Can't find any dang wheel weights.

[TNFrank]

Ran into a guy that manages one of the local tire shops. He told me "Come on by, we'll hook ya' up with some wheel weights." Well, I go by today and he tells me that I'd have to talk to the owner, he's not sure if he can give me any wheel weights or not.
Then I call a guy I know that runs a tire store, same guy I got my weights from a few years ago and he says he's selling them for $60 bucks a 5gal bucket, $60 dang bucks, Ouch! Call up another local tire store and she tells me they have to turn them all in to get new weights so it's a "no go" there.
If I have to pay for wheel weights I may as well just buy already cast bullets since you'd have all the time and trouble into making bullets from scratch with wheel weighs.
#2 is going for way too much to buy. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm down to my last 10 lbs of metal, once that's gone I have nothing left to cast with.
There has to be a supply of bullet metal that's worth turning into bullets out there somewhere. Any ideas from anyone?

[TNFrank]

Just called another Tire Store that's local, he's getting .50 cents a lb for wheel weights. That'd be anywhere from $60-$75 bucks a 5gal bucket. I can buy already cast for less. It's just not worth it anymore to try and cast your own. Guess the "Good ol' Days" are gone,

[paul h]

The hardest part of casting today seems to be getting a reliable and reasonbly priced source of alloy. I had my sources dry up several years ago and am down to my last two 5 gal. buckets. But for $60-75 per 5 gal bucket that will yield 100 pounds +/- of ww's, you're better of getting ww ingots off of ebay for $1/lb and not having to spend your time smelting.

That said, commercial cast bullets are rarely of the quality to produce the best accuracy in your gun. I was at the gunshop yesterday getting some powder and saw a 500ct box of 45 acp cast bullets was ~$70. Even at $1/lb the lead cost is only $16 of that $70. If you're shooting a more premium cast bullet they are running $20-45/100 with the lead cost being $2-5 of that.

[Ole]

Range lead, sweetened with a little bit of Lino, is about the same as wheel weight alloy.

Can you mine the berms where you shoot?

[TNFrank]

Range lead, sweetened with a little bit of Lino, is about the same as wheel weight alloy.

Can you mine the berms where you shoot?

Not really sure. There's only one Public place where we shoot and it's just a single shooting station that TWRA has set up mostly for hunters to sight in their guns. I guess if no one was around I could take a shovel and a screen and shift through the dirt to get whatever was there but it'd probably be more work then it'd be worth really.
I may just take the one guy up on his offer of .50 cents a lb for his wheel weights BUT It'll be my pick, none of those little 2" and under weights where it's mostly clip. I'd want 4" or larger so I get more lead per weight and less clip to deal with.
It's just getting hard for a guy to load ammo anymore what with primer and powder prices going up and now having to buy wheel weights to cast bullets.

[bowfin]

Free lead rarely exists any more. I know it used to be that way, but then the government used to give away free land at one time.

Unless you have a better idea, buying lead from vendors here is probably the standard to beat.

[Littlewolf]

in the last 2 yrs i've gathered up aprox 200# of WW and hard BULK ingots weighing some 30# each and a gallon jug of printers type blocks hwat'd i pay for it you might ask hmmm i think i might have spent $45 on a combined 2 groups and then there was a small set of plumming lead i think i gave $10 for 30#

affordable lead is still out there

try the salvage yards some will sell to private parties and others won't the salvage yard i used to scrap at nolonger lets me get lead from them so i found another salvage yard to sell iron at that will let me get it for the same $0.58 pr lb that they buy it for

[TNFrank]

I guess if worse comes to worse there's always this:
http://www.rotometals.com/product-p/hardballbulletcastingalloy.htm
I'd have to order 38 lbs of it to get free shipping.
I still might try the local guy at .50 cents a lb for wheel weights but they'll be my pick, none of those little ones or ones that aren't lead. Figure I could get 50 lbs for $25 bucks and that'd last me for a while.

[Ole]

Another idea:

Build yourself a lead trap to recycle your lead. (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=26627)

[GOPHER SLAYER]

Having worked for the phone company for thirty seven years, lead was never a problem for me. I have been retired for ninty years and I have more lead than I could ever cast or shoot. Dispite that I couldn't resist picking up ww that I saw on the street. I don't bother anymore. They are all zink. With a practiced eye you can tell at a distance that they are zink by their silver sheen. I would be careful about buying a bucket full of ww for fear of paying for a lot of useless metal. California outlawed lead in ww several years ago.

[waksupi]

Don't just throw away the zinc WW's. Last I looked, zinc was selling higher than lead. Theoretically, you could sell enough zinc, to pay for your lead.

[winchester85]

i mine shooting range lead. but i dont cast. i have traded for bullets and as far as i know the recipient was happy with the lead. i have more still to trade if that interests you.

i was at the scrapyard yesteray, they had a bin of wheel weights. they buy for 35 cents, i think they sell at 45 cents. quite a bit of stick on, and some obvious zinc. once i get my smelting rig setup, i may buy the lead and turn it into bars. one day i was there, they had some roof jacks. pure lead i assume, but at 45 cents with no steel or zinc doesnt sound too bad to me.

[TNFrank]

Back when we lived in Tempe, AZ. I managed to get a bunch of cable shielding from a scrap yard. IIRC it was .80 cents a lb way back then but I was happy to get it since it was mostly pure lead and I was really into Muzzle Loading and Buck Skinning at the time.
If I get the .50 cent a Lb wheel weights I'll sort them out so I'll get only lead ones and only the larger ones so I'll have fewer clips to deal with. Probably end up doing that but it just takes all the fun out of casting "Free" boolits.

[paul h]

It's when you put a dollar value on your time that "free" cast bullets really become depressing. At one point I figured I was at best getting minimum wage for my effort.

[imashooter2]

Having worked for the phone company for thirty seven years, lead was never a problem for me. I have been retired for ninty years and I have more lead than I could ever cast or shoot. Dispite that I couldn't resist picking up ww that I saw on the street. I don't bother anymore. They are all zink. With a practiced eye you can tell at a distance that they are zink by their silver sheen. I would be careful about buying a bucket full of ww for fear of paying for a lot of useless metal. California outlawed lead in ww several years ago.


Dang! Over 127 years old and still shooting! Congrats man! [smilie=1:

[Circuit Rider]

TNFrank, PM inbound

[Chamfered]

One of my boys works at a local garage and has brought home 2 boxes of used WW's I'd say that only about 20% of them are lead, rest are steel and zinc.... I still have quite a bit of indoor range lead from a club clean up years ago. I typically cast it as is without any add and it comes out plenty hard enough, but most of the shooting at that club then was action pistol and almost exclusively cast bullets.

[canyon-ghost]

http://www.missouribullet.com/results.php?category=12

I've bought that before, some from Blammer on a foundry buy and the rest from classifieds here on Cast Boolits. It isn't cheap anymore because they initially started a buyback at .40 cents per pound. If you can buy wheelweight at .60 a pound, that's not bad. It's around $1/lb, just like pure lead is.

Good Luck,
Ron

[Any Cal.]

I'm thinking that casting allows you to shoot good bullets tailored to your gun for less than the cheapest bulk stuff you can buy. If you come upon free or cheap lead, you are just that far ahead.

[WILCO]

but it just takes all the fun out of casting "Free" boolits.



That's yer problem right there. Nothing is ever free. Always a cost to somebody somewhere........... :coffeecom

[leadbutt]

Take your time brother. Gas stations do change tires from time to time. When you walk in to the place expect to leave with nothing. Ask for just a few till they take you back to the buckets of weights. Then act supprised/impressed and say something like "Wow!! How many can i grab?". Ive left with a few buckets like that for nothing. A lot of gas stations just throw the used ones away, especially in well to do areas. You may be able to leave a few buckets at different places with your number on it. May take a few months to fill just dont change your number. Good luck.

L. Bottoms

[ShooterAZ]

Scrounging is what it takes.Talk to friends, coworkers, ask around. I scored 400+ pounds of roofing lead for .20/lb from a guy who does demolition contracting...nice clean stuff. All it took was a phone cal.

[TNFrank]

Guess I could always hit the WalMart parking lot with a pair of pliers, LOL.

[shotman]

check your local plumbers they all save the scrap you can get all the lead you need at .10 above what the scrap places pay . If you are lucky they may have some lead water pipe

[TNFrank]

I think as long as I can hand pick the wheel weights I want that .50 cents a lb won''t be too bad. I'll stick with the large ones so I'll get less clips to deal with and I can cull out the zinc or aluminum ones from the get go so I'll only buy good wheel weights to smelt down.

[Echo]

Just called another Tire Store that's local, he's getting .50 cents a lb for wheel weights. That'd be anywhere from $60-$75 bucks a 5gal bucket. I can buy already cast for less. It's just not worth it anymore to try and cast your own. Guess the "Good ol' Days" are gone,

Let's see - 50 cents per pound. That's 3 1/8 cent per ounce. Two 429215's would weigh about an ounce, or 1.625 cents per boolit. Three 146 gr 38 boolits would also weigh an ounce.
Oh, right, we would have to smelt down the WW's. losing maybe 10% weight, so we would only have 45 lbs of alloy from 50 lbs WW's. Math time again - $25 for 45 lbs of alloy, plus another buck for propane, equals 3.6 cents per ounce. Again, we are talking about boolits costing less than a nickle per. Please tell me where you can buy already cast boolts for a nickle per, delivered. I NEED to know!
.
If I were in the market for WW's, I would gladly pay 50 cents per pound...

[GOPHER SLAYER]

imashooter2, my post was supposed to read ninteen years not ninty. Sorry about that. I must do more proof reading in the future. I am not quite 125 yet but I am closer than I used to think I would ever get.

[TNFrank]

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"] Again, we are talking about boolits costing less than a nickle per. Please tell me where you can buy already cast boolts for a nickle per, delivered. I NEED to know!
If I were in the market for WW's, I would gladly pay 50 cents per pound...

Free is a lot cheaper then .05 cents a boolit,LOL.
I know, ready cast will run me anywhere from .09 cents or more but I just have to wonder if my time and trouble is worth .04 cents a boolit.
I can get 380acp bullets for under $30/ 500.
http://www.missouribullet.com/results.php?category=5&secondary=27
and 45acp boolits run $42/500.
http://www.missouribullet.com/details.php?prodId=160&category=5&secondary=13&keywords=
Not sure if I can even fool with making my own for that or not. Still, I've got the molds and sizers so as long as I've got lead I'll use it.

[jabo52521]

Just went to a used hospital equipment auction. Got 22 old xray vests for 50 dollars. Don't forget the dentist office.

[fredj338]

check your local plumbers they all save the scrap you can get all the lead you need at .10 above what the scrap places pay . If you are lucky they may have some lead water pipe

Well sounds easy, but just not true everywhere. My local plumber though I was nuts asking for lead pipe scrap.[smilie=l:

[fredj338]

Just went to a used hospital equipment auction. Got 22 old xray vests for 50 dollars. Don't forget the dentist office.

The problem with the vsets is they are rubberized lead, really nasty to melt. Lead foils form old X-ray films though, good stuff.

[Brotherbadger]

I'm running into the same problem here, everybody already has a guy who picks them up.

[skimmerhead]

It's when you put a dollar value on your time that "free" cast bullets really become depressing. At one point I figured I was at best getting minimum wage for my effort.
lets face it the days of plentiful free ww's are coming to an end. i have been very fortunate in my quest to aquire them, but sources are drying up. one of my sources died of a sudden heart attack last month, one less source, his wife is selling the building. she called me to go pickup the lead because i had buckets with my name and phone # on them. so now i'm down to one source. i won't be looking for others as i have amassed enough to last me the rest of my life. now what to do with the rest? i could just sell to the scrap yard and be finished with it, or i could sort the stickon's the zink and all the other trash out like i allways do and smelt them down and sell them to people who are not as fortunate that don't have access to ww's. but lets figure a few things in the mix, cost of fuel, i traveled many miles and returned empty handed. propane, not to mention labor, going pickup, coming home unloading, sorting, smelting, storeing, it has been alot of work. so i decided to sell the ww ingots at a dollar a pound. i have two boxs left to sell, and about 700 pounds to smelt. tho i doubt i will smelt any more. it's not worth the hassell, the pm's from people bitiching about the price. i didn't set the price, i'm selling at the going price, some are a little higher, some are a little lower. the only smelting i'm going to do is for someone that has bought with me before and need another box. this idea i had to help people who can't get some lead was a good idea in theory, but in reality it was not. forgot to mention shipping and packageing in the mix, that's the most fun!

skimmerhead

[tenx]

don't give up too easily, reclaim your old bullets with a barrel with rubber mulch in it, scrounge a little here and a little there, keep your eyes and ears open. Had a local indoor range here re-do their bullet trap, cleaned out the sand/saw dust and thought they had a buyer for it. A big misunderstanding, the buyer thought it was processed lead and the deal fell thru, they had remembered I was interested in lead and called me. Long story short I processed about 3.5 tons out of it. Also a local trap range had a steep slope downrange and I got permission to mine that. A buddy of mine helped and we ended up with a little over 2.5 tons of reclaimed shot apiece. It was a lot of work. Was it worth it? When I started getting lead it wasn't worth nearly as much as it is now so now it is definately worth it. A least I can recover most all of my pistol lead and am able to keep on shooting. It's about how you look at things and how bad you want to continue shooting.

[KohlerK91]

the pm's from people bitiching about the price.

That is truth right there!!

[Elkins45]

I enjoy casting. If there's a good source of a variety of custom designed 30 cal cast and lubed with a high performance lube I'm unaware of it. If I have to I will buy virgin metal from RotoMetals in order to keep feeding my rifles. If fact, I should probably stock up now while the EPA will still let me.

[mold maker]

Quit your ******** about the price of lead. If ya think it's bad now, wait a couple years.
Gold sold for $38. an ounce, not that long ago, and folks thought that was outrageous. Now its $1600.+ an oz.
If ya want to shoot in the future, you'll have to pay the going price.
I'd advise ya to pay what ever ya have to, and get all you can. It isn't ever gonna be like "the good ole days" again.