Gun Range Cleaning Tips: GunStuff TV Interviews James Barthel, CEO of MT2 Firing Range Services about and Lead Reclamation for Indoor and Outdoor Shooting Ranges

In this episode, our President and CEO was interviewed about gun range cleaning services; keeping firing ranges, their shooters, and employees safe from the dangers of lead.

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You can watch the full episode here.

Chris – GunStuff TV:
Today we have with us. James Barthel from MT2. Thanks for being on the show, tell us what you guys do.

James Barthel:
Our company, MT2, Firing Range Services is the largest environmental service provider for firing ranges nationwide, and we provide Gun Range Cleaning for both indoor and outdoor ranges. We help build ranges, renovate ranges, we do a lot of maintenance of ranges and working with the owners of ranges to keep them safe. We clean up a lot of lead and those bullets and the shot that you all shoot that fall on the ground or into the traps. We’re actually able to reclaim those bullets and lead shot, and produce money for the ranges, and to share, to put back into the range and operate it. We build indoor ranges, outdoor ranges and we work all over the country. We’re the largest company in the United States that just specializes on firing range services.

Chris – GunStuff TV:
Well, one thing I’ve always wondered when I’m out shooting at the range, on an outdoor range, how do you guys control the lead and the environmental impact?

James Barthel:
Yeah. As you would imagine on an outdoor firing range, it’s really important that the lead remain on the range, right? Assuming we’re all good shooters and we never have to worry about any poor shots, but assuming we’re all good shots, we want the lead to stay in the berms. What MT2 does, is we work with the owners to build either dirt berms or put in steel berms, so that the bullets go into a backstop like they’re supposed to. At the Apopka police range in Florida, we do a lot of work for law enforcement, we were able to work with them to build up their berm, so that the bullets stay on the range and readily able to be removed for recycling.

Chris – GunStuff TV:
I guess you planted the grass and everything?

James Barthel:
Yeah. What you want to do, especially in a place like Florida where, as we all know, it does rain a bit, is you want to make sure that the dirt stays up on the berm, and that it’s not washing down with the bullets, so we’ll put in bullet catchers over the top. We put in walls to keep the bullets from going between the different shooting areas, and we also seed and put down sod to keep the heavy rainfall from washing away those berms. You want to keep the lead in the berm and you want to keep the berm up.

Chris – GunStuff TV:
Underneath, is this some sort of a shale? Or what grabs the lead?

James Barthel:
Well, in that case, it was an earthen berm, but often berms will have traps installed in them, so that the bullets will go into a steel trap, or into concrete that has rubber on it, and the rubber then collects the berms. I know many of us have been on indoor ranges where you see the backstop is full of granulated rubber, ground up rubber, and that acts as a deacceleration, this allows the bullets to then collect and then eventually fall to the bottom of the berm, so that they can be reclaimed.

That’s the big thing about shooting is these ranges fill up with lead, and unfortunately sometimes that lead has been known to come back at shooters, especially if it’s a heavily used range like for law enforcement, but we go in there and we help build the range, we put ground rubber, or dirt, or help install steel traps. Then we help remove the lead either into buckets, or we have big machines that we pull into these outdoor ranges and we generate 55-gallon drums of lead. These 55-gallon drums weigh upwards of 3,000 pounds each, so as you imagine, that’s a lot of lead that is incorporated in Gun Range Cleaning.

Chris – GunStuff TV:
That’s impressive. That’s a lot of shell casings.

James Barthel:
Yeah. We’ve reclaimed about 30 million pounds since we’ve been in business, and we work with recyclers, and we try to put those bullets back into use. The bullets, as we know, have lead, but they also have some antimony and other alloys that are added that allow them to do their jobs. Often these bullets that we’re all shooting down range get to be sent back and put back into use.

Chris – GunStuff TV:
The lead itself, this is dangerous, isn’t it?

James Barthel:
Oh absolutely. Yeah, it is. You have to clear this off the range on a regular basis, because people get lead poisoning on it, after it being in the air and hitting the back substrate and everything. I mean, all that has to be cleaned out on regular basis, on every range across the United States.

Chris – GunStuff TV:
James, I guess what you’re talking about is by reclaiming all of this, it makes it a lot safer for the individual shooters, and then at the same time it takes that lead back into the environment so that people can actually reuse it in, I guess it goes back to gun manufacturers, is that right?

James Barthel:
Yeah, that’s correct. It’s kind of like, your car battery. Your car battery is full of lead and acid; you use it properly, you maintain it, you make sure it’s safe and then when it’s done being used, you recycle it so that it can come back again for a useful purpose. That’s what the gun industry’s been doing for decades, and that’s what we help them do, is make sure we keep the shooter safe, the workers safe, and the environment from being impacted by these concentrations of lead.

Chris – GunStuff TV:
If anybody would like to talk to you folks. Where would they find your website?

James Barthel:
Our website is easy to find, www.mt2.com and there’s a lot of useful information on our website. We’re a major source of information including for NRA and NSSF, and a lot of the ranges around the country, so a lot of useful information on lead and how to keep yourself safe, and how to protect the environment is on our website.

About MT2 Firing Range Services:

MT2 specializes in providing environmental firing range services, Gun Range Cleaning, and lead remediation. We are the nation’s #1 largest professional contractor for all your indoor and outdoor firing range service needs including: