Price Per Bucket for WW? Also, alternate smelting method.......

[spur0701]

I have a bud at a tire store not too far from my house that's been setting me up with their WWs.....only cost is beer and donuts........but in the past six months I've only gotten two 5 gallon buckets from this shop.

There's another really large shop not too far from my office where I take my work car and they have piles of WWs, at least a half a dozen 5 ga buckets just sitting in the back. The owner is a nice guy, a really old first generation Italian, but he's kinda tight and wants me to pay for them.....which I don't have a problem with, but neither of us are sure on a fair price. I offered $20 a bucket, he didn't have enough inforamtion to make a counter offer so I argeed to come back in a week. I know prices differ around the country, I'm in the washington DC area. Questions:

How many pounds of clip on WW does a typical 5 gal bucket hold?

What would be fair to both of us for a 5 gal bucket?

I would be willing a to pay a little extra for pure clip on WW with no stick-ons, say 4 or 5 extra, is this fair? Or am I being too laszy for not wanting to sort them prior to smelting?

On another note....the older Italian gentelman at the second shop was telling me......he used to make a lot of fishing sinkers using WWs back in the day. His accent was kinda thick but from what i understood he would take a scrap piece of stainless steel mesh set over a pot and pile the WW on top....then would use a propane weed torch to melt them, the WW would melt into the pot leaving the clips on the mesh. He claimed it was a superior method to putting the WW in a cast pot and then skimming the clips off the top. Feedback on that anyone?

[Cherokee]

If you are doing a smallish batch of WW, that method sounds fine. But, if you are doing 100# or more at a time, might not work as well. Now, a wire basket submurged into the pot which you could pull up after all were melted would be great - bet someone here has done that.

[Gunslinger]

I've paid from $10 - $30 per bucket, so I'd say anything there in between is fair. This price were for a mix of lead, steel and zinc weights. If the buckets contain only lead weights I'd personally gladly pay $40 - $50 but maybe that's just me [smilie=1:

[madman]

It is worth what ever you want to pay for it. There is allot of compitition for it now, where a few years ago they were throwing it away. My sources are drying up because of the reggs and the other people that have more money than I do. Plus it is not only individuals it is the company's that sell the new WW's to the shops. They are everywhere I can only get to a few shops they get to all of them.

[Ole]

Even @ $1 lb it's still a heck of a lot cheaper than buying the bullets.

I know people like to get stuff as cheap as they can, but the environmental changes that are coming very soon kind of have us over a barrel.

My take is: If you think you need more WW's, then pay up to "scrap metal market" prices. I think they are getting around $.70/lb for them. A 5 gal bucket of WW's weighs around 150lbs, so that would be $105 for a full bucket of good weights.

Any less than that should be considered gravy, IMO. I know there are people here that are getting them for free, but they are fortunate.

[Avery Arms]

A heaping full 5gal bucket holds about 160lbs of wheel weights which should net around 128lbs of ingots worth about a dollar a pound.

You can melt stick-on weights in with clip-on, they will make your alloy a bit softer but for your average target velocity pistol boolit I don't think it matters.

I pay $40 per almost full bucket and as a result the shop owner saves them for me instead of selling them to scrap dealers etc. Last trip I paid $70 and after smelting ended up with 190lbs of alloy at $.37 a pound which is high for do-it-yourself smelting but still pretty darned cheap compared to buying ammo.


PP

[jsizemore]

Call the scrap or metal recyclers in your area and find out how much they sell them for. The price you pay has to be in there. No need to pay more then the going rate. The buckets from the tire shop will have a little bit of everything in them and the scrap dealers will TEND to be cleaner (less lug nuts, bottle caps, razorblades, beer caps, etc).
If you plan on being in this for the long haul, having a steady source has to be worth a couple extra dollars. If you get a 100 lbs of WW from a bucket and you pay $25 instead of $20 and you cast a 200 gr bullet you'll pay $.0071 instead of $.0057 per bullet. How much is the good will worth?

[snaggdit]

Most around me charge $20 a full bucket, and others who expect payment without a price in mind I quote this. If they want more, I say thanks but no. I'm not that desparate yet. One guy said he was getting $.70 a pound from his scrap yard. I didn't believe that for a minute. The scrap yard might try to sell them for that, though. I told him he was getting a good deal and left.

[wfsdno]

Well, I just got 2 5gal buckets full of WW and only paid .10 cents a pound, that just went up from .06 cents a couple weeks ago. One bucket had 179 lbs and one was 146 pounds. That was a load, felt like my Cobalt was doing a wheelie!!!

Roger

[DGV]

Scrap dealers in my area, Western Massachusetts, are paying .12-.14 cents a Lb. I have paid $30.00 a 5 gallon pail. Some places I have paid $20.00. If you take a 3-4 hour drive, and visit a dozen or so tire dealers in your area with $100.00 in ten dollar bills, you should easily come home with 800-1000 lbs of wheel weights

[RSOJim]

One 18 pack of Bud Lite netted me almost a full 5 gallon bucket of wheel weights yesterday. They are not free anymore. Seems people want to barter with goods rather than cash. Thats ok with me. Anyone see the Larry the Cable Guy Roast the other night ? It was raunchy. I am glad I only had to watch an hour and a half. Jim

[compass will]

On another note....the older Italian gentelman at the second shop was telling me......he used to make a lot of fishing sinkers using WWs back in the day. His accent was kinda thick but from what i understood he would take a scrap piece of stainless steel mesh set over a pot and pile the WW on top....then would use a propane weed torch to melt them, the WW would melt into the pot leaving the clips on the mesh. He claimed it was a superior method to putting the WW in a cast pot and then skimming the clips off the top. Feedback on that anyone?

I don't like this idea. Way back when this gent was making fishing weights, I bet there was not any zinc wheel weights. Now you will find lots of them in a bucket. Since they melt just over the temp of lead, with this method of melting you are not going to be able to control the temps so you might end up with zinc in your final mix.

[Willbird]

Most around me charge $20 a full bucket, and others who expect payment without a price in mind I quote this. If they want more, I say thanks but no. I'm not that desparate yet. One guy said he was getting $.70 a pound from his scrap yard. I didn't believe that for a minute. The scrap yard might try to sell them for that, though. I told him he was getting a good deal and left.

The scrap yard over by me last summer was paying $.55 and they are a smaller yard and typically do not pay the HIGHEST prices you can find. They are back down to .15 now.

I usually offer .02 more than the scrapyard and I am picking them up at the tire store. I was not buying any when it was up to .55 though.


On another note....the older Italian gentelman at the second shop was telling me......he used to make a lot of fishing sinkers using WWs back in the day. His accent was kinda thick but from what i understood he would take a scrap piece of stainless steel mesh set over a pot and pile the WW on top....then would use a propane weed torch to melt them, the WW would melt into the pot leaving the clips on the mesh. He claimed it was a superior method to putting the WW in a cast pot and then skimming the clips off the top. Feedback on that anyone?.

I have heard of people melting range scrap this way so that a live round does not pose as much hazard.
Bill

[R.Clem]

In Central Washington, i am paying $.50 a pound for WW.
Have some 5 gallon buckets weighing over 200 pounds and getting 190 pounds or so after skimming and fluxing.
The weight of the buckets is dependent on the size of the WW. smaller means heavier buckets.

[Down South]

Me, the offer for $20 would be as high as I would go, but that's just me. I get most of mine free. Which reminds me, I need to go check my sources. It's been a while sine I've had to pay for any but since the price of lead is down right now $20 ought to be a good price if you are willing to pay that much.