evan price
08-29-2009, 10:46 PM
A good friend has been dropping off buckets of recovered range bullets from the berm where he works.
What I got was 3 5-gal buckets which were nominally 60# of berm scrap in each. There was a lot of cast boolits mixed in with what was mostly jacketed. I'd say about 20-25% cast boolits.
Procedure was to dump each bucket on the bed of my trailer and spread thin, then hose off the dirt and pebbles and shotgun wads, etc. and let dry in the sun a few days. Then they were processed in my turkey burner pot setup.
What I got out of 180# of scrap:
125 pounds of good lead ingots (that seemed to my uneducated eye to not be much softer than the WW ingots I've been making)
25 pounds of copper jacket scrap, hopefully to sell as #2 copper
3 pounds of steel scrap- steel bullet jackets, etc. including one muzzle-loader ramrod end (love to know the story about that- it was obviously FIRED into the berm!)
1 pound of brass scrap- shell casings that got out to the berm
26 pounds of mud, rocks, and dross (not much lead here) measured by estimation only (it's what's unaccounted for)
The entire smelt took about 5 hours total including setup, cleanup, weighing the ingots, etc. and another hour spent washing the stuff a few days before. This stuff was not mined, it was what was raked off during berm maintenance from the surface and the ground at the base and top of the berm.
My friend said this is what had built up over several years and nobody knew what to do with it except bury it in the berm. I paid him $10 a bucket for this stuff, and I think the #2 copper might actually pay for the whole lot.
I've been given limited permission to berm mine this location so long as it does not disrupt shooting or damage the berms or look obvious that someone is doing it, as long as I repair the berm to the condition it was in before I started that day.
What I got was 3 5-gal buckets which were nominally 60# of berm scrap in each. There was a lot of cast boolits mixed in with what was mostly jacketed. I'd say about 20-25% cast boolits.
Procedure was to dump each bucket on the bed of my trailer and spread thin, then hose off the dirt and pebbles and shotgun wads, etc. and let dry in the sun a few days. Then they were processed in my turkey burner pot setup.
What I got out of 180# of scrap:
125 pounds of good lead ingots (that seemed to my uneducated eye to not be much softer than the WW ingots I've been making)
25 pounds of copper jacket scrap, hopefully to sell as #2 copper
3 pounds of steel scrap- steel bullet jackets, etc. including one muzzle-loader ramrod end (love to know the story about that- it was obviously FIRED into the berm!)
1 pound of brass scrap- shell casings that got out to the berm
26 pounds of mud, rocks, and dross (not much lead here) measured by estimation only (it's what's unaccounted for)
The entire smelt took about 5 hours total including setup, cleanup, weighing the ingots, etc. and another hour spent washing the stuff a few days before. This stuff was not mined, it was what was raked off during berm maintenance from the surface and the ground at the base and top of the berm.
My friend said this is what had built up over several years and nobody knew what to do with it except bury it in the berm. I paid him $10 a bucket for this stuff, and I think the #2 copper might actually pay for the whole lot.
I've been given limited permission to berm mine this location so long as it does not disrupt shooting or damage the berms or look obvious that someone is doing it, as long as I repair the berm to the condition it was in before I started that day.