It’s that time of season again—time to go buy surveyors stakes for Boomershoot (see also Vampire season again and Vampire time of year again).
So, after dinner last night we drove over to Lowe’s and bought the stakes. And this time we also bought some lime at the same time to put on the target berm to stabilize all the lead we put into the ground there:
With the addition of the lime I had an additional line of thought for responding to the anticipated question question from the checkout clerk. Once the vampires are dead we need to get rid of the bodies, right? Lime will help with that.
The clerk didn’t quite bite. “Big project?”, she asked. I wanted a bigger invite than that and just said, “You could say that.” Barb thought it was sufficient and offered, “He usually says, ‘It’s for the vampires.’”. So, I ran with it, “Yes, we have a very heavy infestation of vampires this year and the lime is to dispose of the bodies.” The clerk smiled and murmured something in agreement with the plan. Little did she know the real plan is almost as unbelievable.
You want slaked lime to dissolve bodies. Feeding to hogs is another option. My favorite option is to use a backhoe, bury the body 10 feet down, add four feet of dirt and then place a dead horse or cow, then backfill.
Sounds like you have it all figured out. Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.
In this case I wasn’t that concerned with getting the technical details right. I just wanted to make a joke.
There’s always fire. Do vampires burn?
Joe,
I know you’re interested in accumulating and reviewing stats of various sorts. How much lead would you estimate you’ve accumulated out on the two impact areas since you started? X shooters per year, averaging X rounds per event @ say, 140 gr./round. Plus high intensity events, etc, etc.
Along those lines, I wondered how deep the lead would be. Found this mildly scientific experiment, and that leads me to believe that higher velocity rifle bullets, particularly those with any kind of deforming design, will rapidly fragment in about 6 inches of earth. Entering at an angle, the fragments might only be a few inches below the surface.
Maybe someone would be willing to pay you to scrape up six inches of dirt at the 380 yard target zone, sift out the lead, and take it off your hands?
~150 grains equals about 9.72 grams.
9.72 grams times 100 rounds per shooter times 150 shooters per Boomershoot (counting Rifle clinic/field of fire days as extra shooters) times 15 years of Boomershoots equals 2187 kilograms of lead spiced with copper. Today’s price for a kg of lead is $2.58 so… $5642 worth of straight up scrap lead. (Don’t quibble, pendants, they’re all hand-wavy numbers.)
I think I’ve answered my own question. I think it’d cost more than $6000 to scrape and sift the treeline impact zone.
There are firms that do this sort of thing for shooting ranges. You pay them, and they get the lead. Not sure what the cost is though.
That lime brand reminded me of an very offensive parody video. DO NOT search for “It’s the Great Dolomite, Charlie Brown,” on YouTube.
A study of Gettysburg was done some years ago. Lead in or on the ground was not a hazard. Doesn’t leech or travel, and water doesn’t get contaminated. Seems it oxidizes and seals itself. There is a LOT of pure or near pure lead from those battles. I think it was done at the behest of the NRA, but I’m not sure. It was one of the NRA pubs that had an article about it.