Free range scrap revisited

[Bill in Oregon]

Well, today I completed an experiment. Starting with a plastic nut jar containing 19 pounds or raw range scrap and dust, I got it all melted, fluxed and cleaned and the net yield was 14.5 pounds of casting alloy. Yeah -- the alloy is of unknown composition and hardness, but the boolits come out the business end and make nice holes in my targets!

[Blaine]

Where did the copper end up?

[gamekeeper]

I would say the experiment was successful....

[Bill in Oregon]

Blaine, I didn't want to make any effort to clean up the copper, so it is in the trash.
GK, I agree. Feels like money in the bank in these uncertain times for shooters.

[JimT]

That looks good Bill. I have shot up a whole lot of range scrap lead in my lifetime. It's never a waste of time or energy.

[piller]

It has to be more than just pure lead, so it should be great for moderate velocity bullets. As has been proven for a few hundred years, moderate velocity works with lead handgun bullets.

[earlmck]

I've bought 3 batches of range lead the past couple of years. Two tested out as BHN 9 and one is BHN 11 (vs the 6 for pure lead). I don't have anything fancy -- just use the pencils to see which is the softest that will still make a scratch. Seem to be making pretty fair BPCR bullets as is and I could add a little tin if I thought it needed it.

Now that wheelweights are an endangered species we'll need to get skilled at using "range lead" as a base for whatever alloy we need. I have a good batch of "foundry type" to add if I need to make hard stuff for the higher velocities but most of the shooting I do these days will be fine with this BHN 9 to 11 stuff.

[fordwannabe]

I have buckets of range scrap collected over the last few years. Helps the gun club and I have an additional alloy source.

[marlinman93]

I have a 5 gallon bucket 3/4 full of range lead. Almost exclusively .22RF, with a bit of pistol bullets in it. It came from the gun club's indoor pistol range decades ago. I melted some of it down, but it was so dirty and smoky that I never did it again.
I want to melt it down for fishing weights, but need to get a big enough vessel to melt large batches, and use my weed burner to heat it. Just haven't bought a big pot, or welded one up yet.

[Jay Bird]

I have buckets of range scrap collected over the last few years. Helps the gun club and I have an additional alloy source.

You got a lot more than that..you stole 1000 pounds from Sixgun last week....he don't care as he told me he counted up 800 pounds of linotype, 120 pounds of tin and another 1000 pounds of virgin lead.

[Bill in Oregon]

Earl, interesting to know that your range scrap is working for BPCR. I need to get a set of those pencils, too. I had a 50 BMG ammo can full of foundry type I had been hoarding and wouldn't you know it got lost in a move.

[3leggedturtle]

Generally .22 and jacketed bullets are very soft lead. I mix then 50/50 with wheel weights and shoot them up to 2000fps. Itsa pain getting the cores outta the jacketed, I used a small needle nose and turned them upside while tapping them. I really like finding the 7/8th to 1.5oz slugs!

[Scott Tschirhart]

I used to cast quite a bit, but my time has become too valuable in recent years.

However, I have plenty of lead set aside for a time when I may need it. What I should do is plan a weekend with an old friend and go have a casting party where we can sit around and cast a years worth of bullets together.

[earlmck]

Earl, interesting to know that your range scrap is working for BPCR. I need to get a set of those pencils, too. I had a 50 BMG ammo can full of foundry type I had been hoarding and wouldn't you know it got lost in a move.

If we do our own salvaging we'll probably have a pretty good idea of the kind of lead we'll be smelting up -- 22 rimfire salvage has to be close to pure lead I'd think and I had thought jacketed rifle bullets would also yield nearly pure lead, while pistol range salvage could have a considerable amount of home-cast projectiles with most done of wheel-weight type material while most commercially cast bullets would be hard-ball type alloy. But I may be wrong -- when I mentioned my thoughts on this to one of the fellows I bought from he told me his rifle-range salvage was harder than his pistol-range salvage.

I'm expecting to get good use out of the BHN testing pencils for guestimating what I have purchased. Never had to worry about it with the clip-on wheel weight material: I just figured them for 2.8% antimony and 0.7% tin and could alloy from that point if I desired (which mostly I didn't bother).

[fordwannabe]

I have ww, pure lead, and range scrap. I tried the art pencils and just wasn’t consistent enough for MY opinion so I broke down and bought a cabine tree hardness tester. Now I know what the hardness of the alloy is.

[piller]

Depending on what you want to do, it is nice to know the hardness. I tend to use about 95% of all my ammunition with jacketed bullets. Just me. Nothing at all wrong with cast. It has worked well for a few hundred years.