Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting New to casting, question about using spent bullets from range

I am slowly acquiring everything I need to cast handgun bullets and have a question for you experienced folks regarding my plan for a source of lead.

My gun club has an indoor range which has sand at the base of the backstop. I would like to scoop up the bullets once they pile up at the backstop for my source of lead for casting. There will inevitably be some sand, paper, plastic and other debris in this lead. Is this a good idea? Are the contaminants easily seperated out in the melting process? Thanks for your help.

savage24 - I cannot say whether it is a good idea or not. I can say that I have done it. (That might put it under the heading of "not good." I once bought a five-gallon bucket of range lead from the guy where I used to do my shooting. It seemed to make OK bullets for me. I hoped that most of the heavy contaminants came out in the flux. I did experience some little puffs of smoke heading skyward when unburned powder granules would ignite. Also bits of target paper would ignite from time to time. Like I said, you had best get advice from someone who knows more than I on the practice before deciding to do it, but those are a couple of things to watch for if you do.

should be good to go.

for pistol bullets pretty much any kind of lead will do well, the impurities will float to the top where you can skim them off.

Kinda messy but it works fine.

You'll do fine with range lead. Time was, money was scarce, knowing folks who owned or worked in tire changing locations were even more scarce, range lead was my one source for bullet metal for a lot of years.
I'd suggest getting a bit of 50/50 soldier to aid in mold fill out.
One of my shooting pards is a whole lot more precise then I when it comes to mixing alloys. He uses 24 inchs of soldier for a 20 pound pot of wheel weight alloy.
Jim

you will be fine, makes good low velocity loads. Just be very AWARE to sort things the best you can for sometimes there may be a live round in the pick up. Sure can splatter things up a bit. Even can burn a little. Don't forget the safty glasses!

Thanks for the replies everyone. I have a Lee production pot and managed to pick up a couple of Lyman ingot molds at an auction the other day and I've got a bullet mold on the way from ebay. I will try to screen most of the sand and other small junk out before melting. I will also check very closely for live rounds or total metal jacket bullets that are not split open to allow the molten lead to seperate from the jacket. I plan on getting a heavy pot that I can use on my LP turkey fryer to cast the ingots on the patio in the back yard, so smoke & fumes won't be a problem. Thanks again.

Range lead is fine, however be sure to melt the lead in a well vented area, wear gloves (welding type), long sleave shirt (heavy), hat, and Safety Glasses. Melt lead, skim junk (wire brush skimmer after each use), flux, mix with 50/50 bar solder for desired hardness. Reduce loads until correct hardness can be determined (to avoid leading). NOTE: Any heated lead can explode, but the risk is higher when you use scrap bullets or wheel weights and the melting pot will blow sometime. Been there and done that. JAG

I would use a sepperate pot to melt the scrap in, and thus clean out the crud. I use a colman stove and a stainless sauce pan. Melt down the scrap, flux with wax, clean out the dross, and make your ingots. Having clean ingots to start with will assure making good bullets vs having crud in the casting furnace. I have melted down scraps in the casting furnace, and is not the way to go.

Range scrap is very soft lead, so you'll likely want to harden it some by adding other elements to the melt, ie lyno, or plumbers tin, or wheel weights.

I prefer wheelweights as they make great pistol bullets without having to add anything to them, but free lead is best of all, and I definately wouldn't pass up range scrap and sweeten it up with 95/5 plumbers tin at 20:1

I use only scrap lead. It comes mostly in the form of old gill net lead lines (which hold the bottom of the net down.) The lines I get are usually wadded up and lying in the sand or on rocky beaches. Obviously there is a lot of juck in with them in addition to that fact that the lead is actaully encased in a very tough braided synthetic covering. The only way to get it out is burn it which I do in a portion of an old oil drum. Usually I just go out on the beach somewhere and pile a good pile of driftwood over it and touch it off. That seems to help the synthetic covering burn cleaner - at least I hope it does. When that is pretty much gone I pry the drum up off the sand a few inches so I can slip a coffe can under the edge of it and punch a small hole in the edge to allow the lead to drain out. The metal in the can is quite clean but it gets remelted on a stove, fluxed, mixed with some tin and antimony bearing alloys (solder and birdshot) and then poured into ingots. I do a double clean IOW but I am probably starting with much dirtier metal than you. Anyway, double cleaning is another option if you think you may be getting some grit in your metal. Like 458Lott said though, you want to keep the nasties out of your casting pot.

Welcome to the great world of casting. What a pastime!

I use anything I can get hold of. I did even buy lead from a sporting good store one time. Problem is it it very soft. Usually I use just about totally wheel weights now. They are fairly hard, and I can get them either cheap or free from local tire stores.

Heed the warnings about using a well ventilated place and that they can pop real easily, I've melted a lot of reclaimed fired bullets. The jacketed ones are more trouble than wheel weights, and usually are softer. Cast bullets are good, but you should wear gloves when picking any of them up. If you're in an indoor range digging through sand to get them you should wear a respirator. Sounds silly, but lead is not nice stuff.

I have a lee pot like you, 10 pounds. Works good. I never have use an ingot mold. Never did see the point. You might like to have a spare cast iron pot and ladle as well. The ladle works well for scooping the dross out, but it continually builds up as you melt. The good thing about a production pot is the pour spout is on the bottom and the lead is pretty clean as long as you keep scooping the dross off the top.

Wash your hands often. Don't eat while your casting, and keep the area ventilated so you're not breathing the vapors. Do not put anything into molten lead, or you will get splattered. Almost anything going into hot lead pops. Some people call that exploding.

The next thing you will need, besides molds for your calibers, is bullet lube. I tumble lube most now. It's faster and less trouble, but doesn't size. I still have an RCBS sizer/luber, as well as a couple of the Lee sizer dies that just use a regular press.

The other thing is to know that gas checked bullets can be driven faster, help prevent leading, and improve accuracy in some marlin lever actions. They take a mold that is built for gas checked bullets, but are easy to assemble and load.

All the paper and plastic will burn off, and the sand should float to the top for skimming. The thing you really need to be concerned with is moisture. Lead smelters run about 6-800 degrees. Even a small drop of water in the lead will instantly turn to vapor or steam and be explosive. I wouldn't worry about unburned powder, as there will be very little, and it will burn off. Watch for moisture though.

Most lead pistol bullets are shot at moderate velocities, and so the hardness of the lead does not become a factor. If the velocities are around 750 - 900 fps, you should not encounter any serious leading problems even with softer lead. I liked wheel weights the best, and at one time, I had a five gallon pail under the bench. At one time. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Most of it is in the sand at the range now.

Savage 24 - It's been awhile since I did much casting, so I forgot to mention that I really liked the Lee press-mounted sizer. Just a suggestion.

its good advice to watch the moisture in or around a lead pot,
I've seen a couple of big messes caused by frost on the ingots, lucky no one was hurt. It may seem costly but a good hardness tester will save you a lot of grief. Test each pot and maintain the same hardness in your ingots. Range lead, scrap from a local junk dealer and even wheel weights vary a lot in hardness and may cause you trouble if you load very heavy.
As for the lead its self I've used a lot of range lead, another source could be the parking lot of a truck stop, there always seems to be wheel weights on the ground, but its best to leave the ones still on the trucks alone.

Take someone new shooting with you next time.

I just reviewed the discussion on this topic. It seems I am with the majority in preferring wheelweights. I do use range pickups. I sort them into groups. If they look in pretty good shape I assume they are hard. If they are misshapen or are hollow base, I assume they are softer. Jacketed bullets are soft, but the jackets are troublesome to get out of the pot. My choice for pistols is wheelweights. For smokeless & blackpowder cartridge rifle, it helps a bit to put some of the "harder" range pickups in to improve casting. For hollow pints, or hollow bases, use the softer. For roundball muzzle loaders, wheelweights work well for targets despite the cautions against it. Cap 'n ball revolvers are impossible to load unless you use soft lead. I've been casting for quite a few years, and have a wide selection of moulds. The main reason is I am too cheap to pay someone else when I can do it myself. And, its a lot of fun.

I am changing my Username, subject to permission. When I tell people that I am a "cowboy shooter" I get very curious replies. Like; How many did you shoot today? or what do they taste like? So my answer came slowly, but I've decided to become a "Catch and Release Cowboy Action Shooter" To render this into a username, I'll call myself "carcas". "Reach for your hardware, cowboy, or I'll riddle your miserable carcas."
Now the reason for my posting. About 10 years ago, I made a big mistake in useing range lead. The RCMP started training with their new S & W wondernines with "Black Talons". So they went into my mix. MISTAKE. Get rid of them! They give off vapours that make some people sick, and they make a hard crust all over everything, including the bottom pour spout of my Pro-melt. I do admit that they made very shiny bullets, but at what a cost?