How'd I do - lead acquisition

[Black Wolf]

Well, I'm excited. I went to a scrap metal supply place (after hitting 2 tire shops unsuccessfully about buying their WWs) and bought the following for $40.

(1) 86 lb pure lead Ingot (heavy sucker)
18 lbs of lead plumbers pipe
10 lbs of WWs

There's another 5 gallon bucket still there.

Was sold to me at .35 cents a pound. 1 box of Hornandy lead round balls cost roughly $11 (2lb box of 100) - equals $5.50 a pound versus .35 cents a lb that I got.

Enough soft lead to now justify buying a mold for my .44 BP revolver.

[opentop]

every little bit helps. Grab it when you can. Not a bad price!

[cajun shooter]

I would have to say that you had a very good day. Now if you end up with too much of that ole lead you can send it my way. I'm always willing to help a fellow caster out.

[Black Wolf]

They've also got a 55-gal barrel, which they state weighs 500 lbs, full of what looks like bird shot or something. They gave me about 2 lbs to take home. It melts up fine but it's got a bunch of junk mixed with it - creates a lot of dross. It has some paper and shotgun sabots in it and a few tiny stones - very few. Range lead? Still .35 cents a lb but I think they'd love to get rid of it. Even if I paid .35 cent/lb I don't know how the heck I'd get it loaded and home.

[crabo]

They've also got a 55-gal barrel, which they state weighs 500 lbs, full of what looks like bird shot or something. Even if I paid .35 cent/lb I don't know how the heck I'd get it loaded and home.

Do a couple of 5 gallon buckets at a time. I think bird shot has some a good amount of antimony in it. I sure someone who knows will chime in here.

[Seafarer12]

If it is chilled birdshot I think it has antimony in it to harden it but I couldn't tell you the amount. I am pretty sure you would want to cut it with some lead or ww.

[jdgabbard]

As said above, if you aquire more then you can handle send some my way too. I'd be happy to help you store it...down range in the berm that is...

[montana_charlie]

That seems like a reasonable price for lead, but I can't comment on wheelweight alloy...never have used it. I have been paying thirty-five cents at the scrap yard, and considered myself fortunate to have it available at that price.

However, that has recently changed. My never-has-reloaded-or-cast-a-bullet neighbor just bought a Pedersoli Sharps. The agreement is I will cast bullets for him if he will supply my lead...all of my lead. He was thrilled to agree.

He is the son of the owner of Maddox Roofing, and is the manager/worker who directs the big jobs and the out-of-state jobs. According to him, they throw away 'tons of lead every year' that gets stripped off of old roofs.
I informed him that practice has now ended. Every scrap of lead he sees (or stubs his toe on) is to be hauled home to Charlie.

After we get that working well, I'll see if his company can buy tin cheaper than I can...

CM

[JeffinNZ]

I just turned a case of a dozen bottles of Corona into a 5 gallon bucket of WW.

:drinks::Fire:

[KYCaster]

They've also got a 55-gal barrel, which they state weighs 500 lbs, full of what looks like bird shot or something .


A 55 gal. barrel of WW weighs in the neighborhood of 1250 to 1300 lbs. so a barrel of shot should be near 2000 lbs. If it is really only 500 lbs. then at least 2/3 of it is garbage.

How much good stuff did you get out of the two lb. sample they gave you? If half or more then $175 for the barrel would be a good buy.

Sounds like it's reclamied from a trap range. If you're not interested in it, tell us where it is and maybe another member here would like to take a look. [smilie=1:

Jerry

[cohutt]

Charlie that is working the system about as good as can be done, congrats.

I have two "system" sources. one is a scrap dealer and one is a manufacturer of xray shielding panels.

I help them when i can and they give me free lead (scrap)- works out very well. About 3500 lbs well so far.


Great thing is, 3500 lbs of lead doesn't take up any space at all.

:mrgreen:

[Black Wolf]

A 55 gal. barrel of WW weighs in the neighborhood of 1250 to 1300 lbs. so a barrel of shot should be near 2000 lbs. If it is really only 500 lbs. then at least 2/3 of it is garbage.

How much good stuff did you get out of the two lb. sample they gave you? If half or more then $175 for the barrel would be a good buy.

Sounds like it's reclamied from a trap range. If you're not interested in it, tell us where it is and maybe another member here would like to take a look. [smilie=1:

Jerry

I'm thinking it weighs a heck of a lot more than 500lb - Lead is 11.4 times denser than water. Water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon, so the weight of one gallon of lead is 95.08 pounds. Multiply 95lbs times 50 gallons (because it wasn't filled to the top) you get 4754 (minus 10% for impurities), for a total weight of 4279lbs. A lot lot more than 500. But then again, it is not condensed like a brick, you figure of 2000lbs is probably pretty close. .... I think I'll need a different truck to bring it home.

[copdills]

any lead is good lead , good score

[Railbuggy]

Someone posted somewhere that 10lbs of WW= about 6lbs of clean boolit metal once processed.

[opentop]

There's another 5 gallon bucket still there.

And you left it there?:groner:

[Castnshoot]

I just turned a case of a dozen bottles of Corona into a 5 gallon bucket of WW.

:drinks::Fire:

I did the same with a case of Bug Light....

Tidbit of information:
I just weighed the 5 gal bucket of ww and it measured to 176lbs. I have separated most stick on weights and have not gone through all other ww of non lead composition, which are not many. While I don't know how much of it will be useful, for the sake of argument, the weight times 7000gr and divided by 200gr (that's the weight of the .45 mould I have) comes to 6,160 bullets. I do it like this because I can take the ingots I've already made and supplement the weight loss during process. How lond does it take anybody here to process 6,160 bullets?

[klw]

Well, I'm excited. I went to a scrap metal supply place (after hitting 2 tire shops unsuccessfully about buying their WWs) and bought the following for $40.

(1) 86 lb pure lead Ingot (heavy sucker)
18 lbs of lead plumbers pipe
10 lbs of WWs

There's another 5 gallon bucket still there.

Was sold to me at .35 cents a pound. 1 box of Hornandy lead round balls cost roughly $11 (2lb box of 100) - equals $5.50 a pound versus .35 cents a lb that I got.

Enough soft lead to now justify buying a mold for my .44 BP revolver.

There is a fellow at N-SSA who is getting together an order for pure lead. Under $0.50 a pound including shipping he thinks. My understanding is that now lead is costing MUCH more so how he is going to do this I'm not sure. But I ordered 1000 pounds and his total order now is over 20,000. Might be worth looking into.

[rhead]

Set up an sloping board withe raised edges andallow the recoverec shot to roll down it. The shot that is too damaged will stop. The shot that makes it to the bottom will still be usable. It will probably sread a little faster than new but that may be a minor asset instead of a minor problem. At the price of shot today it is worth the effort. Use it or declare it trade goods. Stepped gaps in the incline will sort it by size. Larger shot will have more momentem.

[Tom Herman]

That's not bad. I've been buying lead at 40 cents a pound, the same for wheel weights. As they say around here, "it's all good!"..

Happy Shootin'! -Tom



Well, I'm excited. I went to a scrap metal supply place (after hitting 2 tire shops unsuccessfully about buying their WWs) and bought the following for $40.

(1) 86 lb pure lead Ingot (heavy sucker)
18 lbs of lead plumbers pipe
10 lbs of WWs

There's another 5 gallon bucket still there.

Was sold to me at .35 cents a pound. 1 box of Hornandy lead round balls cost roughly $11 (2lb box of 100) - equals $5.50 a pound versus .35 cents a lb that I got.

Enough soft lead to now justify buying a mold for my .44 BP revolver.

[Black Wolf]

Ok - so here's the story on the 86lb lead brick. It's about the shape of a 2x6 board, about 2 feet long. It won't fit in my casting pot so I figured I would just cut in slices as I needed. Wrong! I couldn't cut this thing with anything I had - jig saw, cutting wheel, hack-saw, mapp gass torch. Ok, so I went down to the fire-pit in my picnic area and break out the ole cast iron dutch oven (pot). I stand the lead brick on end and wait...wait some more...30 minutes later and this thing hasn't even gotten soft and the fire/coal was hotter than unholy hell. Well, the cheap-a$$ that I am, refuse to buy anything new just to melt it - so I took the end of it and just jammed it into the coals (about 1/3 the length of the ingot into the coals - oh about 15 inches or so). Well, 20 minutes later I pull it out and it actually melted. That was a relief. Now, I scrape the hot coals away and let the lead cool in the fire pit, enough to let me pull out pieces which were all small enough to fit in my melting pot. Dirty, time consuming, but at least it's possible to melt this dang thing. Just thought I'd share today's adventure.


And you left it there?
I ran out of money. The guy working there did say that nobody ever stopped by looking for wheel weights so I'm fairly confident it'll be there next week.

[Seafarer12]

I wonder what kind of lead it is?
You got to love craigs list I put an ad for lead out Friday and I woke up to 4 replys. I had to turn one of them down because I used my whole budget for lead. I might even get some cash out of the deal, the box of WW's I got had 59 strips of new stick on wheel weights in it. I might try selling them I am sure someone out there needs them for a lot more than I paid for them. Then I got 4 bricks of pure lead with lot number marks from another guy 98 lbs total. Finally 110 lbs of lead sheeting. Not too shabby and a lot easier than running to tire shops all over.

[Superfly]

Just use an axe and hack it up works for me.

[mauser1959]

If you try to cut up big ingots of lead , use a reciprocating saw with a metal blade.

[Black Wolf]

Sounds like a Xmas present for myself from Harbor Freight.

[brad925]

If your looking for lead prices try this site gives you day by day spot prices U.S and CAN.
www.scrapindex.com

[wheelgunner]

Do a couple of 5 gallon buckets at a time. I think bird shot has some a good amount of antimony in it. I sure someone who knows will chime in here.

Melt birshot outdoors only, most has a fair amount of arsenic in it!

[LqChrome]

I fired up the smelting pot
saturday. We had 160# of big truck wws .Some of them suckers were 1/2 #!!The clips were also huge. Had almost 1/3 bucket of clips.Rendered 115# of ingot. Also had some plumbers lead and a 50# pure lead tractor weight.They rendered 85# of ingot.Its amazing what you can get when you just ask!

[Black Wolf]

Update:
I went by the recycling place again today and found out they are closing down at the end of the month. Uh oh. I talked to the owner about buying the lead shot in the 55 gal drum (looks like about 40 gal's worth of lead shot in the drum). I asked him how much he'd take and forced me into making him an offer. I suggested $150 and he countered with $200. I said ok - but I'll have to come back later with the cash and to pick it up (in 5 gal buckets). I'm suspecting there's probably 8 or 9 5-gallon buckets in the 55-gal barrel, just guessing.

Figuring each bucket may weigh around 100 lbs that would be about 800 or 900 lbs of lead shot. Again, just a total guess. $200 / 850 lbs of lead is .23 cents a pound. Lead round ball is selling at the stores (for muzzle loaders) about $6 a pound (figuring 2lbs for 100 round balls). The gun store I went today was selling ingots for $2 a pound.

My figures could be way way off, because solid lead weigh 95lbs per gallon - then of course my figures need to quadruple.

Boy, this will be a fun adventure to determine how much lead I get for $200.

Any idea how much a 5 gallon bucket of range lead shot weighs?

[Chunky Monkey]

Update:
I went by the recycling place again today and found out they are closing down at the end of the month. Uh oh. I talked to the owner about buying the lead shot in the 55 gal drum (looks like about 40 gal's worth of lead shot in the drum). I asked him how much he'd take and forced me into making him an offer. I suggested $150 and he countered with $200. I said ok - but I'll have to come back later with the cash and to pick it up (in 5 gal buckets). I'm suspecting there's probably 8 or 9 5-gallon buckets in the 55-gal barrel, just guessing.

Figuring each bucket may weigh around 100 lbs that would be about 800 or 900 lbs of lead shot. Again, just a total guess. $200 / 850 lbs of lead is .23 cents a pound. Lead round ball is selling at the stores (for muzzle loaders) about $6 a pound (figuring 2lbs for 100 round balls). The gun store I went today was selling ingots for $2 a pound.

My figures could be way way off, because solid lead weigh 95lbs per gallon - then of course my figures need to quadruple.

Boy, this will be a fun adventure to determine how much lead I get for $200.

Any idea how much a 5 gallon bucket of range lead shot weighs?

I got a 5 gal bucket of wheel weights here that weighs 147 lbs. I bet the shot is closer to 170 - 200 lbs. Just a guess but its more than 100 lbs.

One of the more knowedgable folks will be along shortly.

[Black Wolf]

The barrel contained about 800 lbs of lead shot, plus I got a bucket and a half of WWs for a total weight of 939lbs, for $240, costing .26 per pound. I will add that the lead shot didn't weigh as much as the WWs. My lead shot buckets weighed from 76lbs to 96lbs (depending on the bucket size) and the WWs weighed about 123lbs per 5 gallon bucket.

Good?