Bullet trap update - weighed the spent balls

[Canute Rex]

A little while back I posted about a simple bullet trap I copied from a plan on an online forum. It is just a pressure treated plywood box with a hinged lid on cart wheels (14" x 14" x 24") filled with rubber playground mulch.

I recovered about a hundred spent round balls from it, all looking roughly hemispherical. I wondered how much lead had been abraded from them on their way through the front face of the box and the rubber mulch.

I finally got around to weighing them - 10 at once on a precise (.002 lb) scale in the herbs and spices department of my local food co-op. (In a paper packet to avoid contamination)

They weighed in at .258 lb, which works out to 1806 grains, or 180.6 per bullet. The original weight of the Hornady .495 balls was supposed to be 182 grains. That's 99.23% of their original weight, probably within specification.

Nice to know that I'm recovering virtually all of my lead, and not depositing loads of powdered lead in the box. I recommend the simple box trap to frugal shooters.

Let's see - if I average 20 shots a week and lose 1% of ball weight per shot (figuring in casting losses), then I lose one round ball equivalent every five weeks. A box of 100 should last 500 weeks, so in about 9 years and 7 months I'd be down to my last bullet. Hmmm...there has to be a catch.

Canute

[t.caster]

I'd like to see that trap. Rubber playground mulch???

[G-Man]

The inner material basically looks like shredded tires. 

There's been a lot of use of this material in indoor police range rebuilds in the past 10 years or so as it reduces fragmentation and the generation of lead dust, which can cause elevated blood lead levels in the range officers who work there on a daily basis.  The angled steel backstops with the swirl chamber and drop box really tear up the bullets a lot more, especially when the plates get old, gouged and warped.

Guy 

[frontier gander]

i always shoot into a cardboard box filled with sand. .530" round balls @ 100 yards.

[bryanbrown]

I wasn't able to find your previous post searching, would you mind posting the link?

[Canute Rex]

Bryan - here's the link: http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=3760.0 I like your signature quotation. I hadn't seen that one in a while.

The mulch is just tires that have been shredded and dyed.

Looks as if sand does the job as well. I chose rubber mulch for a few reasons. First, it is light. Second, we get a lot mixed precipitation in the winter around here and I was worried that sand would freeze solid. Third, the rubber mulch is slower to leak out the bullet holes in the front. I am going to try the inner tube liner that someone suggested, and see about some brackets to make replacing the front board easier.

I am also going to put the wheels on a wider axle. The thing tends to be top heavy and I am also worried that the occasional flier might damage one of the wheels.

Canute

[Daryl]

Gander- the circular patch impressions from the lands on those .54 cal balls looks as if you use a descent ball/patch combo. Good job.