Range Scrap Experiences

[reddog81]

I was at the local indoor range yesterday talking to one of the employees and got to discussing lead. I asked what they did with theirs and they sell it to a guy who makes fishing weights. I asked how much they charge and they said he pays them $2.00 per pound. I was kind of surprised since I’ve always bought ingots or misc. scrap for around .75 to 1.50 per pound. They also have lead dust from sweeping up the range. The manager says it’s basically per lead. They’d sell that for $2.00 per pound.

Does anyone here buy range scrap? What kind of prices do you pay? Do you sell the copper jackets?

I have a source for scrap ingots currently that run 10-12 BNH at $1 per pound is there any possible added benefit from using range scrap?

Any other general experiences with range lead/bullets welcome.

[Loudy13]

I have been working on a deal with the local range for 30-40 cents a lb which I think is pretty good after reading that post.

[mold maker]

If you have access to ingots at a cheaper price, why would you expend that much labor for the same product?
The range is trying to take advantage of you at that price. Most of the ingots sold between members are at $1/lb, sometimes with free shipping.
I salvaged over a ton of ingots for free at the range I used.

[reddog81]

I wasn't planning on buying any. I mainly wanted to see what others are paying and if there was any possible logic behind the inflated price.

[billyb]

$ signs in his eyes. I work in a indoor range one day a week. I tried melting some of the lead dust and could not get it to melt. I use a lot of the lead range from the trap, good stuff mostly jacketed shot there and some cast, some 22 so it is pretty soft. We sell to the recycler . were doing pretty good if they pay .50c. I make ten pound bars and we raffle one bar each month at our club meeting. This is a private club .

[dverna]

My last purchase of foundry 92-2-6 was $1.60/lb delevered to my driveway. No junk, no fluxing, no hassle. You can buy processed range lead here for just over $1/lb delivered.

Don Verna

[TexasGrunt]

Damn, that guy making sinkers is not the brightest bulb around. I've got a buddy who has a side business making lures and jigs. He buys his lead from someone on this forum. Doesn't pay close to $2 a pound.

I paid $0.70 a lb this week for pure lead scrap. I picked up a 5 gallon bucket, overflowing with wheel weights for free. I felt so good about the wheel weights I handed the guy $20. Told him I'd be back in a week or so. He seemed pretty happy about that.

[Pee Wee]

Duke in Florida and I are Range Safety Officer at our Gun Club. We have permission from the owner to mine our berms for lead.
We got 4000 lbs last year. We mined last Mouth for about 4 hours and got right at 1,200 lbs. So we pay nothing for the lead other than our time mining for it. We have a scrap yard here that get his range lead from the county owned gun club once a month and he sells that for .50 cents a pound. We tried to purchase lead from a very popular and high use indoor range but he would not sell to us as he has to sell to a salvager that can give him a certificate of disposal for the EPA.

[mfraser264]

Local scrap yard paying .25-.35 cents a pound for range lead, good clean lead bringing .40 cents per pound. This fella getting $2.00 a pound is making a killing. Keep looking. We come across a little range lead that we pick up at the range but with wheel weights still arriving it is hard to justify the time to pick up the range lead (all kinds of other junk too). My father just scrapped out a stained glass light he found on the side of the road and gave me the 2-3 pounds of dead soft lead pulled from it.

[bayjoe]

I mine the berm at our range and get a couple hundred pounds last year. Only problem is the someone is shooting tracers. That makes smelting a little on the dangerous side. I wear lots of PPE so I don't get a visit from the tinsel fairy.

[Freightman]

When we clean our range the members that work split the lead

[lightman]

Range lead generaly makes good bullets. The amount of work can vary from easy to pretty hard. Two dollars a pound is expensive though. Range lead has a few hazards to watch out for. Live ammo and tracers are a few of them. I put a cover on my smelting pot when doing range lead. I was melting a batch one day when my Wife came out to the shop to visit. We heard a loud pop and she glanced at my melting set-up and went back in the house!

[BNE]

Typically, range lead is 99%Pb,1%Sb. $2/pound seems high.

[Plate plinker]

Range lead generaly makes good bullets. The amount of work can vary from easy to pretty hard. Two dollars a pound is expensive though. Range lead has a few hazards to watch out for. Live ammo and tracers are a few of them. I put a cover on my smelting pot when doing range lead. I was melting a batch one day when my Wife came out to the shop to visit. We heard a loud pop and she glanced at my melting set-up and went back in the house!

So tossing in a love round worked for you? Huh imagine that. Lol JKidding

[ioon44]

I was at the local indoor range yesterday talking to one of the employees and got to discussing lead. I asked what they did with theirs and they sell it to a guy who makes fishing weights. I asked how much they charge and they said he pays them $2.00 per pound. I was kind of surprised since I’ve always bought ingots or misc. scrap for around .75 to 1.50 per pound. They also have lead dust from sweeping up the range. The manager says it’s basically per lead. They’d sell that for $2.00 per pound.

Does anyone here buy range scrap? What kind of prices do you pay? Do you sell the copper jackets?

I have a source for scrap ingots currently that run 10-12 BNH at $1 per pound is there any possible added benefit from using range scrap?

Any other general experiences with range lead/bullets welcome.

$2.00 a pound is really high and the lead dust is a big hazard also there will be a lot of unusable dirt after you melt it.

If you can get 10-12 BNH at $1 per pound why pay more for a lesser alloy. Getting copper jackets clean enough to sell is not easy and a lot of them will be steel jackets.
Just my $0.023 worth.

[GhostHawk]

Almost all my casting has been done with range scrap and some wheel weight lead purchased here. My top won't exceed price is 75$ for 65 lbs of clean, ingots, ready to melt, shipped lead.

All I have to do is be patient and when you see a good buy come up jump on it.

I cast a fair amount of pistol, some lower speed rifle, a little higher speed rifle.
I have some 60% lead 40% tin for when I want to add some tin. I also have one box of Lino ingots I bought.

I cast and shoot everything from .223 to .444 with many stops in the middle.

I would say the biggest thing I have learned about range scrap is that it will work if you don't push it too hard. If you have to push the speed you likely need a better alloy.

Speed can be nice but it is not essential. How many buffalo were killed with black powder guns that never exceeded 1400 fps? So why do you need to go fast?

[merlin101]

$2 a lb sounds like he's fishing, that happens around here with lead on craigslist. They ask a sky high price but will settle for less and if some fool comes along then they are separated from their money.

[dbosman]

Sock some cash away in a lead fund and save for actual deals. I got one of those Craig's list deals recently. 26 lbs medical imaging shield bricks for $.50/lb. My local scrap recycler sells hard lead for the same price.

Pay a daytime visit any stained glass shops in the area. They accumulate boxes of came stubs. Normally they sell it to the metal recycling place cheap as most don't know any shooters. (They're artists) For came you will want to heat slowly and use a thermometer as some has a zinc finish layer. There will be scraps of copper foil in the box too. Just skim it.

[imashooter2]

The indoor range scrap I've bought varied from 10 cents a pound to 10 dollars a bucket (~8 cents a pound). Waste was 20-25%. None of the local scrap yards would touch the jackets. It was more work than WW to clean up, but the lead has been completely satisfactory for use in pistols and lever action rifles with no additions whatsoever. I have ~3,500 pounds of it left in clean ingots. Here is what the raw ore looked like:

[oley55]

Lead used to have better prices when it came to recycling it. Nowadays we don't even bother at the sites we work. We put all the metal in a big bin and send it with a truck to a company that takes care of all the process for us. No time to bother anymore about it.

Welcome to the forum, and thanks (I guess) for resurrecting an otherwise unremarkable 4+ year old thread.