sure there are laying some pounds of lead, many pounds...

[melloairman]

I have worked a indoor and out door .22 ranger . You might try a leaf blower to get some of the light trash out of the way . I use a sifter box with a fine screen to remove as much of the dirt as I can . But were the metal back stop and the dirt meet there should be a wedge of lead that has accumulated . The bullets do splatter a lot but many do slide down the back to the base or at least at my range they do . That is were l get large chucks of lead . You might have to dig down a inch or two . I use a pry bar to loosen it from the metal plate .Marvin
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn55/melloroadman/IMG_7072-Copy.jpg (http://s301.photobucket.com/user/melloroadman/media/IMG_7072-Copy.jpg.html)

[jayjay1]

@melloairman:

That´s exactly how the lead looks like at my range, maybe mine is a little bit more splattered.
The steel backstop here is straight vertical, so there aren´t bullets there, just fragments and dust.

I will try the gold washing method, just to see if it works, to gain lead without smelting it there.

[allen16323]

Try building a sloosh box look up designs online. It will be quicker than panning.

[jayjay1]

Righty-right sir!

I did build up a sloosh box right now, from some old furniture shelfs.
And I found an old steel plate in the cellar, which I will take with me tomorrow.

Will try both methods and take a look how I will come out with this stuff.

Thanks so far guys!
:drinks:

[MaryB]

A lot of the dirt will float off in gently running water, might lose lead dust too but the bigger pieces should stay behind. Stick a hose into the bucket and turn the water on just hard enough to lift dirt, make it swirl and the heavier lead should drop out in the center as the dirt lifts and flows over the sides.

[jayjay1]

Am back from the range.

Had four hours of dirty and hard work and got me four buckets of lead splitters, what means bullets for roundabout 1,5 - 2 years for me.
Have to smelt them down now.

I´ve tried "slooshing", "panning" and "bucketing".
The last one was by far the most effective way to gain the lead out of the dirt.

Slooshing was most relaxed, but lasted to long.

Thanks guys!

[bruce381]

need some nice pictures of the first smelting you do

[jayjay1]

Well, it is still raining here, but can show you some other pics.

"Lil´ Slooshy" which worked pretty good, but was a time killer:
http://abload.de/thumb/dscn51679yd6h.jpg (http://abload.de/image.php?img=dscn51679yd6h.jpg)

My new lead treasure:
http://abload.de/thumb/dscn51697sevy.jpg (http://abload.de/image.php?img=dscn51697sevy.jpg)

Have still some work to be done.
:drinks:

[jayjay1]

All right, here´s my "review".
:roll:

My lil´ setup:
http://abload.de/thumb/dscn517077sfj.jpg (http://abload.de/image.php?img=dscn517077sfj.jpg)

Smokin´ Joe:
http://abload.de/thumb/dscn5171c4sdg.jpg (http://abload.de/image.php?img=dscn5171c4sdg.jpg)


To make it short: I wish I would never have tried this!
I smelted for about 3,5 hours and all I got were 14 muffins of lead.

The stuff was still wet and so you couldn´t see really if it is only lead or still dirty.
I did bucketing until the water was nearly clear, maybe ten or more times changing the water, shaking and circling the bucket with every load.

But when it became dry in the pot, the former wet dirt became sand and some small stones.
There was really a lot of lead inside, but I couldn´t get it seperated from the sand.
It was like the sand had soaked up the lead like a swam and I´ve really tried a lot, but it was like fighting for every lead pearl which came out of the sand, a real pain in the ***.

I stopped smelting when I had tried what I could, and had no more idea to get it more effective.
It was horrible for me, but I dropped the stuff right back where I´ve unearthed it.

Never will do this again, lesson learned.
:cry: