Range lead, normal findings??

[mac1911]

I recieved a small sample of some indoor range lead. A far better sample than the indoor "frangable" scrap I recieved before.
This batch was just about a 1/4 full of powder/mushroomed slugs and the spent jackets. My questions are.

I have smelted down about 400lbs of lead. Sheilding, sheet, WWs, pipe, scrap and the mushroomed chunks from a previous indoor score.
this batch was the most vile stinky smoke I have encountered thus far. Is this normal?

I got 31lbs of lead. It started raining before I could weigh the left over **** and jackets. What is the average lead to scrap ratio,

I can get more and I will. Says theres enough for a couple of buckets.

[daschnoz]

WW will yield about 75% of original weight as ingots. Not sure about range lead, but I would imagine it would be in the same ball park; 70%-80%.

[sagacious]

this batch was the most vile stinky smoke I have encountered thus far. Is this normal?

I got 31lbs of lead. It started raining before I could weigh the left over **** and jackets. What is the average lead to scrap ratio.
Congrats on your windfall. If the range has oiled steel backstops, then you can expect a lot of smoke from the scrap.

I have to admit that I have never been tempted to actually measure the lead:waste ratio. For every batch of scrap lead I have melted, there is always some waste-- sometimes more, sometimes less. Good luck.

[mac1911]

as long as the lead is free I dont really mind what the ratio is, I will only use the info in nagotiating a price. As it stands I can get a few buckets for the labor to remove.

[fryboy]

if u weigh before u smelt and then just ur lead afterwards there ya go ( thaz all that matters anyway:wink: ) i've been told i could resmelt my dross and get a lil more from it eh it just goes in with the scrap clips and pipe fittings

[daschnoz]

...
i've been told i could resmelt my dross and get a lil more from it eh it just goes in with the scrap clips and pipe fittings

Really... how much usable alloy are you going to get out of this? MAYBE 10 or so bullets worth? It's not worth the effort. Besides, that's the lead that contains all of the crap you wanted to remove in the first place. Why would you re-introduce it?

Free is good no matter how much you end up with. We don't factor our time into the equation. We all know it's a money pit. :castmine:

[sagacious]

as long as the lead is free I dont really mind what the ratio is, I will only use the info in nagotiating a price.
Mac1911,
If you are negotiating a price, you may not wish to rely too heavily on a "waste percentage." If the quantity of waste is known, the seller will focus more on the percentage of good lead that is known. That may not help your negotiation.

If you try to closely estimate the percentage of scrap, and try to pay only for the estimated recoverable lead, you may paint yourself into a corner. Just a suggestion, regards and best of luck.

[mac1911]

I was to curious to get it melted down and see what I had. I just weighed the scrap..........................12.5lbs that was a bit of a shocker. There is a good amount of scrap left mainly a dark dusty powder and the jackets I can see. 31lbs to 12.5 scrap. now if this weighed in @ 40ish lbs a full bucket will be heavy! Well I wont turn down the 2 or 3 buckets.

I do not factor my time....really if I could get overtime or even a part time job that fit into my life I would just do that to support my habbits/hobbies.
overtime and partime work is not to be found in my area.

[fredj338]

I guess it depends on the range. My club is outdoor, dirt berm. No rubber or whatever to deal w/ just dirt & jackets if you want them. I pretty much just remove the lead bullets out of the stuff & smelt that. Almost 100% return. It takes a bit more time but smelting is so much easier.

[lwknight]

Those pesky copper jackets add up to a lot of weight. Its hard to sell jackets as copper too.

[mac1911]

I went buy the recycler today. He told me he would give me scrap/dirty copper/brass prices on the jackets. His only request was to sort well with a magnet. current price was .28/lb but wants me to have 2 full buckets before I cash it in. He had no lead at all. I asked about trading metal for WWs or lead.

come back with some weight and we will talk.

[lwknight]

The last WWs I got were at least 15 percent zinc

[mac1911]

the indoor scrap is very dusty. to sort would be even more dusty. I rather keep the lead dusting to a min.

[mold maker]

Most of the fines from an indoor range have oxidized to the point of no return in lead.
Recovery from an outdoor dirt berm is much higher. The bullets may be flattened or have shed their jackets, but the oxide volume is less. I wash them in a cement mixer for about 5 min. then screen, to cut way down on the dross. There's no need wasting heat on dirt, which must be treated as hazardous when mixed with the normal dross.
Where mostly 22 LR bullets are involved the return is much lower. Where mostly jacket are the norm, the return is higher, and as stated the jackets, if free of lead, will trade for lead at the scrap yard.
Most of the lead I mine is from LEO and is jacketed. The hardness runs about 12 and really cast good HP Boolits for lower speeds.
Fellows, don't pass up any free source of lead, even if it requires a little more work. Set it aside to use when there is no other available. It will be extremely welcome then, regardless of how much the yield is.
That time may be sooner than you think.

[Stork]

I have smelted down a ton or two of range scrap from our indoor ranges over the last 8 years.

While I've never kept a running percentage of scrap to lead ingot ratio. I would have to estimate the percentage of usable lead ingots to scrap (clips,jackets,dirt) to be at least 70% if not slightly higher.

The resulting mix does make excellent bullets, at least for my 357, 41 and 45's.

Stork

[Zbench]

For what it's worth, and we've smelted about 10 tons of range scrap into usable alloy, we get a 75-80% extraction rate. The range we operate is indoor and has a lot of shotgun hulls and paper mixed in, but it still burns up in the smelting box.

The key to getting a good extraction is enough heat and a slotted spoon (we use a shovel) to shake the melted lead out of the crannies in the jackets. We use an old coal shovel which Victor slotted with his plasma cutter. By doing that, our extraction rate jumped over 10%.

Also, don't assume that the copper jackets are worth nothing. We get a very good return on the copper at the scrap yard we take them to. We usually take 600-700# at a time though.

Pete

[ErikT]

I get to scrounge the scrap out of my outdoor police range bullet traps, and I've found that my yield is around 60% lead. The rest is jackets and dirt. It makes for a lot of fuss and bother, but the price is right, and I don't have to worry about the occasional zinc wheelweight.

Erik.