If all the COWW were gone......

[osteodoc08]

Where would you get your lead?

I'm fairly young and am trying to get as much lead as I can right now. The writing is on the wall so to speak and 30 years from now, I hope to still be casting (God willing). I have perhaps 7 or 8 buckets full of sorted COWW and a few hundred pounds smelted. So maybe 1000 pounds at best. Not near a lifetime supply.

So, do I start to buy from rotometals or similar in addition to getting my usual COWW?

I'm also considering shooting lighter weight boolits and dropping from my typical 41M and 45C to 38/357 for target/plinking/fun to save even more.

What have/are you doing?

[jmort]

I would buy chilled shot which is close to COWW. You can get it for $2.00 per pound delivered, not bad for an alloy. You will not get an alloy from any commercial source in small quantity for less $$$. I add some tin, so keep adding to you tin stash as well. But we are not there yet, so just keep adding to you current supply now. My prediction is that 30 years from now lead might be illegal to shoot. I like 12 gauge slug and buckshot so I am not going to reduce my load size to economize but if you are just plinking why not reduce your Boolit weight to economize if you think it will help in the long run.

[C. Latch]

I don't shoot as much as others here; I have several hundred pounds of lead and if I had ~500 more pounds I'd never have to buy again. If I had to pay $3/lb for 500 pounds of lead, that's only $1500. So from my POV I have no lead worries.

[Shiloh]

I mine the berm at the range. The only problem with that is you never know what you get.
All the boolits function and are accurate enough for me. Having a consistent alloy would probaly be best, But I shoot what I have.

Shiloh

[mold maker]

I've had the same concerns for many years. I feel your pain starting out. One of the first things I'd do, is do your plinking into a recoverable target. That makes for zero loss. Having friends also use it will be a gain.
Never pass up an opportunity to add to your stash from roofers and plumbers. Attempt to find telephone line shielding. Hunt for old printing companies that might still use, or have linotype. Ask dentist for x ray shields. Put the word out among all your friends that your hunting for new sources.
Don't be surprised if you suddenly need more storage space.
BTW ingots that have their source labeled, take lots less space. You can get over 750 lbs in a milk crate, but you wont be moving it.

[C. Latch]

You can get over 750 lbs in a milk crate, but you wont be moving it.

My wife bought a laundry basket for me to store ingots in.

I can't move it.

[Beagle333]

Learn to powdercoat, and shoot range scrap. It will always be around. 8-)

[hickfu]

make your own range so you can reclaim your boolits... wish I could



Doc

[popper]

Roto prices have gone up so if buying, get what you can now. Price will continue to rise on Pb and components.

[Bloodman14]

Get a 55 gal. plastic drum and fill it with crumb rubber mulch from Lowe's, set it on it's side and use the 'top' for your target board. The plastic is almost self-healing, and will stop my .303's (NOE 316299's; Accurate 316215B's) at 50 yds. BTW, fill it through a hole in the side of the drum! The hole will be the recovery point. I made a stand for mine, and I just rotate the drum and dump the contents into a plastic garden cart.

[mdi]

Another source is some of the sponser/vendors here. I've purchased a few hundred pounds from The Captain to keep my stock up to "survival" levels. I also look at ebay, but be careful of bid price + shipping; could wind up costing $5.00 per lb. for range lead...

[C. Latch]

Get a 55 gal. plastic drum and fill it with crumb rubber mulch from Lowe's, set it on it's side and use the 'top' for your target board. The plastic is almost self-healing

How well does that work with WFN handgun bullets?

[lightman]

I agree, lead will be harder and harder to find. But, its still out there. So I'll keep looking and developing new sources. Ask friends, family, and co-workers to be on the lookout. Wheel weights are good, but they are not the only game in town. A sailboat keel or the counterweight from a forklift would quickly put you closer to that "lifetime supply" that we're all looking for. Good Luck, Lightman

[Bloodman14]

How well does that work with WFN handgun bullets?

I don't know about WFNs, but my trap has no issues with my .45 (Lee TL-230-2R, 4.5 grs. TG or RD).

[C. Latch]

I don't know about WFNs, but my trap has no issues with my .45 (Lee TL-230-2R, 4.5 grs. TG or RD).

I know such a trap will work with pointed bullets or round-nosed; I worry about how it holds up to WFNs. Seems like they'd chew the face off in no time.

[Bloodman14]

Plastic drums are cheap ($18.00 at local farm supply), and not hard to replace. You can also swap end-for-end and use the other end.

[StratsMan]

Last time a checked (few months ago) the local scrap yard wouldn't sell me the range scrap from the local indoor range, but he would sell me lead as ingots after they had gone through a smelter... Price was $.80/#, already in ingots...

[Bloodman14]

That's not a bad price, depending on the alloy.

[imashooter2]

Range scrap has been the new wheel weight for a few years now...

[C. Latch]

That's not a bad price, depending on the alloy.

If someone offered me ingots at $0.80 per pound, with no shipping costs, for lead that was somewhere between SOWW and COWW in hardness, I'd probably buy enough to round out my 'lifetime supply'.

[dbosman]

We're all going to face scarcer materials. But... We've all been facing scarcer materials since the 1980s.
I've recently been reading Handloader magaines from the 1970s to early 1990s. The editorials, capital hill reports, costs of materials listed are all the same except for the names of the people involved.
Print shops with Linotype are just about empty and gone. Dental offices are switching to digital systems that produce essentially instant digital X-Rays. So, less and less lead film shields. Lead wheel weights have been outlawed in many states and we can expect that to be national one day. Again, that day has been coming since the late 1980s. Lead shot has more than doubled in the last couple of years due to shipping costs. It more than doubled in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bans on lead shot have had the effect of lowering the amount of shells many can afford to shoot. That lowers the quantity of shells stocked which cuts into the ordering and stocking in stores.

So, grab what you can, without shutting out your fellows, and keep spreading the word about boolits.

[waksupi]

Last time a checked (few months ago) the local scrap yard wouldn't sell me the range scrap from the local indoor range, but he would sell me lead as ingots after they had gone through a smelter... Price was $.80/#, already in ingots...

I would be concerned just what else they had melted down with the lead.

[osteodoc08]

Range scrap has been the new wheel weight for a few years now...

All of my local, and not so local, ranges have "contracts" for the range scrap
And can't/won't allow me to take or purchase from them.

I wish it were that easy.

[Changeling]

If you can find enough people locally to you that shoot cast or even within a couple hundred miles or so you could put together a very large order that the smelters would take seriously! I wouldn't be surprised if you could get a relatively low price that way.
Think of it as a long term investment (it's not going to get cheaper)! Like it are not if you want a supply for the future you better start doing something soon . I seriously doubt if the range lead is going to be available for much longer.

As for the .80 per lb, that sounds like a very local thing, not to last either. That is however another source (scrap yards) you could consider as LARGE buy from as mentioned above (with a contract only). With a contract you can have the price fixed as to what you will be paying.
Think of this procedure as a CO-OP.

C. Latch, make sure of the primers/brass/tools and you would be really set and way ahead of the game. Just make sure you have "Excellent" storage facilities for these items, long term.
BTW, take care of that 375 H&H, don't let anyone talk you out of it. Unless it's me, LOLAL!

[lksmith]

Where would you get your lead?

I'm fairly young and am trying to get as much lead as I can right now. The writing is on the wall so to speak and 30 years from now, I hope to still be casting (God willing). I have perhaps 7 or 8 buckets full of sorted COWW and a few hundred pounds smelted. So maybe 1000 pounds at best. Not near a lifetime supply.

So, do I start to buy from rotometals or similar in addition to getting my usual COWW?

I'm also considering shooting lighter weight boolits and dropping from my typical 41M and 45C to 38/357 for target/plinking/fun to save even more.

What have/are you doing?

Mine the berm, look for bullets on the ground at the range, and build/use bullet trap.
Also hitting up all the local tire shops and scrap yards.

[jonp]

Last time a checked (few months ago) the local scrap yard wouldn't sell me the range scrap from the local indoor range, but he would sell me lead as ingots after they had gone through a smelter... Price was $.80/#, already in ingots...
Why is a scrap yard carrying ingots? Is it a side business? At 80¢/lb I would take that.

[pmer]

I wonder how it would go to have few of those barrels and see if a local range would let a guy set them up to catch projectiles. They sound kinda portable. Set up a route and replace the full barrel with a "fresh" one.

[kingemandigger]

I go to nautical flee markets ( I live in florida) and buy as many five weights as I can. I only purchase them if I can get em for .50 cents/lb or less. I usually end up with 100 lbs +. Only problem is you never know what you are getting in terms of alloy. The point being that if you have no source for wheel weights, you will probably find other sources if you are forced to. Keep a hardness tester on hand and search all yard sales and thrift stores for pewter. Good luck.

[rhead]

Learn to powdercoat, and shoot range scrap. It will always be around. 8-)

Beagle what would happen if a boolit was powder coated while it was nose down in a drilled block? Is the powder coating hard and strong enough that you could get or approach JSP performance.

I am not sure i have even read enough on the process to even ask an intelligent question. If i need to shoot high velocity I paper patch.
Thanks in advance.

[rhead]

Why is a scrap yard carrying ingots? Is it a side business? At 80¢/lb I would take that.

Could they be salvaging the copper jackets?

[cbrick]

A few years back as clip-on weights were getting harder to find I did the experiments in this article - Blending Cast Bullet Antimony Alloys - Alloying with Roto Metals Super Hard. (http://www.lasc.us/SuperHard.htm) Over the years I had used very little stick-on weights and saved all of them, a guy that I knew also used clip-on weights but gave me his stick-ons so I had about 800 pounds of well separated stick-on weights. Wondering what to do if I used up my stash of about 800 pounds of clip-ons I bought some Roto Metals Super Hard and blended the recipes in the article. Using stick-on weights as the base metal alloys such as COWW, Lyman #2 etc were easy to duplicate. If I alloyed all 800 pounds of stick-on weights this way combined with my clip-on weights and considering my age what I don't get used I think I will just take with me. :mrgreen:

To make things even easier for me several years ago whenever I would order anything from Midway I would include an order of tin with it and save on shipping costs. They sold tin at the time in two one pound bars per order right at $6 a pound. I did this for a few years and stashed away 35-40 pounds of 99.9% pure tin bars. I'm good on tin. [smilie=1:

If you have a source of soft Pb don't overlook Super Hard to easily turn it into any useable Pb/Sb alloy you need.

Can you believe it? People were complaining about $6 tin. Ah, the good old days huh? Yep, about 10 years ago.

Rick

[jmort]

That is a useful article. Read it a while ago and should have put 2 and 2 together , Mr. Rick. Alloying antimony would be the biggest obstacle so the article should make it easier to utilize pure lead as the market turns. Thanks

[knobster]

As mentioned earlier - put the word out to friends/family that you are on the hunt for lead. My dad is a trucker and mentioned this to a few of the tire shops he visits along his route. I went up to visit him this past weekend and he had 250 pounds of wheel weights waiting for me to melt down.

[Blammer]

I'd drive 45min to the nearby foundry and order about 1,000lbs of what alloy I wanted. :)

[pmer]

[QUOTE=Blammer;2667178]I'd drive 45min to the nearby foundry and order about 1,000lbs of what alloy I wanted. :)[/QUOTE

Did I hear group buy! 8-)

How about cheap Chinese lead.. Wait, I heard it's dangerous because there is paint in it..

[Blammer]

yea, hold your horses, waiting for weather to be able to cross the mountain to get it.

[Changeling]

If you can find enough people locally to you that shoot cast or even within a couple hundred miles or so you could put together a very large order that the smelters would take seriously! I wouldn't be surprised if you could get a relatively low price that way.
Think of it as a long term investment (it's not going to get cheaper)! Like it are not if you want a supply for the future you better start doing something soon . I seriously doubt if the range lead is going to be available for much longer.

As for the .80 per lb, that sounds like a very local thing, not to last either. That is however another source (scrap yards) you could consider as LARGE buy from as mentioned above (with a contract only). With a contract you can have the price fixed as to what you will be paying.
Think of this procedure as a CO-OP.

C. Latch, make sure of the primers/brass/tools and you would be really set and way ahead of the game. Just make sure you have "Excellent" storage facilities for these items, long term.
BTW, take care of that 375 H&H, don't let anyone talk you out of it. Unless it's me, LOLAL!

C. Latch, I appolagise for the last sentence/paragraph I was thinkling about "Alaskan guy", he has the 375 H&H. Please excuse the mistake.

[Jtarm]

Isotope containers look promising, IMO. With changes coming in health-care, though, I'm afraid radioactive oncology might be curtailed.

Bottom line: get it while you can.