I have wanted for some time to collect the used pellets from my indoor pistol range. It is simply constructed of a small cardboard box, a small fat pillow and a 2' x 1-1/2' metal serving tray. The tray backs up the pillow and the pillow backs up the shredded box side upon which a paper target is mounted.
I have been collecting the loose pellets from inside the box for six weeks, but have left the backup pillow alone until now.
On Tuesday I started "mining" the stuffed pillow for pellets. One side of the pillow is shredded on the bottom where the most pellets have collected behind the target's center in the spun fiber stuffing.
I estimate that I recovered about three hundred used pellets. I use coated or alloy pellets so there were three colors - copper, silver and light gray. I collected them into a common pile and then inspected and separated them by color. I discarded the one third of the pellets that were deformed or had damaged, scraped heads.
The remaining pellets were IMHO usable. Their main draw-back was that their skirts showed rifling marks. Their passage through the rifled gun barrel left minute scars along the outer bottom of their skirts.
The used pellets loaded into the magazine easier that new ones, indicating some erosion of their outer skirts. But none of them was so badly eroded that it would fall out of its chamber.
When comparing the skirt ends of the pellets loaded into the magazine, the new pellet's skirts were noticably smoother than that of the used ones.
When held up to the light all magazine chambers showed some light leakage around the edge. But it was hard to decern the leakage of the old vs. the new pellets.
In summary I concluded that 70% of used pellets are good enough for my use. I am retired and have plenty of time to invest in recovering and screening used pellets. For others the process may seem too tedious and not worth the trouble.
And in general recycling is good.
I have been collecting the loose pellets from inside the box for six weeks, but have left the backup pillow alone until now.
On Tuesday I started "mining" the stuffed pillow for pellets. One side of the pillow is shredded on the bottom where the most pellets have collected behind the target's center in the spun fiber stuffing.
I estimate that I recovered about three hundred used pellets. I use coated or alloy pellets so there were three colors - copper, silver and light gray. I collected them into a common pile and then inspected and separated them by color. I discarded the one third of the pellets that were deformed or had damaged, scraped heads.
The remaining pellets were IMHO usable. Their main draw-back was that their skirts showed rifling marks. Their passage through the rifled gun barrel left minute scars along the outer bottom of their skirts.
The used pellets loaded into the magazine easier that new ones, indicating some erosion of their outer skirts. But none of them was so badly eroded that it would fall out of its chamber.
When comparing the skirt ends of the pellets loaded into the magazine, the new pellet's skirts were noticably smoother than that of the used ones.
When held up to the light all magazine chambers showed some light leakage around the edge. But it was hard to decern the leakage of the old vs. the new pellets.
In summary I concluded that 70% of used pellets are good enough for my use. I am retired and have plenty of time to invest in recovering and screening used pellets. For others the process may seem too tedious and not worth the trouble.
And in general recycling is good.
