Indoor range lead bulk

[triggerhappy243]

I HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO BUY 1000 POUNDS OF INDOOR RANGE LEAD. I AM PRETTY SURE THIS TOPIC HAS BEEN SHOT AROUND, OOPS ALL CAPS. I am guessing there will be a bunch of jacketed bullets both rifle and pistol as they allow it all. would any of the jacketed stuff be anything else but dead soft lead?

[tazman]

Most jacketed and 22s are soft lead. Usually there is enough other types mixed in to make it useful.
I buy scrap from an indoor range all the time and use it in my 9mm and 38 special. Normally I don't need to add anything to it for it to work well.

[imashooter2]

I have been using nothing but indoor range scrap for quite some time now. My scrap measures 11 - 14bhn air cooled and 20 - 24bhn water dropped. This is based on samples pulled from many different buckets collected over a better than 5 year span. The conventional wisdom of range scrap being almost pure soft lead doesn't match my experience at all.

The stuff I have casts beautifully with no additions whatsoever and is perfectly adequate for all my uses to include magnum pistols and full power .30/30 class rifle loads.

[btroj]

The jacketed cores are not soft lead. They will have antimony in them, maybe not more than a few percent but it is enough.

Like imashooter2 said, range scrap works well for about all casting needs. My experiences are the same as what he mentioned.

[bobthenailer]

FME smelted jacketed pistol bullets lead is harder than soft lead , about 8 bhn
Dont forget to salvage the bullet jackets there worth around $2.50 a pound , there around 95% copper. in my last smelt i had 42lbs of jackets.

[imashooter2]

Call around before you put a lot of effort into salvaging the jackets. Lots of folks get good money for them, but the yards around here won't touch them.

[runfiverun]

even the 22 lr bullets have 1 to 1-1/2% antimony in them.
once you melt things down and re-mix the batches into one homogenous batch you'll have enough to work with.
I'd be worried about actually getting it home, not what to do with it once it was there.
you can fix it to do what you need for you.

[triggerhappy243]

GETTING IT LOADED, GETTING IT HOME AND GETTING IT UNLOADED IS NO TROUBLE AT ALL. i HAVE A DUMP TRUCK AND A FRONT END LOADER.

[tazman]

GETTING IT LOADED, GETTING IT HOME AND GETTING IT UNLOADED IS NO TROUBLE AT ALL. i HAVE A DUMP TRUCK AND A FRONT END LOADER.

You are all set then. Go for it.

[Sgtonory]

I have smelted 5 tons or more of range scrap. The jackets can be hard to pawn off at a scrap yard. But the lead was around 8-10bhn and casts just fine.

[triggerhappy243]

I mainly am looking to extract the pure lead out of this load because I am running short on pure.... and i can buy it cheaper than my wheel weights.

[imashooter2]

I mainly am looking to extract the pure lead out of this load because I am running short on pure.... and i can buy it cheaper than my wheel weights.

Well, you aren't going to find any pure in range scrap.

[triggerhappy243]

that was my original inquiry. I wanted to know what type of lead would be in jacketed rifle and pistol bullets. I know hard cast are what they are.

[Alan in Vermont]

I had a sample analyzed from the indoor range lead I salvaged two years ago. I suspect this would be fairly typical of any range that has a mix of rimfire/centerfire and cast/jacketed material.

sb 1.66, sn .33, bi 2.23, pb 92.80, cu .31, fe .88 The alloy calculator gives this an estimated Brinell hardness of 10

[ABJ]

I have also done several tons. the xrf gun showed 1.2 sb and zero sn. my range allows pistol only. no rifle. i add a .025lbs of lino to a 1.2lb ingot. the lino typeface is a little less than one inch long to hit that weight. hope the info is useful.

[triggerhappy243]

I got a call from that indoor range today. 60 cents a pound for the range scrap.

[imashooter2]

Seems way high for dirty scrap and a lot of work...

[dragon813gt]

Seems way high for dirty scrap and a lot of work...

Especially if you can't sell the jackets to a scrap yard. If you can it's not a bad deal. But a lot of work w/ a lot of junk to remove from the pot.

[Chill Wills]

I got a call from that indoor range today. 60 cents a pound for the range scrap.

I think that is way high too. Even in this day and age.

As an example, 20 years ago Denver Bullet Co was moving to Kansas (along with a name change).
They were having a fire sale - OK, a moving sale. They needed to have their building empty - pronto!
I stopped by and picked up more than 20 full 5 gallon buckets of indoor backstop scrap.
Along with the scrap lead and jackets in the buckets was all kinds of trash from shotgun wads to lots of paper target bits and even what must have been floor dirt.
A full to the brim 5 gal bucket at 160-175 lbs would yield 105 - 115 pounds of clean ingots. I paid a crazy low price for this scrap as they were VERY motivated to be rid of it.....
But, in your case, at $0.60/lb and maybe 2/5th trash loss, you are pushing the $1 / lb mark and having to do the work too! Hmmm.

At the $1 mark that makes the FS-Trade guys here look like a good deal! Maybe? ;)

[triggerhappy243]

thank you all for all the insight. i have not seen this range lead, and it is a 60 mile haul one way to boot. i can buy coww for .60 cents a pound and the place is less than a mile from my house. will need to re-think this one.

[dragon813gt]

Do you know what the jacketed/cast ratio is? And is there a yard that will take the jackets? Some will pay #2 copper price which yields the most money. In reality the jackets are red brass which is what price they should be paying you. Use a magnet to remove any steel. A citric acid bath at the end to clean the jackets up can sometimes yield more money at the yard. It's a lot of work.

[triggerhappy243]

dragon813, i have not seen it yet.... mainly because i need to cross a mountain range covered with snow and ice just to get there. i need to call them and ask about that.

[triggerhappy243]

Well i passed on this range scrap. My local recycler would only pay .15 cents a pound for the copper.... Because of the lead residue. If i could somehow shread the copper to make it look like something other than bulley jackets, i would have done it.

[blaser.306]

In my opinion the whole lead contaminated thing is a load of you know what! The scrapper here pays #2 dirty copper for the jackets , then takes and throws them into the large container with all the #1 bright? Just an example of the buy low and sell for a fortune adage.

[imashooter2]

Buyers set their price, sellers set theirs. If there is an overlap, you do business. If not you move on. The offer was 15 cents more than the guys around here will give, but certainly not enough to make 60 cent a pound dirty scrap lead attractive.

[Minerat]

thank you all for all the insight. i have not seen this range lead, and it is a 60 mile haul one way to boot.

Why not have them send you a sample in a SFRB to save the drive? If they fall for it get me the address and I'll ask for a sample too.:p

[lwknight]

I too think that $0.60 per pound for range scrap is a little on the high side by itself. However if you find an outlet for the jackets you might actually come out ahead ( as in liken to free lead) barring labor and transportation costs.
I pay $0.80 for what is mostly roofing boots and a few treasures like solder. Its easy smelting and probably less than 3 or 4 % total loss to dross and junk. There is no loss in the roofing boot but the small amount of other junk works out about 50-60 percent loss.

[fragman]

Did you counter their 60c a pound offer? They are proabably getting nothing right now.