Left overs from melting range scrap

[mikey44]

Got a bunch of range scrap, like a truck load. got the lead out of it, good stuff too. now i have several 5 gal buckets of bullet jackets. the Scrap yard wont take them now, they say it might be live ammo in it and will not buy it. What do you guys do with it. Has anybody melted down the jackets to make copper bars out of it? if so any tips? just got a foundry for melting brass, cause the scrap yard don't want to take that ether. any tips are welcome.

[Krh1326]

Wow the scrap guys by me, are monsters. They’ll take their grandma’s just for the fillings. ��

[markshere2]

Got a bunch of range scrap, like a truck load. got the lead out of it, good stuff too. now i have several 5 gal buckets of bullet jackets. the Scrap yard wont take them now, they say it might be live ammo in it and will not buy it. What do you guys do with it. Has anybody melted down the jackets to make copper bars out of it? if so any tips? just got a foundry for melting brass, cause the scrap yard don't want to take that ether. any tips are welcome.

Possibly your new foundry will smelt Copper as well as brass?

I plan to make a foundry - i have gathered materials, but higher priorities.....

[Huskerguy]

I have processed quite a bit of indoor range lead over the past few years. More than I can to admit. I grew up dirt poor and as such, I can't stand to see anything go to waste. I try and sort through the range lead before melting it, recovering the separated jackets and then again while I am melting and finally sorting pieces from the stuff I sift off. I cannot convince myself it is not worth it, it really isn't no more than it produces.

I have a big old jar on a shelf in my reloading room full of jackets to get people to ask what that is. Aside from that I probably have 3 -4 coffee cans of jackets ready to sell along with several cans full of old primers. All this, along with a few pieces of scrap metal and I can buy my wife and I a biggie bag at Wendy's.

[Martin Luber]

Try a different yard; mine even takes lead dross but only at .54/ lb.

Can't be a live round in yours if you already melted it. If not then melt it out.

[WRideout]

Try a different yard; mine even takes lead dross but only at .54/ lb.

Can't be a live round in yours if you already melted it. If not then melt it out.

Same here. The scrap yard I go to is super friendly, and will take almost anything.
Wayne

[Dusty Bannister]

Be sure to use a strong magnet to be sure and remove any brass plated steel cased bullets. A couple of those in a bucket of jackets reduces the value more than you would expect. Did you call the scrap buyer, or drive by so they could see the material you were scrapping.

[guzma393]

Seems like you need to find another scrapyard. By that logic, i'm assuming that scrapyard won't accept brass casings either, since it's more susceptible to have live rounds in it.

[elmacgyver0]

A woke scrapyard, who da thunk?

[Sasquatch-1]

With the price I got for the last load I took to the scrap yard I would agree with those who say find another scrap yard. Even if it's a good little drive combine the trip with something else. My last trip I got $2.10, a pound for mixed copper and yellow brass. If you have as much as you make it sound, you could walk away with several hundred dollars.

I do agree with the magnet trick. I would use a minimum of a 250# pull and one of the plastic drip pans you get at the auto parts store to spread the jackets out. You would be amazed at how many steel jackets you pull out. Every time I have taken jackets to the scrap yard, they have plunged a magnet into the boxes.

[lightman]

I agree, call around and find another yard! I recently sold a bunch of scrap and some of the places I called for prices wouldn't take cartridge brass. We have a Remington plant near us and one yard ask if my brass was Remington. Theft must be a problem?

[imashooter2]

It isn’t unusual at all. No yards around me will take the jackets. But they will take cartridge brass. I throw them away.

[barnetmill]

i have several 5 gal buckets of bullet jackets.

For a bucket or two of brass jackets, put it in taped up box in a garbage bag and with your general house trash put it in the local county landfill with no comment on what it is. Just how much a pound is anyone paying for scrap brass anyway and is it really worth your trouble trying to sell it.

Some years ago I was involved in cleanup of former army ammunition plants and prior to selling the dismantled materials from the sites we set very hot fires to burn out everything. We would coat if I recall right glass balls with TNT and then after the fire, test them for TNT. Later at that site some scrap by another contractor was not burned out and it killed someone setting off all sorts of investigations beginning with the road road transport of the haz waste. Someone lower on the food chain got burned and not the lawyers and big shots that own that business.
I am planning to pick up a couple of buckets of lead for my own use from a berm at my club. For my own safety I will take some measures because someone could have easily have tossed a dud round down range that could go off in a melting pot. I may just return the jackets to the range or maybe just take it to landfill in a garbage bag and dispose of it as general house hold trash. There is no reason to tell the county land fill people about at most a 5 gallon bucket of bullet jackets.

[TyGuy]

I have been collecting the jackets from my own recovered range scrap. So far I have only hammered it all flat to take up less space. I’ll eventually melt it down and cast something out of it. I casted a solid copper tray for our salt and pepper grinders out of old electrical contacts last winter. It’s far from perfect due to my shoddy “greensand” but it’s still really cool and I have better sand now.

[schutzen-jager]

try a different scrap yard or see if there is a metal refiner in your area here the refiner pays more then the scrap yard for brass , +copper -

[Dimner]

Earlier this year my scrap yard gave me $3/lb for my jackets. I was a very happy shooter.

[ioon44]

I have always been able to sell bullet jackets at my local scrap yards.

[oley55]

Got a bunch of range scrap, like a truck load. got the lead out of it, good stuff too. now i have several 5 gal buckets of bullet jackets. the Scrap yard wont take them now, they say it might be live ammo in it and will not buy it. What do you guys do with it. Has anybody melted down the jackets to make copper bars out of it? if so any tips? just got a foundry for melting brass, cause the scrap yard don't want to take that ether. any tips are welcome.

I gotta ask, "did the scrap yard reject them in person or over the phone?" If you called them and used the wrong words to describe your scrap would explain a lot. Hard to imagine them rejecting a bucket full of obviously smelted/burnt jackets.

[mikey44]

it was in person with the 2 buckets on the scale 167#.

[mikey44]

there are some small rocks in the jackets. what will those rocks do when they get heated up to the temp 1800+ degrees that copper melts, will they just float in the dross like everything does in lead?

[imashooter2]

Some might crack or pop. Whether they float or not depends on the specific gravity of each in relation to the other.

[mikey44]

yes i took it blindly to the yard. they looked at it, called the owner and he said no.