wheel weight hoarding

[kryogen]

I just bought another 600 pounds of scrap WW today. Didn't need those, but the price was damn right at 20$ a bucket.
There is still another 5 gal worth of ww in that tub but I am starting to think that I will never smelt/use that much lead in my life anyway.

Probably have stacked over 1000 pounds of usable lead so far....

keep hoarding or stop? I almost feel bad for the guy selling me the ww for 20$ a 5 gallon. Big tire shop, emptied the container last year, they probably produce around 5 buckets worth a year. Cant but it all, uh. I mean, what am I going to do with tons and tons of lead anyway. The only thing I see is that I could turn around and sell it for 3x the price I paid for it, but it's not worth my time to hand empty the tub in buckets, then go to the scrap yard, etc etc, in benefit, so it's more a hoarding obsession thing....

Maybe I'll just try to smelt it all during the vacations this summer to get nice ingots and then stack those. I hate stocking pails of scrap ww, it's ugly, dirty, and space inefficient.

[IraqVet1982]

Where you located I'll give you $50/bucket. I cannot get my hands on WW in the Detroit area.

[imashooter2]

1000 pounds? Piker. Keep going. 1k is barely a good start.

[MGnoob]

i wouldn't worry about it....it's the new silver.
i payed $500 for the 1100 pounds i have.....i don't think I'll have any left in 5 years maybe...
i bought 300 pounds to try and it had almost no zinc, like 2 or 3 per 5 gallon pail so i ran back and bought it all. Unfortunately i've counted up to 10 valve stems per bucket......they swell up like black marshmallow and i scoop them out. that 300 lbs didn't last 6 months.. i have a few buckets of ingots i use, then remelt the sprue waste and wind up with 2 buckets, then use, re-smelt and than i have one... then it seems like alot of work to smelt it with the clips, but i smelt half a 5 gallon bucket remove most of the clips add whatever ww are left in the bucket,flux ,clean and pour.

What i really need is some of those fancy 3" c-channel 5lb molds like 4 molds with 4 5lb cavitys apiece...what's that 80lbs. it would be so much nicer than handling my 4 4 cavity 1 pounds molds.....i don't have handles and they still too hot through my welding gloves.

[NVScouter]

I thought I'd never use 14Klbs so I sold 5K...down to 4K now and always looking for more.

[dakotashooter2]

It makes good trading stock and if you ever need cash in a hurry you can always sell it to a recycler...

[fastfire]

I just bought another 600 pounds of scrap WW today. Didn't need those, but the price was damn right at 20$ a bucket.
There is still another 5 gal worth of ww in that tub but I am starting to think that I will never smelt/use that much lead in my life anyway.



Probably have stacked over 1000 pounds of usable lead so far....

keep hoarding or stop? I almost feel bad for the guy selling me the ww for 20$ a 5 gallon. Big tire shop, emptied the container last year, they probably produce around 5 buckets worth a year. Cant but it all, uh. I mean, what am I going to do with tons and tons of lead anyway. The only thing I see is that I could turn around and sell it for 3x the price I paid for it, but it's not worth my time to hand empty the tub in buckets, then go to the scrap yard, etc etc, in benefit, so it's more a hoarding obsession thing....

Maybe I'll just try to smelt it all during the vacations this summer to get nice ingots and then stack those. I hate stocking pails of scrap ww, it's ugly, dirty, and space inefficient.

YOU LEFT A 5 GALLON BUCKETS WORTH????? I don't know what to say. Did you say you left a 5 gallons of COWW?:shock:
I'm not a hoarder but did you say you left a 5 gallons of COWW?:shock:

[Hickory]

wheel weight hoarding

No such thing!
Personal acquisition would be more correct.

[Beagle333]

1000 pounds?!? I got my own range and I wouldn't stop at 1000 pounds! Pile that stuff up Man!

[Le Loup Solitaire]

Just keep hoarding or whatever anyone wants to call it. It'll keep on getting harder to find and there will never be a prob to use it or sell it. If you can build/use a backstop to catch it then do so. An ingot mold even when used occasionally will get your stash into neatly stacked piles, over a period of time. Valve stems, clips, road crud and lots of other things; just skim/scoop it out and chuck it...its part of acquiring a good supply. LLS

[kryogen]

YOU LEFT A 5 GALLON BUCKETS WORTH????? I don't know what to say. Did you say you left a 5 gallons of COWW?:shock:
I'm not a hoarder but did you say you left a 5 gallons of COWW?:shock:


yeah I know I might go and pick it up next friday.... but I have no more buckets so I need to go buy a few...
or maybe tomorrow morning in fact if they are open.

They will have 5 more to sell next year, no worries. except he might realize one day that he should be selling this to me for way more than 20$ for 150 pounds.

[Beagle333]

Do you have any drywall companies near you? They go through several 5-gallon buckets of "mud" a day and they just throw them out. It washes out of the buckets easily.
'Same with the 5gal latex paint buckets that painters toss out.

[WILCO]

I cannot get my hands on WW in the Detroit area.

In that situation, you'd be better off buying a known alloy from Rotometals.

[smkummer]

A local custom bullet manufacturer here pays 1.29 per pound for wheel weight ingots. If you melt it into ingots, you can post on craigslist and sell if you feel you have too much lead. Lead also sells on ebay all the time and the flat rate boxes are your friend shipping lead. You could easily make enough off of lead to buy say another gun. The tire shop is probably selling to you for what the scrap yards are paying but he doesn't have to send a gopher to sell them when you pick them up.

[Spruce]

Pool chlorine tablet buckets work well also, bigger than 5 gal. Last one I found along side of highway, and you know I had to stop and pick it up and recycle it.

Get all that WW and recycle it. Just doing our part to help Mother Nature.

Someone on here used to make ingot molds from channel iron and shipped in a small flat rate box.

[David2011]

Nice find, Kryogen. Last buckets I tried to buy, each about 2/3 full, the guy wanted $185.00 for the pair. He may still have them. Did you say you left a bucket of WW there? For SHAME!

A thousand pounds isn't as much as it may seem. My best year so far I shot almost 1300 pounds of boolits. Not a contest, though. Actually, yes it was. Seven to nine contests and several practice sessions a month.

David

[3006guns]

If I remember, a cubic foot of lead weighs around 700 lbs or so. Going by that figure 1k lbs would store easily, even allowing for the increased volume of shape, clips, etc.

Keep scrounging. I just had an old friend GIVE me a steel box with about 200+ lbs........some of it already marked "hard".

[mold maker]

Free or cheap lead is rapidly becoming only a memory. If you want to keep shooting, without paying an arm and a leg, Ya better get all you can while it's still available.
Lead is poor mans gold. It will get to the point that only rich folks can afford it.
What good are molds and furnaces without it?

[knobster]

+1 what everyone else has said so far on this thread

No such thing as 'too much lead' or 'too much ammo' or 'too many guns'. Smelt it all down into ingots and if you run low on money you will have many, many people willing to buy it from you.

I'm lucky to have a couple brothers in the auto mechanic field. They give me at least two 5-gal buckets of wheel weights a month. Been smelting and casting like a mad dog due to recent events around the world - soon this 'poor man's gold' will be worth more than gold!

[kryogen]

went back and bought the rest (1.25 buckets)

So overall, I got 5 full 5 gallons of WW for 100$. probably around 700 pounds or so, which will give I guess around 500 pounds of lead ingots, for a cost of 20 cents a pound.

bought 4 empty 5gal buckets so I can stack more WW, and store clips and trash for the junkyard, etc. buckets are always useful, and I didnt have time to run around trying to get free buckets.

Oh and I don't shoot much.... less than 1000 rounds a year lately. so that would be 32 pounds of 45 ammo. so the 1300 pounds I have stacked so far would last me.... 40 years.
And one way or the other, I will probably be the guy getting all the range scrap lead to re-melt it. So I have an infinite supply of lead....

[labradigger1]

Dont ever stop! I use alot of lead in a month, alot more than i used to since going to 250 grainers, they drain a pot quick. I never stop and constantly seek it every week and sometimes more frequently. I picked up 2- 5 gallon buckets today for my usual $15.00 a bucket. More iron in them nowadays than even last winter so less lead and more **** to sort out. It will get worse and the price will continue to go up and the amt of lead in them will dwindle away. Get it while you can and where you can. It will get harder to get, it already has. Used to be free most places. No such thing as to much. You can always sell it or trade it. Some may say its a hoard, i call it a good start.
Lab

[Pepe Ray]

I believe that you'd get more responses if we had some idea of your neighborhood.
I just made a purchase when I found out the seller lived near my brother.
Get it? Some call it NETWORKING.
Pepe Ray

[fredj338]

1000 pounds? Piker. Keep going. 1k is barely a good start.
^^This^^^ I have maybe 1200#, sounds like a lot, but if you are shooing big bores, not really. I don't spend a lot of time scrounging, gas costs $$, but I am always keeping an eye/ear open. 1000#, only 34k 200/45s. Sounds good, but shoot 7k a year, only 5 yrs worth? I am pretty sure I got that many more shooting yrs left. As noted, you can always sell it or trade it. In a shtf, could be worth more than gold or silver in the form of bullet..

[Jailer]

I just bought another 600 pounds of scrap WW today. Didn't need those, but the price was damn right at 20$ a bucket.
There is still another 5 gal worth of ww in that tub but I am starting to think that I will never smelt/use that much lead in my life anyway.

Probably have stacked over 1000 pounds of usable lead so far....

keep hoarding or stop? I almost feel bad for the guy selling me the ww for 20$ a 5 gallon. Big tire shop, emptied the container last year, they probably produce around 5 buckets worth a year. Cant but it all, uh. I mean, what am I going to do with tons and tons of lead anyway. The only thing I see is that I could turn around and sell it for 3x the price I paid for it, but it's not worth my time to hand empty the tub in buckets, then go to the scrap yard, etc etc, in benefit, so it's more a hoarding obsession thing....

Maybe I'll just try to smelt it all during the vacations this summer to get nice ingots and then stack those. I hate stocking pails of scrap ww, it's ugly, dirty, and space inefficient.

Now that you've started you better keep going. The more you have the more you will shoot. I'd be nervous with just 1K.


Where you located I'll give you $50/bucket. I cannot get my hands on WW in the Detroit area.

Go north and hit some smaller towns. Free lead is a thing of the past but cheap lead is still out there.

[Harter66]

I still have a couple of Enablers around.

I thought I had the gig of gigs going on , I was doing the backer boards at our local range as part of my job . I had trap boxes on the pistol backers .I took probably 700# that way ........then the Army closed the range poof no more easy lead and you can't even skim the 30yrs of surface picked back stop now.

The property reutilization office here will let joe public buy a couple 100# of demil balast a quarter or so at dirty scrap prices.

[kryogen]

can you guys believe that 3 years ago before I though about casting, we had a large 300 pounds counterweight of pure lead and we didnt know what to do with it so we brought it to the scrapyard and PAID 60$ to get rid of it. Oh god.

Could have been paid 150$ at the metal recycler at least, or better, melt it into ingots....

[RogerDat]

Where you located I'll give you $50/bucket. I cannot get my hands on WW in the Detroit area.

You might want to check up around Flint & Saginaw area. Lot of scrap yards up there, several on Dort Hwy. you might find some that sell lead, or take in WW's from tire stores (being a licensed recycler) which they will resell. Little Google and some phone calls may yield a source just up I-75 from you. Be prepared to pay 70 cents to 1 dollar a lb. That would be more like $90 to $130 for a 130 lb. 5 gallon pail.

Check the phone book, none of the chain tire stores that I have checked will sell them to individuals. Use the phone book or places you drive by that are independent tire stores, pay special attention to those stores that sell used tires. People tend to buy used tires for older cars, older cars tend to have lead WW's rather than zinc or steel. When you call those scrap yards north of you find out what they pay for WW's and be prepared to offer the independent tire stores 5 or 10 cents more per pound. Take a bathroom scale and some 5 gallon pails with you. Cheaper than buying at a scrap yard more like $40 a 130 lb. bucket. Better deal for the shop too.

Also have heard of people going to auto salvage yards with a WW removal tool and collecting from old car tires right off the cars. Downside is time spent, upside is you don't collect anything but good lead by nipping with a pair of diagonal cutters if you think they might be zinc or steel .

As some others have pointed out it is not as easy or cheap as it used to be to find lead but it is possible with some work to secure a supply.

[JeffinNZ]

I still maintain that the reason our house survived the earthquakes was due to the amount of lead in the garage hold the building down.

My theory is if I stockpile now, at least I have plenty to use down the line as will my girls.