Bullet trap ideas for recycling lead

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

I dont remember. I can get the actual measurements for you. We just kinda mocked it up and then welded it.

[WilliamDahl]

I dont remember. I can get the actual measurements for you. We just kinda mocked it up and then welded it.

Yeah, I know how that works out... We have this size steel and we want this size opening, so whatever angle it works out to be is good enough...

Dimensions of the side pieces (height and length) and the opening width will do... I can figure out the angle with simple trig from there...

[Bardo]

You could put it all in water and skim the wood off the top. What ever wood was stuck in the lead then could work as the flux. I may have to try that cedar stump as a boolit trap.

Bardo

I finally cut apart one of my lead recovery Cedar Stumps. There was a wad of lead centered and about 10 inches in. I was trying to figure how to separate the wood chips and lead when it dawned on me. This was very accurate lead from the center of the target. I'll leave the wood chips mixed in and use it for flux to produce a More Accurate Alloy.

[.5mv^2]

Yep the correct angle is the crux to making the thing work. If it 90 deg it probably will reflect the bullet straight back. It has kept me from building one.

What was the angle that you used between the two plates?

[RED333]

Well, my 5-gallon Bullet Bucket was a success! I made a little article about it here:

http://www.4thla.com/bullet_bucket/bullet_bucket.htm

Enjoy!

Steve

Man, thanks so much for sharing, got to make one of these!!!
I use a 3/4" griddle plate that is 2.5' x 4', ya aint moving it, so it stays in the back yard. The lead goes into the dirt, I have to dig it out.
I will take your bucket to the range.
Thanks Again

[kbstenberg]

This is my bullet trap
.

[WilliamDahl]

Yep the correct angle is the crux to making the thing work. If it 90 deg it probably will reflect the bullet straight back. It has kept me from building one.

If the backstop and the bullet were completely elastic objects, you would be in a lot more danger. Due to the softness of the lead, it deforms and loses energy, making each reflection from the angled surface of the backstop have less velocity. If you were shooting a steel ball at the angled steel surfaces, you would need to worry a bit more about ricochets coming back at you.

Let's use a simple example of each plate being at a 45 degree angle to you. You shoot slightly to the right of the apex of the angle of the plates, it hits the right plate, then ricochets horizontally to the left plate, then ricochets back towards you. Will two collisions with the steel plates be enough to slow a lead bullet so that it won't hurt you if it hits you? Maybe, but I wouldn't want to stand there and find out.

Some of the other angles for the plates might not result in the projectile coming directly back to you, but they could endanger people or objects well to the sides of you. For example, if the plates are angled 40 degrees from center (i.e. 80 degrees between the plates), you will have a 2 surface ricochet with the projectile coming back at an angle to you. If the plates are angled 30 degrees from center (i.e. 60 degrees between the plates), it will ricochet off the first surface and then hit the 2nd surface at a 90 degree angle to it. With a truly elastic collision, that means that it would come back exactly as it was fired, but with lead, it probably will mean a lot of splatter.

If you change it so that the angle between the plates is 45 degrees, the projectile will come directly back to you, but after 4 ricochets.

All of these examples are assuming that you are hitting the backstop surface parallel to the centerline of the angle.

The more I look at the mathematics of it, I have to think that the only reason people are not shooting themselves with these types of backstops is due to the deformation of the bullet on each surface collision.

For those of you who don't want to deal with the mathematics of it, a simple way of testing this would be to get two mirrors and a laser pointer. Set up the two mirrors at an angle like you would see with this type of bullet trap. Let the laser be the path the the projectile would be traveling given a purely elastic collision. You might need to put a piece of paper periodically in front of each mirror to see where the laser is striking. This isn't a perfect example due to the refraction of the light as it goes through the glass coating on the mirror, but it should be good enough to give you an idea of what is happening.

[.5mv^2]

Hi William
Theory aside the reason for my concern is that I was shot by a 223 that ricocheted off the back side a television screen. I am pretty sure it was a second order reflection. The back of the screen was angled pretty close to 45 degrees. More complex reflections become a concern and keeps me shooting into a paper and tire berm.

If the backstop and the bullet were completely elastic objects, you would be in a lot more danger. Due to the softness of the lead, it deforms and loses energy, making each reflection from the angled surface of the backstop have less velocity. If you were shooting a steel ball at the angled steel surfaces, you would need to worry a bit more about ricochets coming back at you.

Let's use a simple example of each plate being at a 45 degree angle to you. You shoot slightly to the right of the apex of the angle of the plates, it hits the right plate, then ricochets horizontally to the left plate, then ricochets back towards you. Will two collisions with the steel plates be enough to slow a lead bullet so that it won't hurt you if it hits you? Maybe, but I wouldn't want to stand there and find out.

Some of the other angles for the plates might not result in the projectile coming directly back to you, but they could endanger people are objects well to the sides of you. For example, if the plates are angled 40 degrees from center (i.e. 80 degrees between the plates), you will have a 2 surface ricochet with the projectile coming back at an angle to you. If the plates are angled 30 degrees from center (i.e. 60 degrees between the plates), it will ricochet off the first surface and then hit the 2nd surface at a 90 degree angle to it. With a truly elastic collision, that means that it would come back exactly as it was fired, but with lead, it probably will mean a lot of splatter.

If you change it so that the angle between the plates is 45 degrees, the projectile will come directly back to you, but after 4 ricochets.

All of these examples are assuming that you are hitting the backstop surface parallel to the centerline of the angle.

The more I look at the mathematics of it, I have to think that the only reason people are not shooting themselves with these types of backstops is due to the deformation of the bullet on each surface collision.

For those of you who don't want to deal with the mathematics of it, a simple way of testing this would be to get two mirrors and a laser pointer. Set up the two mirrors at an angle like you would see with this type of bullet trap. Let the laser be the path the the projectile would be traveling given a purely elastic collision. You might need to put a piece of paper periodically in front of each mirror to see where the laser is striking. This isn't a perfect example due to the refraction of the light as it goes through the glass coating on the mirror, but it should be good enough to give you an idea of what is happening.

[WilliamDahl]

Hi William
Theory aside the reason for my concern is that I was shot by a 223 that ricocheted off the back side a television screen. I am pretty sure it was a second order reflection. The back of the screen was angled pretty close to 45 degrees. More complex reflections become a concern and keeps me shooting into a paper and tire berm.

Thinking that maybe it might be different if I changed it so that the backstop was just an inclined plate towards the ground and then there was also a steel plate on the ground, I tried it with a very shallow angle (20 degrees) to see what it would work out as... I still ended up with a case of the projectile coming back at you if you assume true elastic collisions. but it is an 8th order reflection.


Ricochets can happen with tires also if the projectile is moving slow enough that it does not penetrate the tire. I can remember being hit by a BB that bounced off a tire many decades ago. I wasn't the shooter, but I was fairly close to the shooter and it could have just as easily hit the shooter if he had hit the tire a few inches away from where he hit it. Luckily, the old Daisy Red Ryders only had a muzzle velocity of around 280 fps, but still enough "to put your eye out" as we were all warned way back then.

Personally, I have to think that the safest way to have a metal backstop would be to angle it towards the ground and then to have a 2 ft deep basin of sand underneath it. Unfortunately, it doesn't make for as easy of bullet recovery as a device that is completely made out of steel like IllinoisCoyoteHunter created.

[.5mv^2]

Ill yote hunter, or any one else who have these nice traps shoot anything but lead into your trap? Perhaps the deformity is what keeps the reflections from happening.

William, We did a safety course last spring where we shot pump action bb's at close range into cow eyes Some would pass through the eyes most would stop in the back wall. Be careful with your red rider

[WilliamDahl]

William, We did a safety course last spring where we shot pump action bb's at close range into cow eyes Some would pass through the eyes most would stop in the back wall. Be careful with your red rider

Modern air rifles are a lot more powerful than the old Red Ryders that we had as kids. I have a modern air rifle for pests that I do not want to shoot with a firearm (e.g. the stray cats that want to climb on vehicles and scratch up the paint). I saw a 'possum one night eating the food of my dog right by my back door many years ago and the air rifle was the closest thing that I had. It was just a shot from the hip since he started moving as soon as I opened the door. I figured I missed him, but I found him about 25 ft away the next day -- dead. A 1000 fps pellet rifle is not a toy.

[41mag]

This is my bullet trap
.

I have one like that but haven't filled it up with dirt just yet. I found that some 6'ish gallon screw lid buckets they throw away at work do a great job for my revolver rounds. It will catch everything I shoot as close as 25yds except for the 454 and the Lee 300 RF. At 50yds it will stop them all, but there are times when the bottom will split, again shooting the 454.

[WilliamDahl]

Ill yote hunter, or any one else who have these nice traps shoot anything but lead into your trap? Perhaps the deformity is what keeps the reflections from happening.

I remember seeing an episode of Mythbusters awhile back where they were testing some sort of myth that required hitting an object after a couple of ricochets. Of course, they started out the test with everything setup perfect for elastic collisions, but they weren't getting the angle on the ricochet that they were expecting. I don't remember them actually understanding why they were getting a different angle, just that they compensated for it and changed the angle of the surfaces so that they could eventually get the 2nd ricochet to hit where they wanted it to. I've noticed quite a few episodes over the years where their knowledge of firearms is rather lacking. One of them that was fairly blatant had them claiming that the KE from a M1911 .45ACP was significantly more than a .44mag. I believe that was the episode where they were trying to get a merry-go-round spinning by shooting it with various calibers. From that episode, I came to the determination that they did not know the difference between kinetic energy and momentum.

One thing that might also be a concern with respect to ricocheting objects is what spin the objects had on them when they hit the reflecting surface. That might alter the reflection just enough to just miss you with a bullet that was going to hit you or just hit you in one that was going to just miss you.

What the Mythbuster experiments showed me though is that when a bullet hits an angled surface, it deforms and comes off the surface at a lesser angle than it hit the surface. This is probably why the backstops that are made of two angled pieces of steel that direct the bullet into a catch / deceleration chamber actually work. I suspect that the bullet hits the angled surface and the part of the bullet touching the surface starts to slows up whereas the rear of the bullet is still traveling the same speed, thus it starts to deform until all of the deformed bullet is traveling the same speed. This newly deformed mass slides a bit along the surface before reflecting off where it does the same thing to the other angled surface... The shallower the angle between the original bullet's path and the angled backstops, the less deformation of the bullet should be expected. It would be interesting to see some high speed photography of the lead being deformed as it hit the various surfaces during a multi-surface ricochet.

[beerbeer95648]

I built a bucket and crumb rubber trap last weekend. I put 3-4 inches of coarse sand in a bucket followed by two circles of cardboard. I then placed another bucket inside it and filled with compressed crumb rubber. I fired 80 rounds of 230gr 45acp into it from 7 to 12 yards. I recovered all bullets in the first bucket. My question for those that are shooting into rubber is how close do you feel safe shooting into the trap? I mostly practice defensive shooting so prefer to shoot at those distances. Any concerns?

[DCM]

Thinking that maybe it might be different if I changed it so that the backstop was just an inclined plate towards the ground and then there was also a steel plate on the ground, I tried it with a very shallow angle (20 degrees) to see what it would work out as... I still ended up with a case of the projectile coming back at you if you assume true elastic collisions. but it is an 8th order reflection.


Ricochets can happen with tires also if the projectile is moving slow enough that it does not penetrate the tire. I can remember being hit by a BB that bounced off a tire many decades ago. I wasn't the shooter, but I was fairly close to the shooter and it could have just as easily hit the shooter if he had hit the tire a few inches away from where he hit it. Luckily, the old Daisy Red Ryders only had a muzzle velocity of around 280 fps, but still enough "to put your eye out" as we were all warned way back then.

Personally, I have to think that the safest way to have a metal backstop would be to angle it towards the ground and then to have a 2 ft deep basin of sand underneath it. Unfortunately, it doesn't make for as easy of bullet recovery as a device that is completely made out of steel like IllinoisCoyoteHunter created.

Mythbusters for bullet trap builders http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfDoQ...ure=plpp_video
YMMV

[45-70.gov]

has anyone tried just rolled up old carpet??

i tried a roll about 6 or 8 layers thick.....not enough for 357s and 44s

i did recover a few slugs that bounced off the tree i leaned it against

next attempt will be.......4 ft strips...rolled tight for about 3 to 4 feet

will un roll to recover slugs when i need lead

[Dumasron]

For a material to buffer the shot energy, how about
placing the traps twice as far away? The target is just
as big as it ever was, it just looks smaller.

[WilliamDahl]

For a material to buffer the shot energy, how about
placing the traps twice as far away? The target is just
as big as it ever was, it just looks smaller.

Well, it's how it *looks* that determines how hard it is to hit it.

Besides, putting the target twice the distance is not going to affect the velocity of the projectile that much for the distances we are talking about here.

[Gliden07]

Check this thing out!! It aint cheap but I'm sure it would work to recycle the bullets!!

http://thebulletbunker.com/Products.html

[JIMinPHX]

Thinking that maybe it might be different if I changed it so that the backstop was just an inclined plate towards the ground and then there was also a steel plate on the ground, I tried it with a very shallow angle (20 degrees) to see what it would work out as... I still ended up with a case of the projectile coming back at you if you assume true elastic collisions. but it is an 8th order reflection.



...

Ricochets can happen with tires also if the projectile is moving slow enough that it does not penetrate the tire. I can remember being hit by a BB that bounced off a tire many decades ago.

If you look back at some of the first pages on this thread, you can see marks where the lead actually hit the wood frame around the steel plate on my first jr. size trap. The impact is far from elastic. The shrapnel ended up mostly following along the plane of the back plate & hitting the sides within an inch of it.

Boolits that do not penetrate tires, most certainly do bounce back. Boston PD found this out the hard way when someone stole a bus from South Station & they opened fire on the tires with their 9mm sidearms.