Pulping

[Hriemer]

My mother owns a 14 year red pine tree farm with the plan of pulping when her forester deems ready.  My son shoots his .22 at a ground spinning target about 4x's a year, but my mother worries that when he misses the target, any bullets that may end up in the trees will hurt any pulping that will be done in the future.  How can I reassure her that this will not be the case? 

[Southside]

Teach him to shoot better.   ;D Welcome to the Forum.....

[btulloh]

Bullets and shot are not unusual in trees and they don't affect the viability of the logs for any purpose.  Not sure what it would take to convince your mother.

[Hriemer]

Thank you!  I'd hate to discourage my son from enjoying shooting, but I also wanted to reassure my mother.  Thanks for the feedback!

[Ron Scott]

A lot of lead in the trees would not be good. Plow up an earthen berm back stop behind his targets to capture the bullets before they get into the trees.

Where we had shooting ranges on National Forest and military lands, though more excessive shooting, our loggers did not care to harvest the timber around the range lands due to the lead in the trees. They usually paid a lower stumpage price for the leaded timber.

[mike_belben]

I almost got squashed by a hickory that was once target practice decades ago.   Evidence was scabbed over but my hold wood was all rot and bullets.  Well it didnt hold. Crushed my bar. 

[WDH]

I procured pulpwood for a large pulpmill that made fluff pulp for diapers.  Any type of metal in the product was a serious issue.  It would reject huge rolls of pulp.  If we knew that bullets had been fired into that stand of trees, we would definitely not allow those trees in that stand to come into the mill.  There are better backstops for bullets than trees.  It is a bad practice to use trees for that purpose.

[nativewolf]

What Ron and WDH says!  Even rolls of hay as backstops would help.  

[KEC]

The mill where I once worked took in some logs from an Army training area, it didn't go well. Ever heard of steel jacketed bullets ? I concur that shooting trees is bad practice.

[Walnut Beast]

I procured pulpwood for a large pulpmill that made fluff pulp for diapers.  Any type of metal in the product was a serious issue.  It would reject huge rolls of pulp.  If we knew that bullets had been fired into that stand of trees, we would definitely not allow those trees in that stand to come into the mill.  There are better backstops for bullets than trees.  It is a bad practice to use trees for that purpose.

Absolutely! Dealing with some of those issues now with damage to some trees on my farm from someone in a subdivision.