Reclaimed lead

[Andrew Quigley]

Howdy folks

 I shoot mainly cowboy action shoots and reload for 45 colt for my rifle. We use nothing but lead bullets in our guns and I'm planning on using reclaimed lead from our range to cast bullets for the 45 and maybe some 38's. I figure 90% of the bullets used are hard lead bullets and maybe 10% pure lead or soft lead bullets.
 Guess what I'm asking is, is there any kind of problem using reclaimed lead? Other than getting all the grass and dirt off of it.
 Reckon I got close to a hundred pounds of it cleaned up and ready to cast. Just waiting on my mold to arrive and thought I better make sure.
 Thanks

Andrew

[flash-in-the-pan]

Andrew,
The grass will burn off when the lead melts, the dirt will float to the top as will all the other lighterwieght impurities. Spoon that stuff off, flux the lead to recombine the tin and antimony into the lead, and cast away.  The tin makes the bullets fill out the mold more consistently;  the antimony makes it harder.  

Cowboy shooting shouldn't have any problem with your material and unless you are shooting for the ultimate in accuracy, as in bullseye, you are on your way to some good and inexpensive shooting.  Scrounging is an effective way to gather lead.

Fash

[Kenneth L. Walters]

I would assume that this stuff would have shooting characteristics pretty much like wheelweights.  I've never experimented with heat treating wheelweights but there are people who are really good at that.  What that would buy you is higher accuracy at high pressures.

If you don't heat treat, then I would assume you could still get very good accuracy but that you would have to stick to comparatively low powered loads.

[Haywire Haywood]

For cowboy action shooting, he's most likely shooting very low velocity.. under 900fps.  My 45s were 200gr RFs around 800.  They encourage soft malleable slugs that won't shatter when they hit the plate but just flatten out.  Reduces the chance of ricochet or bounce-back.

good luck,
Ian

[sawfish]

Be sure the salvage lead has no moisture trapped in hidden cavities.  Otherwise, it will have an explosive effect if dropped into a pot of molten lead.

[flintman]

One way that you can prevent any explosions from moisture is to start with a full container of lead,a big cast iron pot sitting on a support that will not burn nor collapse over a campfire is good for volume.
 Empty the container completely before you add any more lead to the container,this will let it come to temperature together and hopefully prevent any problems.
 Take care,and wear safety glasses/goggles!

[hiram]

I read that a great bullet mix is 20# of range lead and 1# of linotype.

[jhalcott]

some ranges FROWN on people removing lead from the range. When my club had sillywet matches, lots of shooters were using bullets cast from wheel weights or linotype. The rest used jacketed. MOST jacketed cores are nearly pure lead..I'd go to the range after a rain storm and pick up the bullets laying on top of the berm. That way I wasn't doing any damage. I'd melt this down and use it for 44 revolver bullets. I never shot any 40's with it,but didn't get any leading either! Oh yeah, you can tell the lino from soft lead by the mushroom or lack of one.

[rbwillnj]

I have a pretty much unlimited supply of range lead available to me, so that's what I use.   The other day I melted down 9 half full buckets of range scrap from a work party and ended up with 328 lbs of ingots.  We carted off an additional 1200 lbs of scrap to the local reclaimer and got 5 cents a pound for it.  I could have taken it home if I wanted it, but there will be another work party in a couple of months.

A lot of police shoot at our range, and all of their ammo is jacketed with soft lead cores.  I add 1 pound of Linotype for every four pounds of range lead.   It gives me a hard bullet, but not as hard as Linotype.