clean out day at the range!

[blaser.306]

Today was the once every six month backstop clean out! Not a bad deal, Get the convicts from the correctional center out to do the grunt labor digging and sifting all the backstop sand. Then they bring it out to myself and another waiting lead melter... The deal is we melt the lead from the jackets And then the club keeps half for re sale and the other half (ish) is for our consumption. In all reality it will be going right back where it came from anyway? There is a brand of copper plated bullets we have here in Canada and the co. that makes them uses a 6% antimony core! A lot of my range scrap is actualy harder than WW! My take home for the day was 25 "bars" each weigh approx. 15 LBS. Should keep me shooting for a little while anyway. Between the 2 of us 1500lbs were cleaned.

[Yodogsandman]

Good deal!

[GrayTech]

Awesome. What brand of plated bullets were you referring to? Are they made here in Canada?

[blaser.306]

Awesome. What brand of plated bullets were you referring to? Are they made here in Canada?

Yup, I am. If they are still around they are Aim Projectiles, From Ontario I believe. The mother company Is Alchemy Extrusion.

[MediumCore358]

Nice ingots!

[blaser.306]

Nice ingots!

They work out really nice! The 3 segments are about 5 (ish) LBS each and are easily broken at the dividing lines. They drop nicely into a Lee pro 4-20 and very nicely into my pro melt. The moulds are made from standard 3" channel iron.

[kbstenberg]

You must have a VERY large pot to smelt that much in a day!
I sure wish I could make that arrangement with the local indoor range. being in the US. All lead has to be handled as hazardus material.

[lightman]

Don't you feel a little guilty getting that much lead with so little work?:kidding: Just kidding, nice haul! In my operation, I'm the convict doing the work, and I feel it at the end of the day.

[blaser.306]

You must have a VERY large pot to smelt that much in a day!
I sure wish I could make that arrangement with the local indoor range. being in the US. All lead has to be handled as hazardus material.
Actually all the melting was done with a 20 lb. propane tank pot ( Cut in half ) and a turkey burner for a heat source. A small lid is needed , as "occasionally" a live round will find it's way down to the sand trap at the end thus creating some excitement when melting. Being there is no fear of zinc, the heat can be poured to it and let er roar. We started ta 9:00 and were cleaned up for closing time at 5. Good day's work. And yes even though I / we didn't have to dig it out of the backstop and sift it . My back isn't terribly happy with me today. As much as I hate to admit it , I may actually be getting older ( obviously no smarter ) .

[MediumCore358]

I have a hillside that's been shot into for at least 30 years and I'm sure it's a fairly concentrated In an area of about 20x20 ft. Not high volume shooting but there's gotta be 10's of thousands of rounds in there. I'm thinking about mining it, just missing the labor lol. What technique did they use to get it out? Just shovel and shake over hardware cloth? Large screen?

[GoodOlBoy]

nice haul!

GoodOlBoy

[Geezer in NH]

Slave work is always cool when you are not the slave.

Lost me when you said convicts working for YOUR gain.

I don't need lead that bad.

It seems Canada is not that good

[Sweetpea]

Slave work is always cool when you are not the slave.

Lost me when you said convicts working for YOUR gain.

I don't need lead that bad.

It seems Canada is not that good

Wow, looks like you need to re-read the OP!

The Convicts are doing a service for the RANGE, by cleaning out the traps.

Blaser.306 and his buddy, are doing a service for the RANGE, by smelting the scrap into sellable ingots, for which the RANGE "pays" them in lead.

Seems pretty cut and dried to me!

[blaser.306]

Yes, the provincial correctional in,ates are doing the work thru the urban camp for the range, We are only doing the value added part of it to benefit the club. Before this , the lead was worth nothing. wasn't worth the fuel to drive it across the city to take it to the scraper!

[Beagle333]

375# of lead for a day's work. Not bad! I don't make enough in a day to buy 375#, so that is really good! :grin:

[Sasquatch-1]

May I suggest building a table out of old pallets to set your equipment on. You can make about any height you find comfortable. Less bending means less back pain.



And yes even though I / we didn't have to dig it out of the backstop and sift it . My back isn't terribly happy with me today. As much as I hate to admit it , I may actually be getting older ( obviously no smarter ) .

[blaser.306]

May I suggest building a table out of old pallets to set your equipment on. You can make about any height you find comfortable. Less bending means less back pain.

We were working off of a raised platform for the ingots. Just shoveling, and ladleing molten lead. I have a ladle that holds 20 lb of liquid. It all adds up when the total is around 800 ish lbs.

[RoGrrr]

Blaster
You have a great thing going at your range there but you might consider increasing their efficiency and speeding up their process, which might net you even more lead.
I've been mining the berm at a local range and over the past few years I have improved what I do to the point that I can gather enough to fill a 5 gallon bucket (about 175 Lbs) by myself in under an hour.
I rake from the top down and put the rakings into my sifter basket and shake out the dirt (best done when it's been hot for several days after a rain to dry the dirt out and a bit breezy. After an hour of gathering/sifting, it's amazing how much dirt washes out of my nose when I go into the club house to clean up.). The basket's about 8" x 8" x 15" made from 1/4" machine screen welded to the edges of light duty angle iron. the handles are 3/8" square tubing.
It only weighs about 8 Lbs and is strong enough that I can stand on it as a step.


142363

It's been raining here in Ohio for several months so I can't get anything from the muddy berms. But when it finally stops and dries out, there should be a mother lode of ore !

Several people have ridiculed me for mining the berms (slow, dirty, back breaking) but when I finish casting my boolits, I'll be able to sit back and laugh at them. I have enough lead to cast well over 50,000 45s or 100,000 9mm slugs. Any way you look at it, that's around SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS that they will have to spend and I don't. I'm retired and chalk it up to being my HOBBY !

[Sasquatch-1]

I picked up one of these. I only get the bigger bullets and very little dirt. The berm at my club is so saturated that it takes about 20 minutes to get half a 5 gal. bucket. After that I'm done for.:veryconfu

142370

[blaser.306]

Blaster
You have a great thing going at your range there but you might consider increasing their efficiency and speeding up their process, which might net you even more lead.
I've been mining the berm at a local range and over the past few years I have improved what I do to the point that I can gather enough to fill a 5 gallon bucket (about 175 Lbs) by myself in under an hour.
I rake from the top down and put the rakings into my sifter basket and shake out the dirt (best done when it's been hot for several days after a rain to dry the dirt out and a bit breezy. After an hour of gathering/sifting, it's amazing how much dirt washes out of my nose when I go into the club house to clean up.). The basket's about 8" x 8" x 15" made from 1/4" machine screen welded to the edges of light duty angle iron. the handles are 3/8" square tubing.
It only weighs about 8 Lbs and is strong enough that I can stand on it as a step.


142363

It's been raining here in Ohio for several months so I can't get anything from the muddy berms. But when it finally stops and dries out, there should be a mother lode of ore !

Several people have ridiculed me for mining the berms (slow, dirty, back breaking) but when I finish casting my boolits, I'll be able to sit back and laugh at them. I have enough lead to cast well over 50,000 45s or 100,000 9mm slugs. Any way you look at it, that's around SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS that they will have to spend and I don't. I'm retired and chalk it up to being my HOBBY !

We have a machine cloth affair that is held on a frame @ about a 45* angle. The smaller stuff is poured down the face with the range exhaust fans running, the vast majority of the lead and jackets roll down the front for collection. The sand piles up behind for replacement to the sand trap. Not a bad operation. To clean the lead form the 2 indoor ranges each one is approx. 25 feet wide took 8 guy's about 3 hours . Each one working for a while, then being spelled off and resting while another worked. Have to hand it to them, big job done fast .

[RoGrrr]

Sasquatch-1
I tried something like that and VERY QUICKLY realized that I needed something that is "industrial strength". It takes vigorous shaking to get the (clumps of) dirt out. That's why I mentioned a hot and DRY day to mine the berm.
I was picking one at a time and remembered a sifter my Father had built for my Mother and her flower beds. It was a 15" frame made of 6" wide boards, 1/2" thick. He nailed some 1/4" screen wire on it.
I took it to the range and it worked.
or SEEMED to work - bulky, cumbersome bcuz of no handles. But proof of concept was what I wanted so I made a small sifter (Gen-1) out of machine screen stiffened with some very light gauge angle iron. It was about 8x15. Worked better than the flower box sifter so I built my bigger sifter (Gen-2).
Again, it didn't take long to realize that some improvement was in order and when I got home I added the handles to the ends (Gen-3).
I usually put about 4" of ore and dirt in it and shake with a flipping type of motion (eggs or pancakes), as if I'm trying to rotate what's on the bottom up to the top. If I put any more than that in it, it's a bit difficult for me to handle, even tho I'm in decent physical shape. I'm 67 years old and tip the scales at under 150 pounds. Consequently, I need something that is reasonable for me to handle. If I was as big as Shaquille Oneal I'd build one that's 24x36x12 deep.
And if I had his $$$$, I'd just buy the range and shoot factory ammo, too. Just sayin'.
I plan to build Gen-4 of the same thing but have one long side curved outward (probably a 30" radius) and the other long side curved inward so I can fit it on and in some of the undulations of the berm. I'll also make it about 5" deep.

=

My Gen-1 Sifter
142380


Blaser
Here in the US, we would say that those convicts are performing "Community Service" !