I was about to say the same thing. His mistake was to add trash into the mix. Even shooting to 150fpe , as long as you're shooting with a hardened steel deflector plate, you should be good to go.
Hey Ted, I do a lot of lead recovery from various sources (including my own pellet trap). You can absolutely melt it off, a large turkey fryer propane burner with a big ol goodwill cast iron pot. It's going to stink up your entire neighborhood, probably something to do at the farm while waiting for starlings. Be careful, lots of tin, zinc, and weird stuff in the pellets to make them hard. Like I said, best for a farm yard with the wind blowing towards the cornfields. Or you can play gold prospector, lead is heavy so it will sink to the bottom . Shake and vibrate those buckets of water covered mess and most of the lead will end up at the bottom. Best of luck! (btw going scrap price is about $0.30/lb to sell in my area. Whats your time worth?)
@@NotEvenDeathCanSaveU how? lead has a fairly low melting point. When I tried to melt some lead it only took like 10 sec with a blowtorch to start melting
Ted, I built one like that out of an empty 30 pack of beer. I installed a 1/8 " steel plate behind all the mulch and it was the end of my pass through problem. I melt my used lead to make slingshot ammo and fishing jigs. You are always entertaining with all kinds of stuff. 👍
I am planning to melt my lead into a big block and use it as a stop inside my pellet trap. From what I have read you can just melt the lead and all the other stuff will come to the surface as it is lighter then lead. At this point you can skim if off and you are left with mostly pure lead. I will cast the lead into a plate and use it as a stop inside my trap. This will make it quite since the pellet will hit soft lead and I am hoping that the pellets will stack on top of each other to prevent holes from forming .... not sure about the last part. Still needs a thick piece of wood if anything makes it through.
I had a pellet trap that had a plate of 8mm steel in 45 degree angle, so that all pellets ricochet downward and collect up in the trap. It wouldn't be too difficult to arrange it so that the pellets drop straight into a bucket.
Sell it to someone who casts/molds/reloads. They're already set up to melt/purify. I helped a buddy melt some wheel weights once. Stay up-wind and wear a respirator if melting lead. The fumes will make you sick. Not worth it if you don't do it on a regular basis and know how/equipped to do it right.
This is a random idea, but since saltwater is more buoyant than regular, maybe enough salt would make the rubber float? Smelting lead and rubber seems like a pretty dirty method.
@Ted, we melt the lead with a propane burner in a cake mold and then hang it up as a target. when we are done shooting, we melt the top layer and we have a brand new target.
Okay so here is what I used to do. At the trap shoot where we shot clay targets. I I used to dig up the lead in the shallow layers of the dirt. I would then throw it all in a 5 gallon bucket of water to separate the dirt and Lead. Id poor the dirty water off the top of the lead sitting at the bottom of the bucket. I would then spread what was left on towels to dry. there would still be sand mixed in the shotgun shell pellets. After dried I would put the shot and sand on top of a screen from a window. From the bottom I would use compressed air from my garage air compressor and blow gently enough to blow away the lighter particles leaving behind the heavier lead pellets. Hope this gives you some ideas. Regulating the airflow is key as you're blowing from under the screen. Not to hard and fast.
Most rubber is about the same density as water, so to ensure the rubber floats to the surface you need to increase the density of the water, you can do this by adding salt to the water. Get another bucket and make up a strong salt water solution and put a small batch of the lead/rubber mix in, if the rubber floats just skim it off the top. Hope this helps.
@@FYMM69 I haven't tried it, I was just commenting from an engineering/science viewpoint, but salt is pretty cheap so it shouldn't cost too much to give it a try.
Hi Ted! Made my first mulch trap after watching your video a few years back, then watching this video I thought that I was having a flashback! I got so frustrated I gave the lead and rubber to my shooting range and bought 50kg of the rubber they use to make matts out of. The finer rubber pieces really grip the projectile !
Next time, put it in a big disposal pot. Heat it up with a camping stove. Get a long handled strainer, and a spoon, and scoop off the top crud that floats in the surface of the molten lead. Dispose of this crud, its hazardous. Get some cheap molds from Lee reloading to make ingots. Use or sell the ingots.
I know this is a old post but you can dry this out and spread it out on concrete take a air hose and gently both the mulch away. I use to clam old shot out at our trap range and do this to get rid of rocks and dirt after washing. Enjoyed your video
I used to collect wheel weights to make fishing sinkers. Melt it. All the rubber and other impurities floats to the top that you can skim off the liquid lead.
Hi Mr Bier,dont waste your time on trying to get the lead melted yourself since you're not a metalworker,just try and pick most/biggest pieces of rubber out and then sell the lot to a metalscrapper or someone at the shooting range that reloads and makes his own lead bullets,,it'll save you time and health and that will be the most envirnmently friendly to ;-)...think about it,you wanne melt that lead yourself?...do you have the gear for that?...if not,you'll have to buy it...wich will cost you money again,that will go off your winnings,still wanne do it? ok then...get yourself a big bottle of gas,a gas burner,a large metal pot,heat resistant gloves and something to poor your lead in...melt the lead,preferably outside with the wind in your back so you dont breath in the lead fumes,keep the portions of melted lead small enough so you can pick up the pot and poor the molten lead in molds,while melting the lead,all the rubber and cardboard left behind will burn off an the remains will float on top of the molten lead...hold on,we're on you tube arnt we...just watch a few vids on how to melt lead then lol...good luck Mr Bier.
Judging from the large lumps of lead, it appears like lead itself is a pretty good pellet trap. Melt it into a frying pan sized ingot and use it as a backstop.
Ted. Get 2 layers of Chicken wire and wrap over empty bucket. The Wire should grab most of the rubber and the small pieces of lead should drop down into the bucket filled with water. If you go to Mills, I think are just up the Hwy from you, they should have the square hole wire. I think its 1/4 inch. That will work. Rubber chunks are bigger than that. At least my mulch is. Good luck.
I use a 22lr caliber rated steel bullet trap. Only mess in the lead, is paper from the targets. I dump it out in a bucket of water, paper floats to top, skim off, drain water.... lead!
The rubber proved to be to dense to float on water. So try something denser like corn syrup its density is about 1.35g/cm3. Get a small container of it and a couple pieces pieces of rubber to see if it floats... If not, like alot of others have said melt it down in a goodwill cast iron pan that's small or medium sized, skim off the slag & crap from the surface cast it into bricks, ingots or slugs if you want then.
Haha the moment you said you made a big fricken mess for yourself I completely lost it because I been in the same place and was like I could of done this better lol
Ted This reminds me of a tree at my old house. It was about "12" thick. I have had put paper target's on it for years, and shot so much the tree fell. At the stump was so much lead and wood chips
Lead oxides are where you get into trouble. That lead is pretty much innocuous unless you eat it or it's in really fine dust form. I used to melt lead down for muzzle loader bullets on a setup outside and a long way from my house. I gave it up because you can buy way better bullets these days. If you do melt it, your in for spending a lot of $ to do it well and, more importantly, safely. After seeing the houses in the background, it might even be illegal to do where you live. Your best option is to take it as-is to a recycling location.
Well ted my trap uses the angled steel plate method with som rebar at the bottom of the plate. No filler material so when its emptied its all lead. If you try to burn the rubber out its gonna leave your lead dirty looks like hand separation time😰
Let it all dry then melt over a propane fire in a disposable cast iron vessel. Pour into steel cupcake pan. All the non lead trash will float to the surface that you can ladle off. Or, sell it to a reloader. It’s worth about 50¢ per pound.
Don’t burn the rubber off, what you have is a LARGE version of a gold pan. Just use the density difference between the rubber and the lead to your advantage. I was actually really happy to see that you used water, just because of the lead dust. Now all you need to do is add more water, find a lid for the bucket (just to make less of a mess) and then shake/vibrate the bucket. The lead will drop to the bottom and the rubber will sit on top of the lead, this way you can reuse the rubber and still retrieve the lead. You can then melt the lead down to ingots to either recycle or reuse for other projects.
box of packed rags stops pellets14X14 size works! If you want lead easy process to reclaim. If not sell it to someone who make fishing sinkers/duck anchors/bullets etc...
Rough sieve first I think... That'll take care of the bigger pieces of rubber at least. The n melt the lead down slowly... I think the rubber will start to float on top, and you'd be able to scoop most of it off.... Just a thought, don't know if it'll work. Filling up the new pellet trap with old rags ( especially jeans or cotton based rags) instead of rubber mulch will help though.... It'll be a lot easier to separate rags and lead, it's what I do... Anyway, good luck, and do a video on your solution to the problem please!
I feel like if you try to melt it the water will gas off and blow lead everywhere wont it? I know they say when youre melting cleaned metals like lead and brass to make sure its dry because if the molten lead gets over top of the water it will explode and shoot lead everywhere. I suggest just take a piece of mesh fencing and make a strainer that will let pellets through and catch the rubber mulch. Seems much safer, may require some massaging to break the clumps of pellets apart but sounds better than a potential lead bomb.
Thank you for another totally awesome video! I saw a pellet trap video using a cardboard box and cloth inside. There was a towel and actual clothing layered inside. I would recommend using layered clothing only. The towel shredded and actually captured the pellets making it more difficult to retrieve the lead. After viewing your video it is apparent the layered clothing is a far superior method compared to the rubber mulch. I also think synthetic clothing will work better than cotton as it doesn't shred as much. A final note would be to suggest maintaining the trap at about 2 to 3 lb intervals. I think the massive lead deposits will create micro fine lead dust and vapor that most certainly will contaminate the air inside a home and the environment outside. With a cardboard box setup it might require 20 minutes start to finish. Well worth the time.
If I've got your question right: Do you think sifting would help? Perhaps tapping on the sifter should cause the lighter rubber to move toward the surface where you could manually separate lead from rubber? After that, it's time to make some shad darts! Best of luck and since this is my very first contact with you, thank you for all your videos! It'd be a pleasure to sling a little lead or better yet (perhaps) rail some turns on the white stuff with you!
You need to try wet or dry panning to separate materials of different densities such as rubber and lead. You take a sturdy pan with a low lip and get a sample, shake it to get everything fluidized where everything will separate, then let little bits of material flow out the sides. Pretty soon you will reduce the sample to 99.9% lead, enough to pick out the rest of the rubber by hand. Keep a semiclose eye on what flows out the sides as you shake in a circular motion, as there is a chance of lead to fall out, but it is unlikely. The difference between wet or dry panning: wet uses copious amounts of water and you use a slurry, also it is used to find smaller things, such as flecks of gold dust, dry panning is for larger objects like pellets, birdshot, or bullets. You can use either wet or dry, but dry requires less setup and you have to be less careful. Let me know if you have any questions, Ted. Also, love both of your channels. Keep up the good work!
wow Ted thats a shit ton of pellets. How long did that take to accumulate? Better yet, how long did it take to clean up that mess. lol. All the best to you.
Yeah my back yard target is exactly that... It's amazing in a summer how much lead one collects... It's millions of pellets mixed with little bitty pieces of black foam like stuff lol. You can't pick it up its got to be in the 200lb range and has no support anymore... It's got about ten months on it now and time to collect that lead back melt it down and make a bunch of .257s and 308s for the slug guns. I would like to know how many .25 and .30 JSB pellets are in it... I know that it's got to be north of 70 tins of .30 (getting the Impact STX .30 super dialed and the Crown .30 to be a 100y laser ... Mission accomplished on them both) and God only knows how many King and King heavies are in it but i would assume 80 or more and I forgot about the .30 Dream lite tuning so it's more then that on the .30s.. This is my target not including hubbies shooting so there is literally an astronomical amount of lead in that target...
Yes to the cast iron pot get it hot and the lead will melt and all the trashy stuff will float to the top. Then skim the top of the lead and stir it thenskim somemore.
Holy cow! An insane amount of pellets! Try putting a little more water in the bucket and shake/agitate the bucket. I think the shaking will allow the denser lead to fall below the mulch pieces. This is usually a good way to sort pieces of materials of different densities or sizes. Good luck!
Make your water saturated with salt so the density is higher,with a bit of luck the rubber will float. The rubbers pieces stuck to the pellets I would just burn them at with a roofing burner or so.
The rubber has to be lighter than the lead right? Stick a garden hose in the bucket and the rubber should eventually end up on top of the lead do to the turbulence or at least easier to get out. Then melt what ever is left.
Hey Ted, do it dry. Somewhere you don’t infect the area with lead dust. Spread it out a bit at a time and the mulch will sweep (or use a blower.....remember the dust) and you wil be able to scoop up the lead with no mulch. That’s what I do. I have not competed in a few years but looking forward to this year. PS I just gently sweep the mulch away and the lead stays put.
You should put it in a bigger bucket with water then keep on shaking it, hopefully all the lead goes to the bottom while the rubber stays at the top. Then you can easily separate the two
I would sift it through some heavier gauge, 3/8”ish diamond mesh wire panel, melt it down in a lead pot, flux with paraffin to remove impurities and cast fishing sinkers, decoy weights, etc. You can also get the cheap powder coat from harbor freight and give the lead a coat or 2 if you’re gonna handle whatever you cast and don’t want to constantly worry about lead contamination.
Pan it like gold panning. Add more water to the bucket and swish side to side. Scoup off the rubber mulch and do it again. DO NOT BURN IT OFF - LEAD FUMES ARE BAD
unused old pan, pour in the pellet add some cooking oil, turn on the fire.... cooking oil will increase the heat transfer rate, once it melt, it will melt the others... and you'll be surprise how fast lead melt...
test if the rubber floats on vedgetable oil, if so, then also make sure that the oil can be separated from the lead in a smart way, like alcohol, acetone or paint thinner...
In my neck of the woods they have Household Hazardous waste disposal site, I think it is a County operation. If you have one also, just take the pellet trap to them, along with your old paint, and other hazardous products. Stay safe.
Ted, I always thought rubber mulch was messy and an extra trip to the hardware store. My traps consist of heavy clothing (especially jeans) I intercept from the wife and mom-in-law on the way to goodwil. Old carpet remnants works really well too. I shoot 25 to 75 yd down range so it's hard to find A gun/pellet combo that will penetrate but if so I just place a metal plate in the back. When it's time for a new trap I just lift the material inside and most of the pellets fall to the bottom of the Box. A little shaking recover the remaining pellets. I blow of the clothing remnants with my patio blower.
Unless you really want to keep the lead, I bet there are folks at your range that like to cast their own bullets, and would likely love 75 pounds of relatively clean lead. Lead can be safely melted at around 620*F with basic precautions as long as you keep it below it's vaporization point. Since that is around 3,000*F, you're likely fine. Lead in solid or liquid form is not near as toxic as lead in soluble form like the old paint or gasoline additives.
OK, so I emptied my trap a while back. Only 9 pounds of lead, but still. . . . Dry panning was a great technique. Put some in an old frying pan, shake it, the lead drops to the bottom, scrape the rubber off, pour the lead into a bucket. Worked pretty well. I'd let that mess dry out and dry pan
If you know someone from muzzleloading community, they are often casting their own bullets so they could use the lead - they also have the tools and knowledge how to melt and clean the lead from dirt. Or maybe ask on your local shooting range. I bet there will be someone who would buy it from you or give you contacts. Thanks for the content you are creating!
*I got you covered dude, just follow these instructions;* Don't worry about cleaning all the crap out of the lead. Get a big cheap Wal-Mart stainless steel pot and a propane burner set up outside, preferably on a day with a very light breeze to evacuate fumes, and pour everything in at once (you can do a couple seperate loads if your pot is too small) and just let everything melt and burn off. Once the lead has started melting, do not, I repeat *do not* add more lead, the rubber and dust and pockets in the lead will hold moisture, which will cause steam explosions if added to already melted lead, which can shoot large sprays of molten lead all over yourself (safety glasses, long sleeves, jeans and leather shoes, maybe even a facemask is highly recommended). When all the lead is molten (don't worry if the stuff on top is still burning off, just so long as all the lead has melted), carefully scrape all the crud that will float to the surface off and into a dry empty soup can with a large stainless steel spoon (I think you already know this, but don't use the pot and spoon for anything else but lead after that). Once you have removed most of the rubber and dust and oxides from the surface, you'll want to throw in a couple small flakes of parrafin wax, about a tablespoons worth per ten pounds. Stir it quickly, it will catch fire so be ready. This will flux the lead and draw contaminants out of it and the pot walls. After the flames stop, stir and scrape all the new crud that floats to the surface again, then Voila! You have a big pot of clean lead. You'll want to get an ingot mold or a metal muffin tray to pour out smaller peices of lead, it's way easier to handle and re-melt later on down the road. You'll find loads of people willing to take them off your hands if you aren't going to be using it yourself, but I'd try to stay local so you or your buyers don't have to pay for freight. If you want to sell it, a fair price (after being well cleaned and in ingot form) is about a dollar per pound. It's worth about $0.25 to $0.40 per pound as it sits now, dirty and full of crap, but you can get more out of it if you process it yourself, depending on how cheaply you source your equipment (if you already have everything then it's free).
I use the rubber mulch too so I made a wood box with a wire mesh bottom that I sift the contents of my trap through. Some of the smaller mulch makes it through the mesh but it’s the cleanest and easiest way I have found to lighten my trap
Well hey if the rubber mulch IS actually floating then looks like you might do some good by pretty much filling the bucket with water...maybe even stick the end of the garden hose down in the bucket and overflow it for a bit and while the mulch is up at the top maybe kinda skim it off the top with a piece of small hole hardware cloth or something LIKE it...or strainer spoon...let me know how it goes... and good luck 👍
Ted check out some lead casting vids by reloaders on you tube. You can melt lead in pot use wax or saw dust as flux skim the dross which is waste and have clean lead for casting
Sort the lead from the mulch with vibration. That is, put that bucket in the back of your truck and drive around for a week. After a week of that the mulch will be on top.
That's a lot of sinkers or cast bullets! If you are going to smelt it down, it has to be DRY. I melt all my range scrap in a very crappy pot on a turkey fryer base and the copper jackets will float on top of the lead and I just scoop them out that way. I would assume all the rubber would burn off and just crusty crap would remain on top and you could skim that off.
In the days of my pot smoking! make a ramp out of ply wood throw the mass around the top the rubber will stay at the top a the lead will fall down the ramp just like stems and seeds did.
You can try panning it like gold. The lead will stay at the bottom of the pan because of it’s density and the rubber should separate from it at the top. Or you can run it through a sluice machine.
Ted, yeah wearing protection is rather more important than folks might think!! Hell, that's a lot of destruction of pellets!!!! To save all that lead, contaminated with rubber is gonna be tough, maybe if you heat it all, the bad contamination will come to the top!
No recovery tip for this set up but maybe invest in or make a spin funnel trap like some more modern firing ranges use, projectiles go in to the trap hit a cylinder offset in the back and spin tell they drop in to a catch can or bucket... hope this helps. 🥃 cheers 🍻
Just a theory here but you could try dissolving a lot of salt into the water to increase the buoyancy of the rubber. I suspect with enough salt you can make the rubber float.
Melt it down and scrape off the floating lead but be careful you should dry it all out first if you add water to molten led the water could cause a steam explosion
Air and shaking the material will usually separate anything light that would be unacceptable during the meltdown process in your casting pot...of course you need an open area to direct the airflow away from oxygen breathers....hopefully that's helpful in the future... it works well for me.
Add salt to increase the density of the solution to float the rubber. If table salt won't do it, add some calcium chloride (salt used to weight tractor tires).
Late to the party but in order to seperate 2 materials of consistant but different masses is you need to spin it. Ideally as fast as possible and they will seperate into consitute layers.
Maybe if you try to circulate water with a hose you may see the lighter bits flowing around and the lead staying on the bottom. If that works then you may be able to use a sieve to scoop the light bits out as they are circulating around. Worth a try!
Make a diy centrifuge - the lead will stay at the bottom and the impurities will float up and out ready for you to scoop them out. If you use your drill with a home made paddle (dowel with some plastic attached) in the bucket you should also get the same effect once the water has enough momentum.
Recorded - edited - uploaded....in 2 hours. THAT is a record. :)
Hope you're enjoying your weekend. ted.
But I have to work :(
or have some ted's holdover lead coins made. EBAY :) lol
I was going to say but wait it's been a month since you uploaded your last vid. I forgot about the 35cal impact.
Protip: It would have been easier to move the scale to the pellet trap than the pellet trap to the scale ;)
Hey Ted, yes you can heat it up, but I strongly suggest you do so outside. Look up a bullet casting video for some tips and safety... good luck.
New Pellet Trap, 3/8" to 1/2" (should be enough) Metal plate at a 45% angle over a bucket of water.
I was about to say the same thing. His mistake was to add trash into the mix. Even shooting to 150fpe , as long as you're shooting with a hardened steel deflector plate, you should be good to go.
Hey Ted, I do a lot of lead recovery from various sources (including my own pellet trap). You can absolutely melt it off, a large turkey fryer propane burner with a big ol goodwill cast iron pot. It's going to stink up your entire neighborhood, probably something to do at the farm while waiting for starlings. Be careful, lots of tin, zinc, and weird stuff in the pellets to make them hard. Like I said, best for a farm yard with the wind blowing towards the cornfields.
Or you can play gold prospector, lead is heavy so it will sink to the bottom . Shake and vibrate those buckets of water covered mess and most of the lead will end up at the bottom.
Best of luck! (btw going scrap price is about $0.30/lb to sell in my area. Whats your time worth?)
Ted go with cook suggestion ,, I burn off when I melt lead for bullets just skim the goo off with old spoon!!!!!
If your going to melt it make sure to wear a quality rubber face mask not the cheap single use ones
this is the stupidest idea I heard in a while
@@NotEvenDeathCanSaveU how? lead has a fairly low melting point. When I tried to melt some lead it only took like 10 sec with a blowtorch to start melting
@@cdh3671 Don't know if you can find any but I'd say at least a 3M half mask and P100 and vapor filter if you want to err on the safe side.
Some of us big guys have no problems getting around. 275lbs, I can still climb a tree 🤣.
Thats a impressive amount of lead 👍
Ted, I built one like that out of an empty 30 pack of beer. I installed a 1/8 " steel plate behind all the mulch and it was the end of my pass through problem. I melt my used lead to make slingshot ammo and fishing jigs. You are always entertaining with all kinds of stuff. 👍
I am planning to melt my lead into a big block and use it as a stop inside my pellet trap. From what I have read you can just melt the lead and all the other stuff will come to the surface as it is lighter then lead. At this point you can skim if off and you are left with mostly pure lead.
I will cast the lead into a plate and use it as a stop inside my trap. This will make it quite since the pellet will hit soft lead and I am hoping that the pellets will stack on top of each other to prevent holes from forming .... not sure about the last part. Still needs a thick piece of wood if anything makes it through.
thats a good idea did you try it? how quiet is it? And how has it held up?
I had a pellet trap that had a plate of 8mm steel in 45 degree angle, so that all pellets ricochet downward and collect up in the trap. It wouldn't be too difficult to arrange it so that the pellets drop straight into a bucket.
Do you want to re cast? If yes, put in oil drum and burn then take the ingot disc from the base, refine and cast.
Sell it to someone who casts/molds/reloads. They're already set up to melt/purify. I helped a buddy melt some wheel weights once. Stay up-wind and wear a respirator if melting lead. The fumes will make you sick. Not worth it if you don't do it on a regular basis and know how/equipped to do it right.
Make a little statue to your eternal war on starlings!
I second this Ted!!
I'm just curious how long it took to get that pile?
This is a random idea, but since saltwater is more buoyant than regular, maybe enough salt would make the rubber float? Smelting lead and rubber seems like a pretty dirty method.
@Ted,
we melt the lead with a propane burner in a cake mold and then hang it up as a target. when we are done shooting, we melt the top layer and we have a brand new target.
Okay so here is what I used to do.
At the trap shoot where we shot clay targets. I I used to dig up the lead in the shallow layers of the dirt.
I would then throw it all in a 5 gallon bucket of water to separate the dirt and Lead. Id poor the dirty water off the top of the lead sitting at the bottom of the bucket.
I would then spread what was left on towels to dry. there would still be sand mixed in the shotgun shell pellets.
After dried I would put the shot and sand on top of a screen from a window.
From the bottom I would use compressed air from my garage air compressor and blow gently enough to blow away the lighter particles leaving behind the heavier lead pellets. Hope this gives you some ideas.
Regulating the airflow is key as you're blowing from under the screen. Not to hard and fast.
Most rubber is about the same density as water, so to ensure the rubber floats to the surface you need to increase the density of the water, you can do this by adding salt to the water. Get another bucket and make up a strong salt water solution and put a small batch of the lead/rubber mix in, if the rubber floats just skim it off the top. Hope this helps.
Great tip 👏👏
Sounds great but does it actually work ??
@@FYMM69 I haven't tried it, I was just commenting from an engineering/science viewpoint, but salt is pretty cheap so it shouldn't cost too much to give it a try.
Hi Ted! Made my first mulch trap after watching your video a few years back, then watching this video I thought that I was having a flashback! I got so frustrated I gave the lead and rubber to my shooting range and bought 50kg of the rubber they use to make matts out of. The finer rubber pieces really grip the projectile !
Next time, put it in a big disposal pot. Heat it up with a camping stove. Get a long handled strainer, and a spoon, and scoop off the top crud that floats in the surface of the molten lead. Dispose of this crud, its hazardous. Get some cheap molds from Lee reloading to make ingots. Use or sell the ingots.
I know this is a old post but you can dry this out and spread it out on concrete take a air hose and gently both the mulch away. I use to clam old shot out at our trap range and do this to get rid of rocks and dirt after washing. Enjoyed your video
I used to collect wheel weights to make fishing sinkers. Melt it. All the rubber and other impurities floats to the top that you can skim off the liquid lead.
Hi Mr Bier,dont waste your time on trying to get the lead melted yourself since you're not a metalworker,just try and pick most/biggest pieces of rubber out and then sell the lot to a metalscrapper or someone at the shooting range that reloads and makes his own lead bullets,,it'll save you time and health and that will be the most envirnmently friendly to ;-)...think about it,you wanne melt that lead yourself?...do you have the gear for that?...if not,you'll have to buy it...wich will cost you money again,that will go off your winnings,still wanne do it? ok then...get yourself a big bottle of gas,a gas burner,a large metal pot,heat resistant gloves and something to poor your lead in...melt the lead,preferably outside with the wind in your back so you dont breath in the lead fumes,keep the portions of melted lead small enough so you can pick up the pot and poor the molten lead in molds,while melting the lead,all the rubber and cardboard left behind will burn off an the remains will float on top of the molten lead...hold on,we're on you tube arnt we...just watch a few vids on how to melt lead then lol...good luck Mr Bier.
Best answer: sell as is to someone who already has the tools to melt it down.
Do you want to keep the mulch? If not the safest method I can think is dissolving the rubber in a ketone such as acetone.
Judging from the large lumps of lead, it appears like lead itself is a pretty good pellet trap. Melt it into a frying pan sized ingot and use it as a backstop.
nice idea there
@@drurrynuffsaid6819 thanks
Gives new meaning to get the lead out.
Ted. Get 2 layers of Chicken wire and wrap over empty bucket. The Wire should grab most of the rubber and the small pieces of lead should drop down into the bucket filled with water. If you go to Mills, I think are just up the Hwy from you, they should have the square hole wire. I think its 1/4 inch. That will work. Rubber chunks are bigger than that. At least my mulch is. Good luck.
Put it in a lee furnace pot...Bit at a time..rubber and other impurities float to surface..Easy to seperate with ladle
I use a 22lr caliber rated steel bullet trap. Only mess in the lead, is paper from the targets. I dump it out in a bucket of water, paper floats to top, skim off, drain water.... lead!
More h20 give the rubber room to float scoop it out with a ladle
The rubber proved to be to dense to float on water. So try something denser like corn syrup its density is about 1.35g/cm3. Get a small container of it and a couple pieces pieces of rubber to see if it floats... If not, like alot of others have said melt it down in a goodwill cast iron pan that's small or medium sized, skim off the slag & crap from the surface cast it into bricks, ingots or slugs if you want then.
Haha the moment you said you made a big fricken mess for yourself I completely lost it because I been in the same place and was like I could of done this better lol
Ted This reminds me of a tree at my old house. It was about "12" thick. I have had put paper target's on it for years, and shot so much the tree fell. At the stump was so much lead and wood chips
Lead oxides are where you get into trouble. That lead is pretty much innocuous unless you eat it or it's in really fine dust form. I used to melt lead down for muzzle loader bullets on a setup outside and a long way from my house. I gave it up because you can buy way better bullets these days. If you do melt it, your in for spending a lot of $ to do it well and, more importantly, safely. After seeing the houses in the background, it might even be illegal to do where you live. Your best option is to take it as-is to a recycling location.
Well ted my trap uses the angled steel plate method with som rebar at the bottom of the plate. No filler material so when its emptied its all lead. If you try to burn the rubber out its gonna leave your lead dirty looks like hand separation time😰
Hey Ted, I'm 70, 5' 6" and have 65 pounds out of my trap but I don't walk around with it like an old man 😂
Let it all dry then melt over a propane fire in a disposable cast iron vessel. Pour into steel cupcake pan. All the non lead trash will float to the surface that you can ladle off. Or, sell it to a reloader. It’s worth about 50¢ per pound.
Big tub of water pour in the lead and rubber and stir the mixture so the rubber can float up, scoop off the rubber. Just keep stirring and scooping
Ted I think you have a problem my husband and I do a lot of chrony work but this is just on a whole different level
Don’t burn the rubber off, what you have is a LARGE version of a gold pan. Just use the density difference between the rubber and the lead to your advantage. I was actually really happy to see that you used water, just because of the lead dust. Now all you need to do is add more water, find a lid for the bucket (just to make less of a mess) and then shake/vibrate the bucket. The lead will drop to the bottom and the rubber will sit on top of the lead, this way you can reuse the rubber and still retrieve the lead. You can then melt the lead down to ingots to either recycle or reuse for other projects.
box of packed rags stops pellets14X14 size works! If you want lead easy process to reclaim. If not sell it to someone who make fishing sinkers/duck anchors/bullets etc...
Wow, Never thought I'd see the inside of Ted's bathroom closet.... Never say never.
Sell it on ebay: Used pellet trap $70 ONO. Lead scrap close to 100% pure, after removal of rubber trap particles.
Rough sieve first I think...
That'll take care of the bigger pieces of rubber at least.
The n melt the lead down slowly... I think the rubber will start to float on top, and you'd be able to scoop most of it off.... Just a thought, don't know if it'll work.
Filling up the new pellet trap with old rags ( especially jeans or cotton based rags) instead of rubber mulch will help though.... It'll be a lot easier to separate rags and lead, it's what I do...
Anyway, good luck, and do a video on your solution to the problem please!
I feel like if you try to melt it the water will gas off and blow lead everywhere wont it? I know they say when youre melting cleaned metals like lead and brass to make sure its dry because if the molten lead gets over top of the water it will explode and shoot lead everywhere. I suggest just take a piece of mesh fencing and make a strainer that will let pellets through and catch the rubber mulch. Seems much safer, may require some massaging to break the clumps of pellets apart but sounds better than a potential lead bomb.
Thank you for another totally awesome video! I saw a pellet trap video using a cardboard box and cloth inside. There was a towel and actual clothing layered inside. I would recommend using layered clothing only. The towel shredded and actually captured the pellets making it more difficult to retrieve the lead. After viewing your video it is apparent the layered clothing is a far superior method compared to the rubber mulch. I also think synthetic clothing will work better than cotton as it doesn't shred as much. A final note would be to suggest maintaining the trap at about 2 to 3 lb intervals. I think the massive lead deposits will create micro fine lead dust and vapor that most certainly will contaminate the air inside a home and the environment outside. With a cardboard box setup it might require 20 minutes start to finish. Well worth the time.
Ted you always rock! you cracked me up! Always entertaining! 😂🙏👌💪
If I've got your question right: Do you think sifting would help? Perhaps tapping on the sifter should cause the lighter rubber to move toward the surface where you could manually separate lead from rubber? After that, it's time to make some shad darts! Best of luck and since this is my very first contact with you, thank you for all your videos! It'd be a pleasure to sling a little lead or better yet (perhaps) rail some turns on the white stuff with you!
Like the vid, and that's a lot of lead. Is that all your garden?, and you don't seam to have boundry fences between your properties?
You need to try wet or dry panning to separate materials of different densities such as rubber and lead. You take a sturdy pan with a low lip and get a sample, shake it to get everything fluidized where everything will separate, then let little bits of material flow out the sides. Pretty soon you will reduce the sample to 99.9% lead, enough to pick out the rest of the rubber by hand. Keep a semiclose eye on what flows out the sides as you shake in a circular motion, as there is a chance of lead to fall out, but it is unlikely. The difference between wet or dry panning: wet uses copious amounts of water and you use a slurry, also it is used to find smaller things, such as flecks of gold dust, dry panning is for larger objects like pellets, birdshot, or bullets. You can use either wet or dry, but dry requires less setup and you have to be less careful. Let me know if you have any questions, Ted.
Also, love both of your channels. Keep up the good work!
wow Ted thats a shit ton of pellets. How long did that take to accumulate? Better yet, how long did it take to clean up that mess. lol. All the best to you.
I'm working on my second archery target. At least 150lb of lead in it now. Will stop 300fpe because it's practically a lead plate at this point.
Yeah my back yard target is exactly that... It's amazing in a summer how much lead one collects... It's millions of pellets mixed with little bitty pieces of black foam like stuff lol.
You can't pick it up its got to be in the 200lb range and has no support anymore... It's got about ten months on it now and time to collect that lead back melt it down and make a bunch of .257s and 308s for the slug guns.
I would like to know how many .25 and .30 JSB pellets are in it... I know that it's got to be north of 70 tins of .30 (getting the Impact STX .30 super dialed and the Crown .30 to be a 100y laser ... Mission accomplished on them both) and God only knows how many King and King heavies are in it but i would assume 80 or more and I forgot about the .30 Dream lite tuning so it's more then that on the .30s.. This is my target not including hubbies shooting so there is literally an astronomical amount of lead in that target...
Could use a screen to separate the rubber. Heat will only make a bigger mess.... I work in a rubber factory making o rings.
Been following you since Edgun Matador 25 cal days. Thanks for the education.
2:19 I was worried about the lead dust. I'm glad to see you were prepared.
Yes to the cast iron pot get it hot and the lead will melt and all the trashy stuff will float to the top. Then skim the top of the lead and stir it thenskim somemore.
Holy cow! An insane amount of pellets! Try putting a little more water in the bucket and shake/agitate the bucket. I think the shaking will allow the denser lead to fall below the mulch pieces. This is usually a good way to sort pieces of materials of different densities or sizes. Good luck!
Make your water saturated with salt so the density is higher,with a bit of luck the rubber will float. The rubbers pieces stuck to the pellets I would just burn them at with a roofing burner or so.
The rubber has to be lighter than the lead right? Stick a garden hose in the bucket and the rubber should eventually end up on top of the lead do to the turbulence or at least easier to get out. Then melt what ever is left.
Melt it down and make ingots. Then ship ingots back to JSB?
If you shake it, maybe the light stuff will work their way to the top.
Add a fine sand to the mix; something between the density of rubber and lead. Then shake it like a Polaroid
Hey Ted, do it dry. Somewhere you don’t infect the area with lead dust. Spread it out a bit at a time and the mulch will sweep (or use a blower.....remember the dust) and you wil be able to scoop up the lead with no mulch. That’s what I do. I have not competed in a few years but looking forward to this year.
PS I just gently sweep the mulch away and the lead stays put.
You should put it in a bigger bucket with water then keep on shaking it, hopefully all the lead goes to the bottom while the rubber stays at the top. Then you can easily separate the two
I would sift it through some heavier gauge, 3/8”ish diamond mesh wire panel, melt it down in a lead pot, flux with paraffin to remove impurities and cast fishing sinkers, decoy weights, etc. You can also get the cheap powder coat from harbor freight and give the lead a coat or 2 if you’re gonna handle whatever you cast and don’t want to constantly worry about lead contamination.
Pan it like gold panning. Add more water to the bucket and swish side to side. Scoup off the rubber mulch and do it again. DO NOT BURN IT OFF - LEAD FUMES ARE BAD
Boiling in water it’ll work and then melted use a mold for new pellets or slug
unused old pan, pour in the pellet add some cooking oil, turn on the fire.... cooking oil will increase the heat transfer rate, once it melt, it will melt the others... and you'll be surprise how fast lead melt...
test if the rubber floats on vedgetable oil, if so, then also make sure that the oil can be separated from the lead in a smart way, like alcohol, acetone or paint thinner...
Hey Ted- scrap value of lead is about $0.75 a pound.....good luck, next time clean it out sooner! ☠️
In my neck of the woods they have Household Hazardous waste disposal site, I think it is a County operation. If you have one also, just take the pellet trap to them, along with your old paint, and other hazardous products. Stay safe.
Ted, I always thought rubber mulch was messy and an extra trip to the hardware store. My traps consist of heavy clothing (especially jeans) I intercept from the wife and mom-in-law on the way to goodwil. Old carpet remnants works really well too. I shoot 25 to 75 yd down range so it's hard to find A gun/pellet combo that will penetrate but if so I just place a metal plate in the back. When it's time for a new trap I just lift the material inside and most of the pellets fall to the bottom of the Box. A little shaking recover the remaining pellets. I blow of the clothing remnants with my patio blower.
Unless you really want to keep the lead, I bet there are folks at your range that like to cast their own bullets, and would likely love 75 pounds of relatively clean lead. Lead can be safely melted at around 620*F with basic precautions as long as you keep it below it's vaporization point. Since that is around 3,000*F, you're likely fine. Lead in solid or liquid form is not near as toxic as lead in soluble form like the old paint or gasoline additives.
OK, so I emptied my trap a while back. Only 9 pounds of lead, but still. . . .
Dry panning was a great technique. Put some in an old frying pan, shake it, the lead drops to the bottom, scrape the rubber off, pour the lead into a bucket. Worked pretty well.
I'd let that mess dry out and dry pan
If you know someone from muzzleloading community, they are often casting their own bullets so they could use the lead - they also have the tools and knowledge how to melt and clean the lead from dirt.
Or maybe ask on your local shooting range. I bet there will be someone who would buy it from you or give you contacts.
Thanks for the content you are creating!
*I got you covered dude, just follow these instructions;*
Don't worry about cleaning all the crap out of the lead. Get a big cheap Wal-Mart stainless steel pot and a propane burner set up outside, preferably on a day with a very light breeze to evacuate fumes, and pour everything in at once (you can do a couple seperate loads if your pot is too small) and just let everything melt and burn off. Once the lead has started melting, do not, I repeat *do not* add more lead, the rubber and dust and pockets in the lead will hold moisture, which will cause steam explosions if added to already melted lead, which can shoot large sprays of molten lead all over yourself (safety glasses, long sleeves, jeans and leather shoes, maybe even a facemask is highly recommended).
When all the lead is molten (don't worry if the stuff on top is still burning off, just so long as all the lead has melted), carefully scrape all the crud that will float to the surface off and into a dry empty soup can with a large stainless steel spoon (I think you already know this, but don't use the pot and spoon for anything else but lead after that).
Once you have removed most of the rubber and dust and oxides from the surface, you'll want to throw in a couple small flakes of parrafin wax, about a tablespoons worth per ten pounds. Stir it quickly, it will catch fire so be ready. This will flux the lead and draw contaminants out of it and the pot walls.
After the flames stop, stir and scrape all the new crud that floats to the surface again, then Voila! You have a big pot of clean lead. You'll want to get an ingot mold or a metal muffin tray to pour out smaller peices of lead, it's way easier to handle and re-melt later on down the road. You'll find loads of people willing to take them off your hands if you aren't going to be using it yourself, but I'd try to stay local so you or your buyers don't have to pay for freight.
If you want to sell it, a fair price (after being well cleaned and in ingot form) is about a dollar per pound. It's worth about $0.25 to $0.40 per pound as it sits now, dirty and full of crap, but you can get more out of it if you process it yourself, depending on how cheaply you source your equipment (if you already have everything then it's free).
I use the rubber mulch too so I made a wood box with a wire mesh bottom that I sift the contents of my trap through. Some of the smaller mulch makes it through the mesh but it’s the cleanest and easiest way I have found to lighten my trap
Well hey if the rubber mulch IS actually floating then looks like you might do some good by pretty much filling the bucket with water...maybe even stick the end of the garden hose down in the bucket and overflow it for a bit and while the mulch is up at the top maybe kinda skim it off the top with a piece of small hole hardware cloth or something LIKE it...or strainer spoon...let me know how it goes... and good luck 👍
Ted check out some lead casting vids by reloaders on you tube. You can melt lead in pot use wax or saw dust as flux skim the dross which is waste and have clean lead for casting
Sort the lead from the mulch with vibration. That is, put that bucket in the back of your truck and drive around for a week. After a week of that the mulch will be on top.
That's a lot of sinkers or cast bullets! If you are going to smelt it down, it has to be DRY. I melt all my range scrap in a very crappy pot on a turkey fryer base and the copper jackets will float on top of the lead and I just scoop them out that way. I would assume all the rubber would burn off and just crusty crap would remain on top and you could skim that off.
What was the electric bill like from charging up your pcps
In the days of my pot smoking! make a ramp out of ply wood throw the mass around the top the rubber will stay at the top a the lead will fall down the ramp just like stems and seeds did.
You can try panning it like gold. The lead will stay at the bottom of the pan because of it’s density and the rubber should separate from it at the top. Or you can run it through a sluice machine.
Ted, yeah wearing protection is rather more important than folks might think!!
Hell, that's a lot of destruction of pellets!!!!
To save all that lead, contaminated with rubber is gonna be tough, maybe if you heat it all, the bad contamination will come to the top!
No recovery tip for this set up but maybe invest in or make a spin funnel trap like some more modern firing ranges use, projectiles go in to the trap hit a cylinder offset in the back and spin tell they drop in to a catch can or bucket... hope this helps.
🥃 cheers 🍻
Just a theory here but you could try dissolving a lot of salt into the water to increase the buoyancy of the rubber. I suspect with enough salt you can make the rubber float.
Gold pan or better yet try a fish tank vacuum the lead should just act like typical gravel though might just need more agitation.
Melt it down and scrape off the floating lead but be careful you should dry it all out first if you add water to molten led the water could cause a steam explosion
Air and shaking the material will usually separate anything light that would be unacceptable during the meltdown process in your casting pot...of course you need an open area to direct the airflow away from oxygen breathers....hopefully that's helpful in the future... it works well for me.
Add salt to increase the density of the solution to float the rubber. If table salt won't do it, add some calcium chloride (salt used to weight tractor tires).
How old is that pellet trap Ted?
Late to the party but in order to seperate 2 materials of consistant but different masses is you need to spin it. Ideally as fast as possible and they will seperate into consitute layers.
"How do you big guys get around?!" HEY! I resemble that remark!
Melt it all down, make a pellet trap out of ¼" steel and pour it in as backing. Lead stops lead quite effectively
That's a good idea. No more pass through!
I've got a 6*6*1" lead plate in my pellet trap. The more you shoot, the thicker it gets.
More water and boil it. It will help make the rubber float. Melting point of lead is over 600ﾟ so it shouldn't be a issue.
just keep walking me 240 lbs 6 feet 2 inches had a great day today out in the desert
you can try panning it like you would gold or just melt it down and let everything burn off
Maybe if you try to circulate water with a hose you may see the lighter bits flowing around and the lead staying on the bottom. If that works then you may be able to use a sieve to scoop the light bits out as they are circulating around. Worth a try!
Sift it through a screen ,melt it with an old cast iron pot maybe your gas grill lotta work !
Melting heavy metal in something you cook food on may not be the smartest idea...
"Son of a mother farts"....the funniest thing I've heard today, lol
Use a muffin pan to form the ingots. Cheap steel utensils from Walmart and cast iron pot from the Walmart camping section. All done for about $20.
Use a gold pan to separate the rubber from the lead. Burning the rubber would likely piss the neighbours off.
Make a diy centrifuge - the lead will stay at the bottom and the impurities will float up and out ready for you to scoop them out. If you use your drill with a home made paddle (dowel with some plastic attached) in the bucket you should also get the same effect once the water has enough momentum.
Best vid you've made in awhile! Enjoyed it. Let us all know how this comes out.