1st post, ques. about which vendor to buy from

[exnavarm]

Hello to all. Been thinking about getting back to casting after a 25 year hiatus. Started looking for w/w at tire stores etc. and no one is selling to individuals (in so. fl.). I decided to look at some vendors to get my lead. I have looked at Lead and brass.com, ( I thought they had a banner on top of this site at one time) and was wondering if anyone has used them in the past. My plan is to load med. loads mostly in my .45 LC and .44 mag, with some high end loads thrown in on occasion.
I bought a Lyman 429421 mould for the .44 and going to buy a lee .45 SWC mould to use.
Past experiences would be greatly appreciated as well as advice for other vendors.
Thank you in advance.

[Bullshop]

Two good dependable vendors that I continue to use for lead are,
The Captain
Muddy creek SAM
For bees wax
Randy Rat

[deltaenterprizes]

Most of the people here are reputable, check out the "Straight Shooters & Deadbeats" section in the "Swappin n Selling" area for the bad guys.

[white eagle]

you can't go wrong with any of the vendors on this site
I have dealt with both of the lead suppliers list previously both top notch

[geargnasher]

Two good dependable vendors that I continue to use for lead are,
The Captain
Muddy creek SAM
For bees wax
Randy Rat

+1. I've done business with all of the above and they are all FIRST CLASS sellers.

Not just anyone knows how to render good boolit metal or beeswax, these folks are shooters too, and offer great products at some of the lowest prices anywhere.

While I'm at it, I'll also plug The Bullshop, especially for one of his essential casting products called Bullplate Sprue lube. Anyone who's tried it won't be without it again when casting.

I've also made a couple of purchases from Pete (Zbench is his handle here) at Lead&Brass.com, He's a good person to deal with as well if you need certified alloy, but you pay a little more for the foundry stuff. Rotometals has lots of good alloys, but they're kinda spendy on common boolit alloys these days (they have to make up for that free shipping somehow!). Rotometals "Superhard" 30% antimony alloy is great for making weak alloys harder.

Gear

[peerlesscowboy]

Have you tried the Scrap Metal dealers in your area? I'm speculating that perhaps the tire stores would rather sell their scrap WW's to a scrap dealer than to an individual bullet caster.........reliable market and more convenient for them? Then you buy 'em from the scrap dealer who makes a little profit acting as the middleman :wink:

[exnavarm]

Thank you all for the help. I'll look into all of them.
Peerless, not too many scrapmetal dealers here, only one that I know of, but I will try them.

[XWrench3]

to buy wheel weights from a tire store, you will have to find a small "mom and pops" place, not a franchise. franchise stores are typicly contracted to either a battery vendor, or a wheel weight vendor to recycle all of their used lead through them. mom & pops place, typicly do not contract like this.

[jsizemore]

ex, I contacted the local scrap yard and asked how much they paid for WW. I called a couple days later and asked the sell price. I went around to all the tire stores and asked if they sold their unused ww (some recycle the good ones in my area). I let them know I'm willing to pay 4 to 10 times the scrap yard's buying price. I explain the difference between zinc steel and lead ww and offer to return the zinc and steel if their intrested. I get shot down 90% of the time but the 10% and my ongoing cleaning of the scrap yard's lead bin keeps my price low. At the tire stores I go to I police the tire changer area of stray ww and drop off a clean bucket with my phone# and/or email address. I'm able to stay ahead of my lead use so I'm able to stash a little too. It takes a while to make enough contacts. The biggest thing I've learned is it don't hurt to ask if you can put some cash in a businessman's pocket.

[theperfessor]

I've tried to buy WWs from various places and have ended up buying in bulk from a local recycler. Even then they didn't want to sell to an individual and wanted to be paid in cash to boot, no credit cards or checks. I gave them my business card ("BigFoot Technical Services") and had no problem after that. Seemed to me like they felt safer selling to another business with a tax number etc.

Might help to go to a cheap print shop and get some business cards made up with a dummy business name ("Joe's Machine Shop"), and if you don't want to risk a backlash from an anti 2A business just tell them it's for counterweights for holding down machine bases or something.