What are you paying for scrap lead and wheel weights?

[huntersdog]

Trying to find out what a going rate per pound goes for scrap lead and wheel weights, I don't want to over pay for it.

How many pounds of usable lead do you get out a 5 gallon bucket of wheel weights?

Thanks

[shoot-n-lead]

I bought a 5gal bucket of wheel weights from one of my regular sources, last Wed, and paid the standard price of $25 and I tipped them $5...first time I have done that, this year.

My buckets typically yield 70% of gross weight, in rendered alloy.

[Bazoo]

I gave 30 and 35 for my last 2 buckets. I sorted 1, and have i'd say 60% lead weights, and only a handful of stick on weights.

[buckshotshoey]

30 for just short of a bucket here. A few zinc weights, a few steel, but not many. If you could get a bucket for 30, you are doing good. I never weighed a bucket of lead yet, but i guess 150 pounds, before rendering.

Market price this morning is 94 cents a pound. Rotometals is selling 16 to 1 for $3.20 a pound. Even if you paid $100 for that bucket, You are doing better then buying pre made ingots.

[runfiverun]

dang man.
I about pitched a fit the first time the tire dude asked me for $5.00.
and I had to lift it in the truck on top of that.

[shoot-n-lead]

dang man.
I about pitched a fit the first time the tire dude asked me for $5.00.
and I had to lift it in the truck on top of that.

I know...I know...[smilie=b:

They used to be free...they just wanted rid of them.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Since we all can buy usable boolit alloy for about $1 per lb in ingot form...It doesn't seem wise to pay that much for scrap. 60¢ per lb is about the cut-off for me. I haven't searched out and bought any COWW for a couple years...In Minnesota, there just seems to be too much iron and zinc WW in the mix now-a-days. The last batch of scrap I bought last spring,(450lbs) was mostly dimensional Lead, but there was a few buckets of old boolits, shot, and metal rich solder dross...that guy had a bucket of WW, I turned it down. We did a swap, but the 'value' of the swap, did come to 60¢ per lb...He is a friend and a has part time business of 'clean-up' and of course recovers lots of metal scrap, he knows my max price is 60¢ per lb and I only buy the desirable stuff for that price...I do think he has other people on his "buy Lead list", that'll buy what I don't.

[4719dave]

Around here in fl your lucky if you can get the tire shops to sell ...I was getting 5 gal for 30.00 THINK THE BOSS FOUND OUT NO MORE ...

[castalott]

I just bought 240 pounds of pure cast in Lee bars for $300.00... He threw in the Lee bar mold and the 20# like new Lee pot...


I was happy...

[Menner]

Dave how you guys doing down there? hope all is well
down in your area most are made into fishing weights I would imagine
Tony

[Don Fischer]

I'm lucky, I've never paid for wheel weight's. have about a life time supply of lead right now. Even 10 yrs ago I could not pick up a full 5gal bucket of them! Anymore here in Oregon, lead wheel weight's are very hard to find!

[mold maker]

Guys, I remember 13.9 Gal gas and penny post cards, but you can't buy memories.
WWs everywhere are turning to unusable metals and getting hard to find at any price. When they're all gone and the price of bought alloy goes up, you'll wish you had done the time searching and rendering. The price will either go drastically up or become unobtainium, illegal, or out of sight.
When what you have in inventory is what you have for the rest of your life, it won't be enough, no matter how big the pile is.
Whether it's Hillery or the next rabid gun hater, it will happen, sooner or later.

[buckshotshoey]

Just processed what i bought. $30 for wheel weights and had 7 pounds of steel, 3 pounds of dross, about a pound of zinc (got lucky there), and 66 pounds of rendered lead. So about .45 cents a pound for usable lead. Stock up boys. It will be gone soon.

[quilbilly]

Usually I pay about 50 cents a pound for dirty scrap lead like roofing lead at recyclers but a few weeks back I paid 80 cents a pound for sheets of isotope lead wall shielding smiling as I paid cash. Isotope lead is beautiful clean lead often pure (this batch was).

[mozeppa]

is $600 dollars for 1,015 pound of wheel weights good?

[The Governor]

50c per lb. of CO and SO weights, they're classed as, "dirty" lead . I have to sort out the ones I want myself so it's all good stuff.
Got 180# today, $90. Took 2.5 hours to sort out the lead from the zink and steel.
70c for soft, or "clean" lead. Looks to be mostly roof flashing.
It's grab and go. No time involved at all.

[maxreloader]

is $600 dollars for 1,015 pound of wheel weights good?

Not if they are all Zn and Fe [smilie=b:

[shoot-n-lead]

Too much!

Half that, is all that I would pay.

[Scharfschuetze]

I guess I'm the lucky one here. I have a couple of friends who are very liberal with sail boat ballast weights, bags and bags of old hardened shot, lead COWWs and deep sea lead weights for trawling, and even lead sheeting (pure Pb) from roof gutters and old hospital X-Ray room walls. I still have a little range salvage left from one of my tours where I had access to an indoor range.

Over the years though, I have paid for linotype (both 30 lb ingots and type set) and have several hundred pounds of the type set left. Back when linotype printing presses were going out of favor for off set printing, those 30 lb ingots were about $5 and often just given away.

[Budzilla 19]

Last bucket and a half I got yielded 103 lbs of coww ingots, 22 lbs of soww ingots,10 lbs of zinc, and some steel weights! For $30 I'm satisfied with the results. Got lucky I guess. Till I can't find them, I guess I'll keep on going. (Looking for a junk sailboat right now).

[fredj338]

All depends on where you live. Out here, if you can even buy a bucket, it will be 80-85% unusable krap. I don't even bother anymore. I wouldn't turn down free, but I wont buy ww here anymore.

[huntersdog]

I can get WW for .25lb or lead for .35lb from my buddies scrap yard, that sounds pretty fair.

[EDK]

My buddy at the range mines the backstops. He sorts it, washes off the dirt, and smelts in steel coffee cans on his wood burning furnace. The scrap yard pays 50¢ per pound, but I have a standing order for 100 pounds or more anytime he has some to spare.

[Blackwater]

I have been getting mine lately from my service center for our vehicles. There, they're mildly ambivalent about what they get, and I got about 150 lbs. or more last time for $25. It's kind'a a "good buddy deal," and I need to check if I can get more as soon as I think of it. I'm out of the habit of asking and I need to get better at it again. We often don't think about supply until we're empty, and that can make for problems. Add in the fact that the only thing I have getting stronger is my "forgetter," and ... well, you know.

[truckerdave397]

is $600 dollars for 1,015 pound of wheel weights good?
The scrap yard I work at charges me $.60 a pound for WW or any other type of lead but that is hand sorted by me.

[scottfire1957]

I just "paid" 385 dollars for 30#!


Actually, I bought two tires for the wife's car and asked if they would throw in some used weights. 30# just for asking. Discount tire.

[randy_68]

A case of beer for 2 buckets, hot a couple others for free.

[TheGuyFromSouthamerica]

I am located in Southamerica and I pay here about 18 cents (US cents) per pound of assorted "lead" Wheel Wheigths. It contains as well Zn, FE, AL WW. That is why my bullets have an high Zinc content since it melts as well along the Pb (lead) WW. The bullets are wrinkled but they shoot well (I just make sure the base and point have sharp edges).

It is for pistol and revolver shooting.

That turns out to give me a cost per bullet (lets assume each bullet has 124 grains) of 0.00321 US$. To compare an Winchester factory FMJ bullet costs here 0.23 US$ (23 cents).
In Southamerica relaoding and casting saves you lots of money (about 80%) and without casting you save about 50% (reloading only).

[TheGuyFromSouthamerica]

Till now I may have stockpiled about 300 to 400 pounds of Wheel Wheigths.

[RED BEAR]

the last i bought was dirty but at 30 cent a pound i will clean it ( i bought enough to last me the rest of my life) but that was about 5 years ago. for clean lead ingots they charged 60 cents. again about 5 years ago i still have about 100lbs left to clean the rest has been fluxed several times and is in buckets. wheel weights i still have a tire shop willing to give them to me.

[snowtigger]

The last metal I bought was 200 lbs of Lino ingots for $100.00. It's been a while. I had a source for wheel weights, and got about ten buckets before that dried up. I still get the occasional bucket. I also acquired a thousand pounds of sheet lead from a radar site.
I cast all my bullets from either straight ww or 50/50 ww/pure, with rifle bullets and higher velocity handgun bullets carrying gas checks.
I am about to start casting for .223, so I will start using more lino.

[georgerc]

I just got my first half bucket for $20, surprisingly only a handful of ZN but about 1/4 FE, most stickons were FE, all in all I got about 40# of the soft stuff, I got to go through it again make sure I didn't miss any ZN ones, I only got a few and saved them for a sample, pretty hard on my wire cutters vs lead, am I on the rights track sorting?

[buckshotshoey]

I just got my first half bucket for $20, surprisingly only a handful of ZN but about 1/4 FE, most stickons were FE, all in all I got about 40# of the soft stuff, I got to go through it again make sure I didn't miss any ZN ones, I only got a few and saved them for a sample, pretty hard on my wire cutters vs lead, am I on the rights track sorting?

Yea. Thats the way i did it. Zinc wont take a mark with a side cut pliers, lead will. Down side? Had a blister on my palm after a half bucket! lol

[facetious]

The last time I bought any WW's thy were $5.00 for five gal. bucket. In the late 80's.

Two or three years ago I bought 90 lb.of what I think was a mix of WW and range scrap for $45.00. Thy were all ready melted and cast in to ingots and in a pail. In the bottom of the pail was some un melted WW's and some range scrap so I'm thinking it was a old shooter who died and the kids were cleaning out his stuff. After casting some with it, it seams just a little softer than WW's.

Last week I had a chance to go shooting and took along the front grill off a fan that had quit to use as a sifter. Should have took more pails. I put as much range scrap as I could move in two pails and about killed my self getting them to the car and in to the trunk. Put them on the bathroom scale and came up with 168 lb's. I am hoping to get a 140 to 150 lb's after cooking it down and cleaning it up. Should make enough wad cutters to last along time. The cost was about 1/2 hr. to scrape the dirt up and sift it.

[rototerrier]

The term "lifetime supply" is often grossly miscalculated by some folks. Lifetimes vary, but here's some simple math.

A 40 year old male shooting 1000 230gr boolits per year who expects to live to 80 would need approximately 1300lbs of lead!

I shoot far more than 1000 / year.

I always get a good laugh at what some consider to be a lifetime supply. Clearly it's all relative...but unless you shoot very little or are already up in years, 300-600lbs ain't a lifetime supply.

Best to keep scrounging and just plan on leaving some behind on departure. That's my plan anyhow.

My last scrap ww score came out to .45 / lb.

Every year it seems to go up about .10 more. It's definitely gotten harder to find and keeps increasing in price...kinda like healthcare.

FYI I'm a healthy 38 and my LTS target is 1 ton stockpiled.

Even then, I feel I might come up short...but then again, I may not make it to 80. Who knows.

[georgerc]

well I guess it depends where you do your shooting practice, I don't go to a range so there is no range scrap picking and free brass, I shoot on my own land so I pick up my brass, and every time I loose some, as for the mound I shoot at, I picked up some out of it before, so I guess if I had some 600lbs stock, I could shoot that a few times over

[rototerrier]

Open range on steel. Not much to recover once it hits the steel. I recover a few pieces of lead here and there, but not much.

[bamabound]

Got about 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket of WW for free, 83 lbs before sorting and around 52 pounds of ingots . I have one shop that will sell and two others who said they would start collecting them for me but who knows how that will pan out.