what's a fair boolit to wheel weight trade?

[robpete]

I have a non-casting friend that wants to trade me wheel weights for 40 S&W boolits. He has two pretty full 5 gallon buckets. He's leaving the ratio up to me, but I really don't know what to offer. To make it easier, we're going to set the ratio off of smelted weight. That way, there is no guessing on how much usable alloy is there. What is a fair trade ratio(in weight)?

Thanks,
Rob

[singleshot]

Boolits should go about $.10/ea, WWs are about $.80/lb. So at this point I'll refrain from "public math." But, you didn't say how heavy the boolits are, still at this juncture it's a simple conversion.

[singleshot]

Assuming 180 gr boolits, that's about 1lb boolits for 5 lbs WWs if you have to do it by weight. (Rats, I did public math!)

[robpete]

But, you didn't say how heavy the boolits are, still at this juncture it's a simple conversion.

Sorry I left out that very important variable. Thanks for pointing it out. The weight on them is 160Gr

[singleshot]

Okay, assuming you agree with the logic above, 2 lbs boolits for 11 pounds of WWs for 160 gr boolits.

[fcvan]

I always did 2 for 1 with buddies. If the guy gets a good score or has to pay dearly is of no consequence to me as it is his alloy. The end result is I make an equal amount of boolits and we both get to shoot. I don't try to make a profit so to speak, and I don't feel like I'm being taken advantage of. I enjoy casting and want to keep it fun as this is a hobby. I will have to say that I did go 3 for 1 on 225-415 55 gr boolits just because a pound of those takes a longer time to cast :)

[runfiverun]

2 to 1 unless he wants 10-k, then its 500 to 1.

[waksupi]

Considering you have to sort them, melt them, and make them into ingots, I would check the prices on commercial boolits, and offer him $25 worth of boolits.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I have a non-casting friend that wants to trade me wheel weights for 40 S&W boolits. He has two pretty full 5 gallon buckets. He's leaving the ratio up to me, but I really don't know what to offer. To make it easier, we're going to set the ratio off of smelted weight. That way, there is no guessing on how much usable alloy is there. What is a fair trade ratio(in weight)?

Thanks,
Rob

I once swapped two homemade boat anchors, that were supposedly made from WW's about 30years ago. Before I'd do the trade, I smelted them first and did a test cast, got about 120lbs of nice clean ingots, the test boolits were well filled out and measured 12BHN, after 24 hours of being cast, So I was pretty sure the alloy was COWW. So I proceeded to cast, lube, size 600 boolits for 45acp for my buddy (about 20 lbs). He was happy and said he'd find me more Lead alloy.

My own rule of thumb, in a weight to weight swap, I'd figure about 10lb's of pistol boolits (lubed and sized) to 100lbs of unsmelted WW's

Rifle boolits, that are closely examined and sorted (as well as GC'd, lubed, and sized), would be considerably lower trade ratio.

[williamwaco]

You mentioned smelted weight but you didn't say who was doing the work.

100 lbs of clip on wheel weights will make about 80 lbs of ingots.

If I was doing the smelting I wouldn't give him more than a third of the ingots.
(Smelting is a LOT of work )

That would be 27 lbs.
Theoretically that would be 43 bullets per pound but in real life it will not be more than 40 so that comes to 1080 bullets
Since this 27 pounds is his metal, what would you "charge" for casting, I would say maybe 50/50.

I would say 500 bullets per 100 pounds of unsmelted wheel weights.

Given the normal price of commercial cast bullets, this would be about $50.00 for his 100 lbs of un-smelted wheel weights. I don't know any scrap dealer around here that would pay him more than $40.00 per hundred.

That said, there may be legal consequences you might be better off to avoid. A couple of years ago I spent 9 months trying to get an answer from the BATF if a license was required to cast bullets for friends for sale and/or barter AS A HOBBY. I never got an answer. ( So I don't do it. )

[trk]

If you state the rules BEFORE the games starts, ANYTHING you do is FAIR.

The more I smelt WW, the more I consider BUYING (buy is a 4 letter word) components.

[Bzcraig]

You mentioned smelted weight but you didn't say who was doing the work.

100 lbs of clip on wheel weights will make about 80 lbs of ingots.

If I was doing the smelting I wouldn't give him more than a third of the ingots.
(Smelting is a LOT of work )

That would be 27 lbs.
Theoretically that would be 43 bullets per pound but in real life it will not be more than 40 so that comes to 1080 bullets
Since this 27 pounds is his metal, what would you "charge" for casting, I would say maybe 50/50.

I would say 500 bullets per 100 pounds of unsmelted wheel weights.

Given the normal price of commercial cast bullets, this would be about $50.00 for his 100 lbs of un-smelted wheel weights. I don't know any scrap dealer around here that would pay him more than $40.00 per hundred.

That said, there may be legal consequences you might be better off to avoid. A couple of years ago I spent 9 months trying to get an answer from the BATF if a license was required to cast bullets for friends for sale and/or barter AS A HOBBY. I never got an answer. ( So I don't do it. )


This math and logic is solid. The only thing left is the friendship factor, sometimes friends and family should pay more cause they always seem to expect more.:groner:

[Cherokee]

This is what I do since I have to do the casting, sizing, lubing (I supply the lube), I give back 33% of the final weight in boolits, I keep the rest. Friend seems happy, comes back for more.

[warpspeed]

I have traded 2 lbs of WW ingots for 1 lb of shot in the past and felt pretty good about it.


WW to ingots to boolits, lubed and all ? I'd think 4 lbs of raw WW to 1 lb of finished boolits would be about right.

[williamwaco]

This math and logic is solid. The only thing left is the friendship factor, sometimes friends and family should pay more cause they always seem to expect more.:groner:

It is like loaning money, or books, or tools, If you loan them to a "friend" you will loose both.

Never reload ammo for a friend.

As you said, before you know what happened he will be treating you like an employee.

[GaryN]

Considering you have to sort them, melt them, and make them into ingots, I would check the prices on commercial boolits, and offer him $25 worth of boolits.

That is what I would do. I wouldn't spend all my time so someone else can shoot.

[Boyscout]

I have had a couple of aquaintances ask if I could supply them with some stuff. I offer to let them come over and help cast some of the bullets they want and possibly reload their own so they can say they did it with their own. So far I have beenenjoying my time alone smelting and casting as I do it outdoors under the shade of a big maple tree. Did I say I do it alone?

[ipijohn]

I don't trade, I train other people using their labor and components but using my equipment.

[fredj338]

WW alloy in ingots is about $1/#, 29# for 1000/200gr/45. So I would be fine swapping friends 2-1 if that ever came up, but only if you enjoy the casting process.

[zomby woof]

I have a close friend and we do lots of shooting together. He gets 50% of the lead he brings me in boolits. I cast, he sizes and lubes. He loads on my equipment. I feel very good with this arrangement.

[Bzcraig]

If I had to sort, smelt, flux, pour into ingots, melt, flux, poor into boolits, size and lube and all my friend did was supply the WW and get boolits? Assuming 100# of WW and 200gr boolit, my friend would get 500 unless he is a friend who also helps me out too, then 1500. If he wanted them on a specific schedule, back to 500.

[BBQJOE]

I think 3:1 is good. I like 4 or 5:1 better.
Besides the work, they're just not giving away propane these days.

[500MAG]

I agree with JonB's math. You've got to size and lube them and throw back the bad ones. It's a lot of work. Also, have they been sorted? How much is lead and not zinc or steel.

[dragon813gt]

If the other party is doing nothing but supplying the lead than 5:1 would be very generous on your part. If they're helping along the way then I'd be willing to lower the ratio.

[truckjohn]

I think a fine trade is as little in actual bullets as you can get away with...

While it sounds a bit duplicitous - I am being serious.... This isn't 5 years ago when a bucket of Wheel Weights was full of Lead except for a few random Zinc and Iron weights... Those are now the Majority of the bucket... It's nothing special to see 3/5 or 4/5 of a bucket of WW is Zinc and Iron.... and that puts 100% of the risk on YOUR shoulders..... and it's getting worse each year....

What do you do when the batch gets Zinc contaminated? What happens when you spend an entire weekend and only get 75 lbs of lead back out? Does he still get a bucket full of cast and lubed bullets?

I think I would work out the deal as contingent upon the amount of work I had to do and the PITA factor involved... so he gets no bullets if I spend an entire weekend slaving over a couple 5 gallon buckets and find 10 lbs worth of lead...

The counter to this is that you should definitely sweeten the deal if he does NOT waste your time.... Have him pre-sort it to eliminate 99% of the junk.... The less hassle and work for you - the better deal for your buddy...

It's like trying to trade a sawyer logs for Lumber.. The entire deal hinges upon how much trouble it is for that fellow... If he looses a bunch of bands on nails and trash embedded in the wood - you pay for his trouble... If he saws it open and it's rotten/worthless - you pay for his trouble... If he has to come wrassle the wood out of the woods - you pay for his trouble.... Etc... It's only if the wood is easy to saw and "Interesting" that you can possibly offer to trade lumber for sawing it....

Thanks

[dilly]

Sounds like some of you missed the part where they were making this arrangement off of final smelted weight, not volume of starting wheel weight.

I won't suggest a number, but just remember that casting can be time consuming and time isn't really free.