how much is too much of lead stash?

[usmcscout]

I recently decided to smelt my huge stash of wheel weights and misc lead alloy into ingots. Of course lead sure compresses and is dense. I curently have 586 pds of 2-2.5 pd ingots yes I weighed and marked each one with a metal stamp. in addition I have 310 pds of pure soft lead (I believe it all to be soft but really high tin % ) I really need find a hardness tester but of course I cant find one save my life.[smilie=b:

so my question is that enouph supply of lead specifically the WW.? to last many years. I am a new caster but not a new handloader. I am casting for my 9mm 135gr and 150gr along with 125 gr and eventually for my AR15 75 gr (wich is on order from a group buy on here probubly be a year to see it) and lastly 30 cal 308win rem 700 tactical most likely 150-170 gr

I know depends on my volume of consumption wich I would say is moderate 4k or so in 9mm


how much is everyone else hoarding away incase that idiot makes it even harder to buy/find lead

what say you?:lovebooli

[historicfirearms]

I've got over a ton and still pick up all I can. It's amazing how fast you can use it up. I recycle most of my lead by shooting at my home range, so I think I probably have "enough". Still, I never turn down lead if I can get it.

[Bigslug]

"You can never go too far." - Ferris Bueller;)

[ku4hx]

I've asked myself that question, and I finally came up with an answer that suits me. When the planet starts to wobble excessively because the Northern hemisphere has gotten even more off balance, I probably have too much in my local stash. But I'm not sure.

[gefiltephish]

There is no such thing as too much lead, unless you're eating it.

[John Allen]

I will stop once my 4 X 8 shed is full to the top I promise.

[Spawn-Inc]

i would be happy with 1.5 tons of lead and no less then 1 ton. so any extra past 1.5 ton would be sold for powder/primers, etc.

i currently have.... 200lbs lol. i just started!

i'm only casting for 9mm, 45acp, 500mag, 38/357. so once i get into rifles things will change.

[alfloyd]

When the cement floor cracks in the shop area, then I might have too much. Until then I keep getting all I can.

Lafaun

[imashooter2]

Even at your modest current consumption, 586 pounds is less than a 7 year supply. And you already state you are going to increase usage. How old are you? How long do you plan to keep shooting? I suspect that doing that math will show your stores to be inadequate.

[Blammer]

I currently have about 2,000 lbs or a bit more and I still scrounge a bit....

[454PB]

Everyone is different, and has different needs. I started casting about 1971, and I acquired a 55 gallon barrel of wheel weights about 2/3 full from a friend that owned a tire shop. I figured I was set for life.

At the time, I was casting for .45 Colt and .44 magnum, and shot at least 3 times per week. It takes a lot of shooting to get good with the "big boys".

Within 5 years, the barrel was empty, but wheel weights were still easy to come by. It would be tough to guess how many pounds of alloy I've gone through in the last 40 years, but it has to be nearly 3 tons.

[John Allen]

I have 10 buckets of wheel weights that I have not sorted yet, about 800lbs of ingots and I am still ALWAYS looking. I shoot alot of the bigger calibers, 44, 45 and 45/70 they suck a lot of lead real quick.

[Digger]

When the cement floor cracks in the shop area, then I might have too much. Until then I keep getting all I can.

Lafaun

Been there , currently doing just that , will have to spread it around.
Have to go buy a sealant for the crack now.
digger

[nouseforaname1246]

I started casting 3 years ago and built up a stash of around 1000 lbs. I stopped collecting lead after that, figuring I was good. I got into competitive shooting (idpa uspsa 3 gun) and at last count im down to 200 lbs and now I cant find wheelweights anymore. Long story short, get as much as you can while you can. Worst case, you never use it and have to sell it. Im gonna be upset when I run out of lead and have to start buying it lol.

[usmcscout]

guess it was kinda dumb question but lead out here in oregon is a touph find. noone really gives it away anymore. go to tireshops they eather say they are under contract or they think its worth its weight in gold like 1.50 pound not sorted. go to indoor ranges they have it sold to recycler only hope is scrap yards one of wich quite selling to public. the other just upped price .70 cents pound for clean lead wich equates to soft. they have been out off wheel weights for some time they were 40 cents pound but I know guy works their he would allways work it in my favor. I did score another 500 pds of high tin concentrated soft lead and some babbit I have yet to get to

[MtGun44]

Can't have too much unless you are swimming.

Bill

[dverna]

It does not to be fed, watered, groomed, exercised, kept cool, or kept warm. I see no practical upper limit on how much lead to stockpile (hoarding sounds so negative). My current level is 2 tons of shot and 3000 lbs of alloy. With plans to recycle bullet/slug lead, I should be set for life but I will continue to buy lead if the price is right.

Lead is a great investment. There is very little mining of lead and the world is using more and more of it. I can see lead hitting $2/lb within 5 years. This is due not only to demand but also due to devaluation of the dollar as the Fed continues to print money. So even if you have more than you think you "need" it will increase in value and can be sold or bartered. Unlike other 'precious' metals, there is minimal risk of someone stealing it from you - especially if you do not convert it all into nice little ingots. If you do make it into ingots, store it in containers that cannot be picked up and easily moved.

[DeanWinchester]

Too much lead?

Jeez, next thing you know you'll be asking when is a girl too pretty or a dog to faithful or a beer too cold or too much money or ..........

[357maximum]

April 1 came and went...HA HA HA

I cannot say for sure how much I have, but it is not enough, especially in the pure lead arena....proably have enough ww though....not stopped finding, but I have quit "actively" looking for ww.

[762 shooter]

You will never be able to buy lead cheaper than .......now........now.......now.

The obsessive wild men and women on this site will buy your excess lead as long as you want to sell it at a fair price.

One day you can tell your grandchildren that you were able to buy lead through the postal service, melt lead on your private property without governmental permission, touch lead bullets, and reload your own ammunition.

Ahhh the good old days.

762

[Gliden07]

If anyone with too many WW or Lead in general feels compelled to get rid of some of it, I would be more than willing to help dispose of them and help cure there addiction!! LOL!!

[gareth96]

Invest in lead... it's the new gold...

[RayinNH]

I don't know how much I have in terms of weight. I do keep a plastic container in my truck. If I'm the last one at the range I usually go downrange and pick up what I find sitting on top of the soil. I can usually find more than I deposit in the berm. That's a good shooting day...Ray

[Kraschenbirn]

Ain't no such thing as "Too Much". Currently, in addition to my stock of finished boolits, I've got around 500# processed into ingots of my three 'basic' alloys...and roughly half that amount in the form of range scrap, COWWs, and roof flashing/lead pipe...but I still hit my regular sources every month or so.

Bill

[GaryN]

I figure that lead is poor man's silver. So I use it like a savings account. You can always use it. If you get hard up you can sell it.

[HATCH]

you have too much lead when the movers come to move you to your new place and they refuse to carry the "tubs" after the 3rd one (each tub is over 800lbs)

[Catshooter]

Like HATCH said, you can never have too much until it's time to move.


Cat

[khmer6]

I'm smelting wheel weights as we speak. 50 pounds of coww seemed so little after it all melted down

[RobS]

The way I see it..........there is never too much of a stash.

[awaveritt]

I thought I had enough lead when I just shot 38/9mm. Then I got a 45 Colt lever action and a 1911 45ACP. Amazing how much that ups the ante - now I'm starting to get nervous - may have to actually start buying the stuff:eek:

[dakotashooter2]

I've thought about storing some of it in the bottom of my gun safe... It's getting that valuable and........... a ton in the safe would help keep anyone from moving or tipping it.................:)

[imashooter2]

I've thought about storing some of it in the bottom of my gun safe... It's getting that valuable and........... a ton in the safe would help keep anyone from moving or tipping it.................:)


A 2 ton safe is only difficult to move if you care about the house around it...

[Tx reloader72]

Last year a friend of mine and I gathered 5800# from a private range in two days. We still activly search for new sources. As most of the fine folks here will agree no such thing as enough.

[Bullet Caster]

You can never have too much. I just used up my last bit o' lead and have a few car batteries line up to flush and claim the lead. BC

[mikeym1a]

I recently decided to smelt my huge stash of wheel weights and misc lead alloy into ingots. Of course lead sure compresses and is dense. I curently have 586 pds of 2-2.5 pd ingots yes I weighed and marked each one with a metal stamp. in addition I have 310 pds of pure soft lead (I believe it all to be soft but really high tin % )
according to the handy dandy calculator, you should be able to make 21,000, +/-, 200gr boolits out of the WW. And a little more than 1/2 that out of the lead. How often do you shoot?

[Mk42gunner]

The way I figure it, as long as you own your house and the volume of the lead doesn't exceed the volume of the house, you don't have enough.

Some people might get upset at a house sized stockpile of lead ingots, but you can tell them it is going to be used for an EMP shield one day.

Robert

[Hickory]

I've been on vacation, so I have not been current here.
But back to the OP, I like to have on hand 1500-2000+lb of lead.
Anything less than 1000lbs I feel as if I'm nearly out.

[btroj]

Enough is when you die and have lead left. Anything less is not enough.

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

I ask a similar question a while back, How to tell when you have enough.
The answers where the same as here.:)
I've built up a l little over 3000 pounds. I'm still pick up the range berries while shooting,
and any other stuff I find. I'm out of "buying" lead when ever I have a few extra bucks, but I still
keep an eye out for it

[shootinfox2]

P+M=E

Plenty plus More equals Enough.

Fox

[mdi]

For me, a large part of my casting obsession is collecting lead. I have a whole bunch of 2 1/2 lb. pucks laying around my "reloading room" (mebbe 200) and about the same amount of misc. chunks, ingots, bars of mixed alloy. But, I still keep an eye out for a good deal on lead or a stash someone is divesting themselves of. So, I have no answer for you about "how much lead", but I'll keep on collecting...

[David2011]

There's no such thing as hoarding lead to a caster. Just keeping some reserve stocks. If you start casting for anything bigger than 9mm you will increase consumption rapidly.

BTROJ had the best answer: Enough is when you die and have lead left. Anything less is not enough.

David

[freebullet]

Id say you can't have too much, unless you have so much you start storing it in a stream or lake.

[randyrat]

I'm down to about a 1K of lead and I still bend over and pick up a free wheel weight. Even when I had 2K I still bent over and picked up a fee wheel weight. I need to work on building a shed this summer then I would like to build my stash up again.
Never enough, you can always use it for trading fodder.

[MUSTANG]

In 1987 my wife talked a local Tire shop out of 3700 lbs of wheel weights (for free) to give to me as a present. About one and 1/2 years ago I exhausted the last of that acquisition; despite having added to it at every opportunity through the years. Now I am continually on the scrounge for more. Life being fickle, you never know when enough is enough.

Mustang.

[fredj338]

Unless you are leaving us soon, you can never have enough. I shoot about 10K rounds of 45acp a year along with smaller amounts of other calibers. So 2000# of alloy would only last me about 7yrs. I don't have nearly enough to get me to the end. So I am always looking for alloy. I don't spend a ton of time hitting tire places, all gone out here now, but if I can scrounge it or buy it cheap, I do.

[chirodr1]

I hope to continue to accumulate my lifetime supply. I have found a source of WW through a friend. It won't be a large amount probably 10-20 pounds per month which will accumulate over time. The problem I have is I cannot leave it sitting without wanting to turn it into boolitss. I probably have cast 6-7000 boolits in the last 3-4 weeks all with single cavity molds. I think I have the fever.

[Smitty's Retired]

When you figure it out, you'll reconsider.

[10 ga]

Enough is when you die and have lead left. Anything less is not enough.

David

Lead is like ammo, only 2 kinds:
1. enough
2. not enough

It is bad when you reach stage 2 above. To be avoided at all cost. I mostly cast for my MLs. Currently have 3K lbs. lead in "ore" and ingots. Still scrounging and adding to the hoard. I'm 63 and only cast about 100 lb. into boolits a year. I'm finding lead at about 500 lb. a year. The kids will be happy with the cache. Both son in laws shoot as well as one of the daughters, I'm trying to get them into casting. Plus the lead is good for trade and sale for my gun project $.

10

[hickfu]

I've got over a ton and still pick up all I can. It's amazing how fast you can use it up. I recycle most of my lead by shooting at my home range, so I think I probably have "enough". Still, I never turn down lead if I can get it.

You sir are one of the lucky ones.... I would love to have my own range so I could reclaim my boolits to remelt. I only have around 800lbs left out of 1400 so I dont have nearly enough...

Doc

[GP100man]

If ya don`t plan on moving in the near future I would`nt hoard enuff to pull the Earths axis off kilter!!

I have close to 1 ton - - - - & worry,& scrounge & stop to pick up 1 wheel weight !

[TES]

up to a ton and a half. Still not enough as I'm looking to manufacture. I think somebody on here said that they go through 8 tons or 8000 lbs (4 ton) a month and cant keep up with demand.....DANG. To bad its not light or at least worth its weight in gold.