Hardness of Range Lead

[captain-03]

Finished up melting down about 500 lbs of range lead. The lead was recovered from an impact berm and consists of lead boolits along with jacketed bullets. Check the hardness with my Lee tester and it came out to be around 12 BHN. Does this sound close to correct for hardness of typical range lead?

[runfiverun]

yeah.
I'd say the commercial cast pulled it up some.
normally it's around 10 or so and needs a little tin.
but yours sounds just right to just make boolits with as is.

[Traffer]

must have been lots of non jacketed bullets. 10-11bhn is more common in range scrap.

[bangerjim]

Range lead will totally depend on types of shooters using the range.

I have found range lead from 10-18. ComCast boolits are in the upper range (easier to ship without damage) and hand cast run in the 10-14 range.

Mix 'em all up and cast. Don't worry that much about hardness when using RL! After all, you are melting garbage, so result will not be that consistent.

banger

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I bought range lead from a member, and it was quite soft, 8.5 bhn to be precise. I figure it must have come from a range where most bullets were 22lr and shotgun slugs and muzzle loader.

The range lead I recover from my clubs pistol pit (picking it up off the ground after a rain) comes out the same as COWW (12 bhn).

[Kraschenbirn]

Been mining our club's outdoor pistol berm for several years. When I first began, the club had quite a few more reloaders and recovered lead went in the 10-12 Bhn range. Today, though, with less people reloading, I see a lot more jacketed stuff with typical salvage hardness around 9.5 Bhn. Example: one member, an attorney who shoots IDPA, shows up every Sunday morning, fires 200-250 factory 9mms, sweeps up his brass, dumps it in the recycle bucket, and leaves. I've noticed the same from many of our 'steel match' shooters, too; for practice they shoot the cheapest 9mm FMJs available and throw away their empties. Likewise with several of our LEO members; they bring their monthly 'practice' issue to our range (open every day) rather than try to work in time on the department's range that's only available a few hours a week.

Bill

[DerekP Houston]

Mine varies per batch purchased and I don't have a proper testing kit. I just made a big batch in my "smelting" pot and mixed it all together for consistency sake (muffin ingots for me). When that one is done I'll melt down another big batch and mix up the new stuff. Since I shoot mainly low pressure rounds (pistol only so far) I've gotten away with this method so far. I add tin to the bottom pour in approx 1% and pour them into 1lb lee ingots, or cast with it.

Once I get my hands on my dads muzzleloaders I'll have to get some pure lead to work with and start the adventure all over again.

[Walter Laich]

mine come from various members on this site as well as several scrap yards

Good thing is I PC all mine so hardness becomes much less an issue

[captain-03]

........you are melting garbage, so result will not be that consistent.

banger

Please school me a little on this statement. What makes range lead "garbage?" WWs do not seems to be all that consistent in composition so each batch is a little bit different. I would venture to say that the majority of casters do not use foundry lead or alloys. I would say most use what is available (WWs, scrap from recycle places, etc, etc). If you are using an alloy, regardless of origin, that is consistent from boolit to boolit and the other components are the same (case, primer, charge) why would they not be consistent? Thanks!!

[Bigslug]

My project from last year: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/archive/index.php/t-269789.html

I now separate into categories before slagging it down now, which works out great because it gets me a lot of stuff that is lead/tin only (25-1 for jacketed, 40-1 for shotgun slugs). With the OPC (Other People's Cast) I have a cheap FN bullet mold handy when I smelt, to hardness testing air cooled and water dropped to check against our forum's calculator & get an idea of what I'm dealing with.