Range Lead questions

[Boerrancher]

My four year old wanted to do something with dad this morning, so since my arm is getting a little better and I am starting to be able to use it slightly, I thought I would take him to the local public range. I grabbed my bolt action .22 and we took off. I always take a small 3 gal bucket to put brass in, but someone was there and had grabbed most of the brass.

After my son and I shot the 22 a couple of times, and made sure it would still take a squirrel's head off at 30 yds. we looked around for brass as we waited for the other two guys to leave. With in five min they were gone and the Berm was ours.

In 20 min my son and I picked up half a bucket of bullets off the top of the ground. I got home and smelted them. I ended up with 4 lbs of jackets, and 20 lbs of lead. I was wondering is there any special considerations I should know about casting with range lead? It did seem softer than WW's. If some one could tell me how much softer material I am dealing with here it would be most helpful. Should I keep it and use it only for low vel rounds, and round balls, or can it be used for my 45-70 and 30-30 at 1800 to 2000 fps?

Best wishes from the Boer Ranch,

Joe

[Shiloh]

I use the scavanged range lead for pistol boolits. Being that the core of jacketed boolits is pure lead or close to it, it is softer. Because of this I have not tried it with rifle boolits. You'll either have to harden it with a little linotype or experiment with what speed you can run them. If your boolit fits well and has a good lube, you might be able to run them a little faster than pistol boolits. THe 1800-2000 fps sounds a little fast but who knows.

Shiloh

[357maximum]

Joe

Range scrap can and will be anything. Personally most that I have gathered comes in halfway between wheelweight and pure. I like range scrap it is one of my preferred "treasures".

I have a 15yd sandpile at my house that all my buddies..and their buddies..and their buddies sight their shotguns into....(woo hooo....snicker)...that comes out super soft when I mine it, ....all by design. Basically to answer your question though it depends on what was shot into the berm......a simple lead hardness tester will tell you a more accurate story. I use a lee...while not perfect a careful man can get durn good and consistant with it. Cabintree Gussy makes a better unit, but I am a cheap bastage and what I have works....so that is what I use.....just have to learn to adapt to the tool at hand is all.


Try waterdropping the boolits and then launching them from your 30/30 it will likely give you the best of both worlds......a mallable alloy that expands on deer sized critters and is still "hard" tough enough to take the pressures of launch from the 30/30.

Michael

[Bob Krack]

My four year old wanted to do something with dad this morning, so since my arm is getting a little better and I am starting to be able to use it slightly, I thought I would take him to the local public range. I grabbed my bolt action .22 and we took off. I always take a small 3 gal bucket to put brass in, but someone was there and had grabbed most of the brass.
.......................
In 20 min my son and I picked up half a bucket of bullets off the top of the ground.
Joe

Joe,

I am NOT a bleeding heart or a tree hugger. I do NOT believe that looking at a picture of something dangerous will hurt you. I applaud your spending the time with your son with the intention of cultivating a lifelong activity of firearm knowledge and interest.

I do believe that the medical science community is in agreement that even minimal exposure of small children to lead (especially particulate matter) is potentially and incredibly dangerous to their health.

Having said that, the answer to your question is:
Range lead can be and is anything at all. Today, most projectiles contain at least SOME element that will (might) act as a hardening agent.

I would guess that most any range lead, should you decide to water cool the castings, would make boolits capable of 1800 - 2000 FPS - especially with a gas check (short condom) installed (but I would try without gas check, myself).

Vic (got my nomex pants on just in case)

[oneokie]

Recovered range scrap has tested less than 11 BHN for me. IMO, does not have enough tin for good fillout for some moulds.

[imashooter2]

My range scrap comes from an indoor range. I estimate it as 50% .22's, 25% jacketed pistol and 25% commercial cast. It air cools soft and water drops about the same as wheel weights to my uber scientific thumbnail scratch tests. It casts beautifully for me. Much better/easier than pure WW. I've used it water dropped in my Marlin 30AS to 2,100 fps with fair results. It does better around 1,900 fps.

[Boerrancher]

Thanks for all the replies so far. I knew there were other pieces of info I needed to add but for the life of me couldn't think of. Here is one:
The lead was about 50% cast/lead, and the other 50% was FMJ 45's and 9mm.
I did try the thumb nail test and was able to scratch it in ingot form. I know that there was some other metals in it as once I scooped out all of the jackets I had to add lots of flux to get the other metals back in to solution. Canning wax wasn't cutting it so I grabbed a hand full of cracked corn from the chicken coop and tossed it in there. Smelt like popcorn for a while and then burnt microwave popcorn, but as I kept stirring the dross everything went back into solution and there was just a small amount of ash on the top that I skimmed off.

I guess I need to buy a hardness tester. Thanks again, and I will not worry too much about my pistol loads, even though I shoot them out of a rifle sometimes. I will make sure that I water drop my 30 cal rifle boolits.

You guys are great, I am grateful to have a place to come and ask these silly questions.

Best wishes from the Boer Ranch,

Joe