Bullet trap ideas for recycling lead

[sheepdog]

You know sand could still be used as a partial solution. I noticed something when I did my rubber crump box. I used several layers of Fedex boxes about 1.5 inches deep to make each layer of replaceable more often (ie fronts ) and to reduce the flow of crump out and away formt he center.
Well I noticed the boxes started to link to at the bullet holes, where card board tubes just about started to appear where the bullet blew materials from one box into the other but in such a way they didnt leak between. So if the front couple of boxes were crump and the rest sand that might work to grealy reduce outflow of sand and help keep the sand from changing the front into Non-Newtonian fluid where you might get a ricochet.

[Jim_Fleming]

Another good idea, sheepdog! using corrugated paper behind or in front of the rubber membrane, i.e. sheet rubber/gasket material, depending on the results, to slow down the flow of sand...

Personally, I work in a glass plant, in there they lose more sand in a day than would fill my box! It's a nice white fine sand, but I'm sure that the blue pill filling I intend to put into the nice white sand will turn it into a lovely shade of Plumbum Gray, eventually.

[Ron]

Jim F. The Special Operations Group here in Victoria have a glass bead bullet trap on one of their ranges. Have you thought of useing glass, you are in the right place to test it.

[Jim_Fleming]

Ron!!!!

To tell you the truth I never once thought about using ground up glass, but sir, you sure as h e double hockey sticks, are exactly right!!!



Any of the cullet that makes into the lead pot would simply float right to the top!!!!


I just never once thought about using the cullet, , and I very likely could get TONS of it if I asked...

Free is always gonna be goot! LOL!

Thanks a million!

Jim F. The Special Operations Group here in Victoria have a glass bead bullet trap on one of their ranges. Have you thought of useing glass, you are in the right place to test it.

[Bloodman14]

I'm coming in on this thread a bit late, but my .02.... I shoot into an old Elm tree stump, I can recover the lead later. Before that, it was a stack of old tires 4 high by 5 stacks deep. I recover a lot of lead that way, including my .303's (180 J's when I shoot them<GASP!>), and ALL my cast stuff, .303, SKS, .45 and .70 RB that I plink with in my 20" Winchester 1300 Defender 12 ga.


Update: I now use a 55 gal. plastic drum on its' side, filled with rubber mulch. Cut a hole in the side to fill it with the mulch, and put it onto a stand made from treated lumber (I use 4x4's). Fill 'er up, and use the ends (top or bottom) to fasten your target board to. 100% recovery, most are intact, and some will actually mushroom (cast, anywhere from 90 gr. SWCs, to 316299s at +/- 1900fps)! Jacketed types usually survive, as well, and are recovered.

[zt77]

http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/s...7/IMG_2512.jpg

http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/s...7/IMG_2513.jpg

http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/s...7/IMG_2514.jpg

http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/s...7/IMG_2515.jpg

http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/s...7/IMG_2516.jpg

http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/s...7/IMG_2517.jpg

http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/s...7/IMG_2518.jpg

http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/s...7/IMG_2519.jpg



that is my bullet box. the walls and floor is made of 1/8 inch steel the back out of 1/4 inch and at the bottom of the back, the steel is rolled 90 degrees. a piece of 1/4 inch stainless steel is welded on top of the weld between the back and the floor to keep the weld from being beat up when the bullet rolls down. i welded little hooks to hold the target onto, as well as handles which is balanced out. it has a lip at the front to keep stuff from pouring out. the bullets are basically destroyed on impact and the rubber mat keeps slower bullets from doing that. it also doesnt throw wood chips in there as well as doesnt exactly blow out. i use a little gardeners shovel thing to get the stuff out. its like dirt but made of lead, not quite small enough to be dust but i'm 100% positive i dont want to breathe near that stuff when getting it out or just after shooting. but it works perfect, i've shot it with .500 s&w and the back isn't bowing or anything. i wont put it through rifle use but I bet 1/4 inch stainless could take it just fine.

also shooting without a front will cause bullet fragments to fly back towards you. the bullet hits the back, rolls down, hits the corner, and comes back, hitting the cover.

[JIMinPHX]

i wont put it through rifle use but I bet 1/4 inch stainless could take it just fine.

I'd take that bet if I were a betting man. It's been my experience that above about 2,000fps, even soft 13bnh little 50-grain slugs start to take divots out of steel at a 45 degree angle.

[zt77]

I couldn't seem to get .223 62 grain fmj dent the piece of stainless I had set up at 45 degrees. They would fragment upon impact.

[mactool]

Look at these guys andtheir pictures. They use granulated tires. http://www.ballistiskforsoegsgruppe.dk/
But I guess you coud use rubber pellets used for injection moulding.

[JIMinPHX]

Mine fragmented too, but they took a divot out of the back plate,

[zt77]

not mine. not even a dent after powerwashing the lead smears. no dimples or divots.

[Jim_Fleming]

Regarding the last two posts, from JiminPhoenix and zt77...

It's highly likely you're both correct... Lest we forget there are MANY grades of both Carbon Steel, from soft to hard alloys, and the same goes for Stainless Steel.

I know for a personal fact, (from working with them) there are grades of Stainless that are what's called work hardening... In other words the more that you cut, bend, form, hammer, there is formed a work-hardened skin on the metal...

It's possible that stainless back plate is doing just that. Work hardening more and more each and every time it's impacted, (hammered), by yet another blue pill. There is only a hard skin formed during work-hardening, not all the way through like with a metal working file.

It also goes without saying that there are extremely mild grades of Carbon Steel, there is one alloy called 'Leadlloy' that gets it's name from the fact that it's so malleable that it feels you're working with lead when it's being cut. The manufacturer of Leadlloy specifically declares that there are no significant amounts of lead in their product, Leadlloy...

Just food for thought...

[JIMinPHX]

I was also going to ask what velocity your slugs were traveling at & how hard they were, but Mr. Fleming beat me to the third question. Which grade of stainless are you using? I was using h-36, which is a fairly soft grade of garden variety hot roll plate, but it's not as soft as something like leadloy. I can shoot 1800 fps pills at it all day with nothing more than splatter marks on bare steel & the mill scale getting blasted off the areas where it was still present. Around 2,000fps, I start getting little divots taken out of the back plate. That was with the plate at a 45degre angle. Slighter angles tend to take a hotter hit without distorting. Thicker steel will stand up to hits of the same velocity by heavier slugs without bending, but the thickness does not seem to have much of an effect on the velocity at which the divots start to occur.

I am pretty familiar with the work hardening that Jim brings up. I've seen it on a lot of pieces of chemical equipment that were subjected to regular stresses. Materials that work harden are usually susceptible to stress fractures from the same process that causes the hardening. I've seen this quite a bit on mixer blades, tank mounting pads & pump components. Early equipment for manufacturing Rayon, pill formers & homogenizers are a few of the pieces of equipment where I've seen stress fractures in stainless become a chronic issue.

I was going to go to a case hardened version of my backstop plate, but then I discovered the merits of the crumb rubber traps & I stopped fooling around with the steel designs. I had also considered a sandwich design for the backstop in which there are two pieces of plate bolted together with a layer of rubber in between them. I figured that this would be quieter. I thought that it might help to absorb the impact in the rubber, but then again, it may also let the front plate distort more easily too. I am not sure if it would be better or worse compared to a single plate. The idea needs to be tested.

By the way, that stainless trap is awfully nice looking.

[thx997303]

JIMinPHX, on your pistol box, what kind of steel did you use? I read the thread and couldn't find that bit.

[JIMinPHX]

JIMinPHX, on your pistol box, what kind of steel did you use? I read the thread and couldn't find that bit.

I'm assuming that you're talking about my pistol cube & not my 20" deep magnum pistol box. The back of the cube is H-36 hot roll plate. It's a real common grade of mild steel. One of my local steel yards sells pre cut 12" squares as a standard item. I think that particular one was 3/16" thick.

.38's, 9mm mak, .380 & .22RF just about reach the back of the box (1 foot deep crumb rubber). .45 ACP's often hit the back plate, but not real hard. 9mm Lugar rounds at 1200fps or snappy .38+p rounds hit it hard enough to flatten out the soft 13bnh slugs that I load, but do not dent the rear plate. It has 3/4"mdf behind the plate, just because that's what I had a scrap of laying around when I built the box. The 1/8 x 1" steel flat bars with the 1/4" steel rods going through them (now on both sides in the back) take up the brunt of the impact from the 9's & hot .38's. The wimpy little #4 wood screws in my hinge didn't hold up to that kind of abuse too well.

[thx997303]

I wonder how it would fare with a 40 s&w.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is 3/4" mdf?

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

I wonder how it would fare with a 40 s&w.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is 3/4" mdf?

3/4" = 0.75"

MDF = Medium-density fiberboard is an engineered wood product formed by breaking down hardwood or softwood residuals into wood fibres, often in a defibrator, combining it with wax and a resin binder, and forming panels by applying high temperature and pressure.[1]

It is made up of separated fibers, (not wood veneers) but can be used as a building material similar in application to plywood. It is much more dense than normal particle board.

[Jim_Fleming]

for us old timers out there MDF is pretty much good old fashioned Masonite, the same backing board that's in those old clipboards that've pretty much disappeared...

3/4" = 0.75"

MDF = Medium-density fiberboard is an engineered wood product formed by breaking down hardwood or softwood residuals into wood fibres, often in a defibrator, combining it with wax and a resin binder, and forming panels by applying high temperature and pressure.[1]

It is made up of separated fibers, (not wood veneers) but can be used as a building material similar in application to plywood. It is much more dense than normal particle board.

[grumman581]

for us old timers out there MDF is pretty much good old fashioned Masonite, the same backing board that's in those old clipboards that've pretty much disappeared...

If it was the same as Masonite, wouldn't there be some sort of secret handshake or something before you would be allowed to cut it?

[thx997303]

Alright, I am going to build one of the pistol cubes, and just need to get it all straight.