Bullet trap ideas for recycling lead

[jmorris]

Check this thing out!! It aint cheap but I'm sure it would work to recycle the bullets!!

Not cheap is an understatement the model that is not even 3'x3' costs more than I have in my 8'x16' trap.

[Gliden07]

Not cheap is an understatement the model that is not even 3'x3' costs more than I have in my 8'x16' trap.

I said it was'nt cheap!! LOL!!!

[Mal Paso]

I finally split up one of the Cedar Stump Boolit Traps from Posts 516 and 576 and recovered the lead. Most was in a large wad in the center mixed with wood chips. It worked pretty well considering the cost and work involved. Next time I'll pick a log free of knots to make splitting easier. I cut the stump free of the roots, put it on a tarp, split off shingles with an ax to get to the lead. Figure I got 99% of the lead mixed with a couple gallons of wood chips. I put the mixture in a 5 gal bucket and floated the wood away with water like Oreo suggested. I recovered 15 lbs of lead. Eventually I'll build a Steel Trap but it's hard to beat the cost of the Cedar Trap.

[WilliamDahl]

I finally split up one of the Cedar Stump Boolit Traps from Posts 516 and 576 and recovered the lead. Most was in a large wad in the center mixed with wood chips. It worked pretty well considering the cost and work involved. Next time I'll pick a log free of knots to make splitting easier. I cut the stump free of the roots, put it on a tarp, split off shingles with an ax to get to the lead. Figure I got 99% of the lead mixed with a couple gallons of wood chips. I put the mixture in a 5 gal bucket and floated the wood away with water like Oreo suggested. I recovered 15 lbs of lead. Eventually I'll build a Steel Trap but it's hard to beat the cost of the Cedar Trap.

So, the question is whether the amount of work that it took you to recover the lead is worth the $15 that you saved from having to buy lead off of someone on eBay or wherever (assuming $1 per pound).

[Catsmith]

So, the question is whether the amount of work that it took you to recover the lead is worth the $15 that you saved from having to buy lead off of someone on eBay or wherever (assuming $1 per pound).

I know for me the challange is to see how inexpensive I can shoot. Yes it may only be $15 but on the other hand it is $15 I don't have to spend. More primers!

[Oreo]

The sickness demands that even if you just went and bought replacement lead, there's still that lead left in the stump and it must be reclaimed. It simply must.

[Mal Paso]

This time it took about 2 hours, mostly because I was developing a technique and knots slowed the process. I'll use a Clear Cedar Log next time as it's very easy to split thin shingles off with a hatchet and hammer. I set the stump on a canvas tarp and recovered even the fine chips of lead. I'm guessing less than an hour next time.

The real bonus is even when it gets fairly full, between the sawdust and lead all the shots are contained (44 Mag 260g ~1265 fps). This one wasn't completely full. The first one, Boolits started hitting the back of the target and falling on the ground under the target. I found none more than a foot away.

The other thing to consider is the time it takes to order and pick up the lead. Last time I bought 400 pounds. If you don't count ordering which I could have done by phone it took 4 hours to pick it up and get it in storage. I don't do more than one 75# box by mail at a time so as not to ruin Mail Service. That's still 40 minutes.

I just think it would be cool to shoot the same lead over and over. No having to sweeten the Alloy just melt and pour. I will build a Steel Trap with a Bucket under. 1 foot square but it needs to handle a 260g Boolit @ 1500 fps. I was thinking to sharpen the leading edge and see if the local range master would pass it. The next thing would be a Music Roll type Target stretched across the opening with Radio Control to change targets. No waiting for cease fire. Up on my property, even when I'm more decrepit then I already am I'll be able to shoot the 44 from my Rocking Chair. Anybody have a 44 Load worked up for their Rocker?

[WilliamDahl]

The next thing would be a Music Roll type Target stretched across the opening with Radio Control to change targets. No waiting for cease fire.

That might be an interesting concept... 1200'x30" newsprint rolls go for $24...

http://www.pospaper.com/30newsprintpaperroll.html

If you figure on a 30" wide by 36" tall target, it would end up costing you $0.06 per target. A 30"x30" target would cost you $0.05 each. Pretty economical targets... I have to think that the take up spool is not going to wrap the paper that neatly though since the paper is going to be shot up and distorted a bit. Still, it would probably be workable...

[Mal Paso]

I processed the pile of sawdust from the front the first stump and came up with another 8 pounds of Alloy. I'll cut the first stump shortly and replace it with clear cedar. Lots of butt cuts around here. Guess the mill rejected anything with too much taper.

[ronbo40s&w]

Here's what i am working on:



My .22 backstop of cinder blocks with 4x4 plywood target face. Behind what you see is a cinder block wall that positively stops .22 lr rounds and allows easy recovery of the lead. Now I am adding the rubber sandbags you see centered between the cinder blocks. They are tractor inner tube sections filled with wet compacted sand. They are 16 inches front to back and stacked to overlap in the front...the top one isn't filled in this pic. This setup easily stops everything I shoot. .308, .223, .22 and .40 s&w. won't go more than half way in. When I run out of lead (next year) I will sift the sand and refill. The jury is still out on durability, but preliminary tests show self-healing except for the .40 which leaves a tiny hole that sand isn't leaking out of. Even two bullets in holes next to each other just stretched the first hole and it sealed back to single hole size. Hopefully this will do the trick, since it's dirt cheap (free so far) and uses stuff i have lying around. If I only shot .22 it would probably last a very long time. I'm sure the .40 will tear it up faster, but we'll see. There are two 4X4 target face units there...I will bring one to the front of this once the sandbags are done, so I can staple targets on again. The cinder block wall is behind them still and behind that is a pil of cut willow from a tree struck by lightning..the willow contains a bunch of lead already...eventually i will chop it open too.

God Bless!

Ron

[ronbo40s&w]

Update:

The .40 cal bullet holes from the first test shrank to tiny pinholes. Excellent. No sand leakage. I will still move the targets around. Today i used stick-on orange 1 and 2 inch targets. Worked great until they fell off from being perforated. This gives me lots of good training moving back and forth between them until i get some sand-filled containers to place in other spots. Just stick them a few inches apart and switch back and forth until they all fall off. Looks like i will be able to catch my lead with the setup.

God Bless!

Ron

[WilliamDahl]

I was reading an article the other day about bullet penetration and it seems that you only need a few inches of gravel to stop even rifle rounds... I think it was 6" of gravel to stop common rifle rounds... I would probably double that just to be safe...

[WilliamDahl]

I was up at Home Depot this evening looking for the rubber crumb landscaping mulch to use in a 30g plastic barrel for a bullet stop. I started thinking how much it would cost to fill that up and the fact that it would be a one use item (i.e. it would be wasted if I did not like it), so I looked around the store for other alternatives. Eventually, I stumbled across the compacted bales of cellulose insulation that you have blown into your attic. The plastic wrapped "bales" seemed to be pretty stiff, so I thought that they might be worth a try and if they didn't work, I could just use them to add a bit more insulation to the attic. They were a bit less than $10 per package and each package was supposed to be able to insulate 40 sq-ft of attic space. I figured that it would take two of them to fill the 30g barrel if I was able to keep them as compacted as they were in the original packaging.

Once back home, I used an electric saw to remove the top of the barrel by cutting on the inside of the rim. The part that I cut off, I allowed to drop into the bottom of the barrel to give it a bit more protection from rounds, just in case.

As it turned out, by the time you remove the insulation from the packaging, you have filled up a 30g container and if you compact it down, it is about 12" from the top. Instead of opening the second package, I just put it on the ground so that it could catch any ricochet of a bullet that goes through the bottom of the barrel and bounces off the concrete. I took two shots with a 3" .45 M1911 using hardcast and neither bullet went through the barrel. The only thing is that it kicks up a bit of dust when you shoot it, so I suspect that putting a piece of plastic wrap or some scrap boards over the face of the insulation in the barrel would help. I suspect that the dust was picked up due to the muzzle blast since I was shooting it from about 2-3 ft away from the surface of the insulation.

[WilliamDahl]

Subsequent tests of the cellulose insulation in a 30g plastic barrel showed that a .40SW round would dimple the bottom of the barrel, so I compacted it a bit more and put another half bag of cellulose insulation in it. That seems to have made a difference -- no more dimples in the bottom from .40SW or 10mm. The muzzle blast from the 10mm does tend to kick up the dust though...

[millsa2]

Some Great Ideas Here. Thanks

[452460]

did a quick sketch of a propane tank trap idea that popped into my head with pistols in mind..



maybe pool some media at the bottom

[jonp]

I got several plastic barrels from work thay had def fluid for diesel trks in them. they are really thick plastic. I found that empty a medium load 357 with 158gr swc bullet will end in #3 or on the ground next to it. No load fr a 45acp went into #3 as did no 9mm. 125gr jhp 357 penetrated into the 5th barrel and a few went through hitting the ground 20 -30 feet behind. I am shooting towars a bean field.about 400 yrds across to a tree line then another bean field with trees behind that so no problem but saving the boolits for melting dwn is great. Im going to try your idea.

[Springfield0612]

Not sure if this was posted before. But I use a 5 gallon bucket, filled with recycled rubber mulch, and I add a couple layers of basic rubber backed matting to add to the resistance. Next time I'm gonna put in some rounds of anti-fatigue matting from harbor freight because they are super cheap and I want to see if they will "self-heal" better than the matting. Sorting was very fast, 5 minuets per bucket, lead did not explode or combine with the rubber, shot 9mm factory FMJ and reload LRN, and also .45 ACP FMJ and reload LNFP. Stopped every bullet with no issues!!

[w0fms]

I've been kicking around a bucket trap like the post above to put in front of my new chronograph. Anyone use something like that to keep the inevitable from happening? I'm thinking of experimenting with it just for that purpose.

[JIMinPHX]

If you go back to post 378 on page 19, you will find a bucket trap that I used.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ng-lead/page19

I put a 10" diameter piece of steel plate in the bottom of a regular 5-gallon plastic bucket & piled crumb rubber on top of the plate to fill the bucket. I found that for common non-magnum pistol rounds, everything was just fine & 11ga. plate was plenty.

After I tried hitting it with shotgun slugs & rifle rounds, I moved up to a 1/4" plate because the 11ga. didn't handle it very well. The problem that I then ran into was that when a hot round hit the 1/4" plate, the shrapnel from the shattered boolit then moved laterally & cut the bottom of the bucket just in front of the steel plate. After just a few rounds, the bottom of the bucket was completely off.

I got around that by using two buckets in a row, duct taped together. The first bucket had no steel plate, just crumb rubber, so the boolit would keep on going through to the second bucket & keep decelerating. The second bucket got the steel plate. I used the 2 bucket trap with rounds up to 150-grain @ 2,300fps. Results were acceptable.

I used rubber mulch from Home Depot as the deceleration media in all cases. I just stapled or thumb tacked the targets to the plastic bucket tops.