Lead for casting

[hickfu]

Does anyone know of a good source of Wheel weight lead, the guy I used to buy from sold all of his. I only paid .75 per pound and now the price gougers on ebay are trying to rape people on their lead prices....

[littlejack]

If you buy lead from flea-bay, God only knows what you are getting, no matter what the seller says.
I would buy lead here at the CastBoolits sight unscene from our members, before buying anywhere
else. I trust the members here, without question.
Just my .02
Jack

[hickfu]

I hear that! I see the Ingots they sell and always ask if it was clip on wheel weights and get answers like " I dont know I throw in stuff and it melts " I just emailed a guy on there that his add read that the lead was from clip on wheel weights... I asked anyway and got an answer that it was both clip on and stick on! ????? then why did his add say only clip ons? Thats why I am looking for a reliable source. I cast for quite a few people and they go throw a lot of lead. So where are the people that sell on here?


Doc

[Triggernosis]

Doc, you may want to take a look at this recent thread: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?180552-Where-do-I-list-lead-for-sale

[John Boy]

Doc. sounds like you are in a bind: lost your cheap source of WW's - now have to pay the going price and don't know the Bhn of the alloy from straight WW's

When you contact these new sellers and they say strips plus clip on's - ask them for the Brinell hardness of the alloy (Bhn). You want an alloy for you and your customers that is close to Lyman #2 - Bhn 15. Clip ons now are either Bhn 13.5 or 15.4'ish. Strips are 98% pure lead

Your bottom line dilemma is your WW source has dried up due to the environmental laws and possibly he is getting a better price from others than what you paid - so you are going to have to pay the going freight from other sources. It's a sign of the times, unfortunately

[hickfu]

Yeah it sucks to live in California!!! I normally use clip on weights 75% and soft lead 25% and then add 1# of pewter to up the antimony and tin. I normally get a BHN of 19 after water quenching. This is what I have been doing but I may have to figure out other ways to get the BHN I want. The post above looks like the guy uses range lead from fmj bullets and I dont know what the BHN is on that alloy. oh well

Doc

[sthwestvictoria]

Yeah it sucks to live in California!!! I normally use clip on weights 75% and soft lead 25% and then add 1# of pewter to up the antimony and tin.

How much antimony does the pewter add? I was under the erroneous impression that pewter was normally only tin and copper. Does the antimony help with hardness?

[hickfu]

Pewter can be up to 8% antimony, up to 2.5% copper, sometimes bismuth is used and the rest is pure tin.
Yes antimony will add to the hardness and it is perfect if you want to heat treat your bullets to make them harder.
Lead clip on wheel weights are usually around 14 to 16 bhn water quenched, I add 25% pure lead and the pewter and get a bhn of around 19 water quenched. So the pewter is definitely helping raise the bhn.


Doc

[BLTsandwedge]

Yeah it sucks to live in California!!! I normally use clip on weights 75% and soft lead 25% and then add 1# of pewter to up the antimony and tin. I normally get a BHN of 19 after water quenching. This is what I have been doing but I may have to figure out other ways to get the BHN I want. The post above looks like the guy uses range lead from fmj bullets and I dont know what the BHN is on that alloy. oh well

Doc

Last week I bought 230# of WWs from a recycler in Watsonville. There were plenty of zinc WWs in the mix so the recycler accepted 40 cents per #. I got them sorted and ended up with about 110# of lead COWWs- the rest were zinc or steel stick-ons. Worked out to be about 80 cents per # but I'm not unhappy about it. Lead is officially very scarce in CA- I expect that'll be the last I see of lead COWWs for the duration. Most ranges won't let you mine- citing county HazMat concerns. However, we do have one big thing going for us.....marinas. Lots of 'em. That means lead keels/balast from defunct boats/sailboats. I've not gotten serious about looking because it'll take time to learn who the boat equipment scroungers are. It'll no doubt be soft lead and will need sweetener. Cherish the COWWs you do find.....good luck!

[fredj338]

The issue w/ E-bay isn't clip vs stickon, but how much zinc did they melt in there as well. I feel your pain, lead in Kommifornia is getting scarce. I am always looking but pretty much gave up on ww of any kind. Buy from guys here @ $1/#, not free but better than nothing. Berm mining is about all that is left. While waiting to shoot @ the local IDPA matches I pick up 2-3# a match, not shabby for just being there. I smelted 38# from last years scrounging.

[williamwaco]

I have bought almost a dozen 60 pound boxes from members of this forum. Average price is 1.00 per pound smelted and delivered to my door.

Keep this in mind. Lead clip on wheel weights, ( after the zinc and steel weights have been sorted out ) will have 18% waste.

100 Pounds of clean wheel weight will produce only 82 pounds of ingots.

[hickfu]

My last source gave me 600lbs of nothing but good lead wheel weights for 1.00 a pound. Yes I lost a lot of weight from the clips but at least I had lead to start my casting. I think I may have found a guy that has some wheel weights so I will have to see how that pans out.


Doc