Range Lead - The Big Smelt

[SoonerEd]

Started cleaning 2,700 lbs of range lead. Pouring mostly mini loafs weighing around 11 lbs each. This is a slow process using a harbor freight dutch oven over a propane burning. Using a weed burner from the topside really helped speed things up.

Got 292 lbs done Saturday, 320 lbs Sunday. Got 13 buckets out of 34 done.

[remy3424]

11 pound loaf....now how do you use those? A pile if work, but you'll like the payoff!

[MOA]

I feel for you SoonerEd. I only had a little over 600 back in November, but I got real tired of doing my lead in a Dutch oven. I finally built a smelter just to cook the raw stuff down to usable size and alloy mixes. I bbq propane tank and a 20 foot length of 1-1/4 x1-1/4" angle iron. It'll do 350 pounds in the kettle at a time.

https://i.postimg.cc/ZqTdH4fw/20211107-152451-1.jpg (https://postimg.cc/xX48TDVm)

https://i.postimg.cc/xdtbFhhn/20211107-152428-HDR-1.jpg (https://postimg.cc/QBKtF4jy)

https://i.postimg.cc/ZKN501wq/20211110-150541-HDR-1.jpg (https://postimg.cc/LnHpb0Kd)

https://i.postimg.cc/PNnhm5S5/20211110-161653-1.jpg (https://postimg.cc/GTKZRd0W)

[lightman]

Thats a good weekends work! Me and a buddy need to get together before it gets warm and have our annual smelting party.

[rancher1913]

I did not feel like doing all the smelting work when our range closed. I was given permission to clean the berms but not much time, so I took my trackhoe and peeled off about 2 foot of the face until I saw no more traces of bullets and then hauled the dirt home, got about 50 dump trucks worth of dirt piled in my back field and figure when I need lead I will mine it and process it then. some of the loader buckets where chock full of bullets.

[Rickf1985]

Taking 2 feet off the front of a berm permanently means it must be dug into a pit? Or side of a large hill? Around here the berms are built up onto flat ground so you can't take anything off without replacing it. But it must be nice to have a never ending supply of lead in your back yard! Albeit lead leaching into your water supply might not be real good.

[kevin c]

I use those same quad mini loaf pans to make storage ingots.

I suggest using a good filtration mask when screening the material from the outdoor berms: lots of fine particles of oxidized lead will get all over. My highest lead levels were when I processed range lead.

[SoonerEd]

I'm using the mini loaf pans from kroger. One 11 brick will fit into my RCBS pot if I need it. I'm pouring a lot of bricks as I already have 2,500 lbs in ingots, muffins etc if I need them. I'm expecting to get around 1,500 lbs of range lead and I'm putting this back for long term storage. If I move some day, 11 lbs bricks are easy to move, as compared to ingots. 1,300 angle iron ingots would be a night mare to move. If or when I need ingots someday I'll melt them down and pour them. In the last batch or two I'll pour angle iron ingots. That would be about 130 1.2 lbs ingots for now which will be plenty in range lead. If I can figure out the picture thing I'll upload some. I tried but it didn't work. Do pictures have a size limit? The ones i took on my phone are around 6-7 megs which is rather large.

[SoonerEd]

MOA, my mini loaf bricks look a lot like that, just not as square with slightly more rounded corners.

A friend of mine was going to build me a bottom pour smelter from 12" oilfield pipe for 200-300 lbs batches. But, he's had gallbladder problems, then sugery, while he's still trying to run a business making steel targets for ranges and individuals . I'll still get it eventually but it's had to move down his priority list.

[kevin c]

My processing pot is about 12” diameter, being a 20 pound propane tank cut a bit above the midpoint. The rounded bottom holds less than a cylindrical pot (240-250# filled with 1-2” to spare to contain any sloshing), but makes it a bit easier to get lead from the bottom using a ladle.

I’d guess the right valve diameter is important for a high capacity bottom pour pot, especially if it is deep. Lots of head pressure from a tall lead column might splash with a valve with too much volume; the reverse problem with a too narrow valve and a low lead level. Keeping the spout hot but accessible is an issue, and there’s trying to move an ingot mold full of molten alloy out from under the spout to fill the next. I was also leery of a jammed open valve.

Maybe you’ve got solutions to those problems and your friend’s fabrication skills are up to making them a reality, but since I didn’t and don’t, I opted for the simple ladle pot.

ETA: even with a high BTU double jet burner, I found the weed burner heating from above a very helpful hack. Just watch for spitting lead from superheated microscopic voids or volatilized impurities.

[SoonerEd]

They have already built a prototype and got the valve diameter and stem worked out. They are going to build three in the next go round. If anyone wants to see the prototype i can try to post a link. It's over on Mississippi Gun Owners forum.

[MOA]

They have already built a prototype and got the valve diameter and stem worked out. They are going to build three in the next go round. If anyone wants to see the prototype i can try to post a link. It's over on Mississippi Gun Owners forum.

Sooner, I'd love a link if possible. Sounds like good news. Hope they have tall legs. The bending over will just wipe you out after 5 or 6 hours.

[SoonerEd]

Kevin c

Thanks for the tip based off actual experience.

[SoonerEd]

Sooner, I'd love a link if possible. Sounds like good news. Hope they have tall legs. The bending over will just wipe you out after 5 or 6 hours.

I can't figure out how to copy the link from my tablet. Go to msgo dot com and search for "my version of a smelting pot". It's by Ellis93. I'm under the name of Soonered. You may have to register, not sure. Ellis is an excellent mechanic and a good designer and fabricator. He has some good tips on how he built the bottom pour smelter with pictures.

[MOA]

I can't figure out how to copy the link from my tablet. Go to msgo dot com and search for "my version of a smelting pot". It's by Ellis93. I'm under the name of Soonered. You may have to register, not sure. Ellis is an excellent mechanic and a good designer and fabricator. He has some good tips on how he built the bottom pour smelter with pictures.

https://www.msgo.com/search/31865/?q=Ellis93+%22my+version+of+a+smelting+pot%22&o=relevance

Think this is link I got doing the search.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

Dealing witn a ton of scrap is a problem i'd like to have.

[SoonerEd]

https://www.msgo.com/search/31865/?q=Ellis93+%22my+version+of+a+smelting+pot%22&o=relevance

Think this is link I got doing the search.

That's it. Thanks for posting.

[SoonerEd]

Got another 14 buckets done yesterday and today. Yielded 700+ lbs. Only 7 more buckets to go. Got a little more than 1,300 lbs so far. Should break 1,500 by the time I’m done.

[GregLaROCHE]

There’s nothing like free lead, even if you have to work a bit to get it.

[SoonerEd]

Finished up today. In total got 1,645 lbs of lead poured mostly into 11 pound bricks. Yield ended up being 61%. This was a lot of work...I'd have to be desperate to take on a project like this again. That puts me around 2 tons in total. So, I think I'm good for a while.

[unclemikeinct]

I'm proud of you son. Back in the day of almost free wheel weights. We would call it a day after 2 five-gallon buckets. I'm still blending those 2 plus pound "Muffins" into the scrap I scrounge up nowadays. I Add some pewter scrap 1 or two pounds per 40 lbs of weight. My cast Dutch oven pan is not huge. Keep up the good work. It pays off big time long term. Uncle Mike in Ct.

[unclemikeinct]

Ps. w/o blending tin into that stuff. You have over 55K 200grain boolits. That's a nice size pile.

[SoonerEd]

It's running between 7.8 and 8.4 BHN on the batches that have aged two weeks. I'm happy that the hardness is very consistent across batches which is one of the things I wanted to accomplish. A batch was 75 to 85 lbs per batch with approximately 20 lbs left in the pot to help melt the next batch and to smooth the BHN across batches.

[SoonerEd]

Finally figured out the picture thing.

Started with 34 buckets with 50-90 lbs each of range lead
296913

Lots of trash. About 40% by weight but about 80% by volume
296912


296914

Those are 11+ pound bricks on average
These bricks and the ingots in the below picture is the first two days (one weekend)
296915

Angle Iron Ingots are about 1 1/4 pounds each
296916

The next pictures are of three days of work spread over two weekends. This is almost a half ton of lead in this picture.
296917

[sw282]

Finished up today. In total got 1,645 lbs of lead poured mostly into 11 pound bricks. Yield ended up being 61%. This was a lot of work...I'd have to be desperate to take on a project like this again. That puts me around 2 tons in total. So, I think I'm good for a while.

40% trash?? Any copper salvageable from boolit jkts??

[SoonerEd]

Most of the trash by weight was sand/dirt. I would have had to run everything through my cement mixer but that would have been another major project for likely only a couple hundred pounds of copper or less. Not worth two days work.

Same buddy has 500 lbs of reclaimed shot he wants me to come get.

[Shiloh]

Do they slide into the pot whole lake that??

Shiloh

[SoonerEd]

I have an RCBS pot and one will fit. Of course the angle iron ingots fit without issue. The bricks I'm using for long term storage mostly to some day when needed pour into ingots. I already had over 2,000 lbs in ingots. So, did not need this in ingots as well...too hard to store and move.

[William Yanda]

Sounds like you need a modified propane tank for your project.