Jon
03-25-2009, 08:48 AM
I stopped at the range yesterday to see what I coud find for lead. Unfortunately, the ground is still frozen, but the snow had melted enough so that there was quite a bit laying on the top. My bucket sifter didn't work out so well with the wet soil mixed with bits of plywood from the backstop. So I spent an hour picking up the bullets on the top. Most of them were fmj with a few cast mixed in.
Let me say that FMJ and HP are not that fun to melt down. I had to pick out all of the jackets after the lead had melted out. I did get about 8 lbs of ingots out of 2 full pots worth of range lead. There's probably another 5 lbs or so to go.
I learned the hard way that a torch on the top of the melting pot isn't a good idea when dealing with range lead. I had a couple of bullets squirt lead at me. The 10lb pot takes forever to heat up so I was trying to help it along.
Any tips for seperating out the backstop material from the lead? I was thinking about bringing some water to float off the stuff, and then skimming the top. Then dumping the water, and running the mud through my sifter. The water could probably be semi-recycled for the next bucket.
Stay safe and just say no to the tinsel fairy :-) :coffee:
Let me say that FMJ and HP are not that fun to melt down. I had to pick out all of the jackets after the lead had melted out. I did get about 8 lbs of ingots out of 2 full pots worth of range lead. There's probably another 5 lbs or so to go.
I learned the hard way that a torch on the top of the melting pot isn't a good idea when dealing with range lead. I had a couple of bullets squirt lead at me. The 10lb pot takes forever to heat up so I was trying to help it along.
Any tips for seperating out the backstop material from the lead? I was thinking about bringing some water to float off the stuff, and then skimming the top. Then dumping the water, and running the mud through my sifter. The water could probably be semi-recycled for the next bucket.
Stay safe and just say no to the tinsel fairy :-) :coffee: