They are doing something very cool at my club...

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The folks at my shooting club are doing something very, very cool.

Now, this place has a number of pistol and rifle ranges, as well as archery ranges and course. It's nothing to see state troopers training on one range while Olympic hopefuls are practicing on another, and this
is a little country place.

One of the big deals at this club is trap shooting. Three multi station trap ranges under the lights, auto equipment, club meets, regular weekly night shoots.... just a real hoot. Myself, I occasionally go to the weekly night shoots, especially when school is in session and it's getting stressful. It's just so relaxing to forget about everything and concentrate on skills, especially when the deer come out and join us as they usually do. Funny thing that.... all this gun fire and the deer happily graze around us knowing they are perfectly safe.

I can't shoot trap this month, and maybe not next month as well.

Why?

The trap ranges are closed. They are removing all those years worth of lead shot. I'm Ok with that, I think it's a good idea. Keep the soil clean, and the water stays clean too. Living in farm lands as I do, everyone around here is especially aware of that, most aware being all the old time farmers who belong to this club.

Removing the lead, that's cool. What's mega cool is what they are doing with it.
They are reclaiming it and almost all will go right back to be loaded in shotgun shells again! Without processing or smelting. Just sieve it and load 'er up.

Seems our soil is especially good, not being too acidic, and the years worth of shot is in excellent shape. A sample pulled gave an estimate of 100 tons to be recovered, with the club receiving 10% as their share. With the price of shot today thats a fair chunk of change in the bank.

One hundred tons of shot!!

Holy cow batman!

I hope to buy some myself and put it away. I load 12 gauge, but not much. Just enough so I can shoot trap when I want to without nailing the family budget for shells. More importantly, I cast my own bullets and lead shot is good stuff. Very hard, good quality, and ....

One hundred tons of shot!!