Finally cleaned out my home made pellet trap as it was getting heavy. Just over 8 lbs of .177 pistol pellets.
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Cleaned out pellet trap
- Thread starter ron_c
- Start date
good job collecting it
Emptying the pellet trap feels a bit like opening a present now that I have been casting. All that material to cast...
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I thought pellet gun lead recovery and casting were basically a death trap/fool's errand. You guys finding it's actually worth your while? Non-suicidal/family-murdering folks included?
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Casting a few slugs outdoors with a fan and some basic ppe should be reasonably safe I think?
anyone have any facts on this?
I wouldn't try to make a living doing this in my basement mind you... but I wonder if 30 minutes casting outdoors once a month is a major risk?
anyone have any facts on this?
I wouldn't try to make a living doing this in my basement mind you... but I wonder if 30 minutes casting outdoors once a month is a major risk?
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There are people who have been casting for decades with No lead showing up in their blood tests. Lani52 for one and Wayne to name 2 that I know of.
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I never answered the "worth your while" part of the question. That's a tough one to answer. Kind of depends on your values maybe. It also depends on how real that risk is, and to what degree basic safety procedures mitigate it. But let's assume for the moment that I can do this in a way that's not a high exposure risk. In this situation I would say it is worth the time expense and hassle (to keep safe I mean).
Here are my thoughts:
First I don't feel like I'm just constantly spitting out toxic material for someone else to deal with. I can recycle my lead. That matters to me for some reason, and recycling the lead feels like the right thing to do.
Second, and I can live without this, there is something satisfying about knowing that you're producing and recycling all of the slugs that you are shooting especially when they work really well. It's kind of like that feeling of personal investment or something.
Third, As it turns out the ones that I cast shoot as well or better for my needs than anything I can buy so that's good. That's just luck I think. Proper gun - mold pairing.
Fourth, with the 8 cavity mold I'm using i can CRANK OUT the slugs. In 30 minutes (after all has melted and heated up) I can easily fill a jsb .25 cal 350 pellet tin with nearly perfect air gun bullets and half fill another.
I honestly bought the mold just for backup purposes in case I couldn't find 25 caliber pellets, I expected it to be a total pain in the butt and something I would never want to do and not worth the while except for under unusual circumstance. what I found is it's very efficient and productive and easy to do and it seems easy to keep safe. I'm actually really surprised at how worth my while it seems to be. Assuming I'm not poisoning myself.
Here are my thoughts:
First I don't feel like I'm just constantly spitting out toxic material for someone else to deal with. I can recycle my lead. That matters to me for some reason, and recycling the lead feels like the right thing to do.
Second, and I can live without this, there is something satisfying about knowing that you're producing and recycling all of the slugs that you are shooting especially when they work really well. It's kind of like that feeling of personal investment or something.
Third, As it turns out the ones that I cast shoot as well or better for my needs than anything I can buy so that's good. That's just luck I think. Proper gun - mold pairing.
Fourth, with the 8 cavity mold I'm using i can CRANK OUT the slugs. In 30 minutes (after all has melted and heated up) I can easily fill a jsb .25 cal 350 pellet tin with nearly perfect air gun bullets and half fill another.
I honestly bought the mold just for backup purposes in case I couldn't find 25 caliber pellets, I expected it to be a total pain in the butt and something I would never want to do and not worth the while except for under unusual circumstance. what I found is it's very efficient and productive and easy to do and it seems easy to keep safe. I'm actually really surprised at how worth my while it seems to be. Assuming I'm not poisoning myself.
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I cast my own pistol bullets back in the early 70's for just over 10 years. No health issues that I saw. People did say in case of a nuclear blast they would hide behind me for protection.
I still have my own hair.....well, mostly.
And, I still have all my own teeth.
I still have my own hair.....well, mostly.
And, I still have all my own teeth.
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Thanks MrP. It does sound like a good way to get more value out of your purchase and cause less pollution in the bargain.
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As a competition shooter, I cast and shoot ~20,000 pistol bullets a year and have been doing so for for many years with no ill effects, It’s a great (safe) hobby and it’s the only way that I can afford to put that much lead down range.
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I am an incessant lead collector. When a kid I got ahold of a 5 gallon bucket of linotype lead and in a weekend would cast a large coffee can of round nose and SWCs for a Mod 10 38 and GP100 357. Tumbler was wiggling away all week long. Next weekend would be the lube sizing and reloading. Fun fun fun. I dond dink I got any longderm damade.
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