Not free ... but it was reasonable!!

[sleeper1428]

Saw an ad in the local paper from a fellow wanting to sell fishing sinker moulds. He also said that he had some lead available. Called him and was told that he had both raw WW and some already smelted and ingotted WW available. He was asking $.30/lb for the raw WW and $.70/lb for the smelted, fluxed and ingotted WW. That sounded quite reasonable considering what others are charging and the fact that there would be no shipping charges involved and when I got to his place I knew I'd 'hit the jackpot', so to speak. He had close to 300 lbs of smelted WW and six or seven 5 gal buckets full to the top of raw WW, pre-sorted to eliminate all steel and zinc weights and all stick-on WW. He'd been in business for years making fishing sinkers (1 oz up to 15 lb downrigger sinkers) and would use only lead based WW. Anyway, I picked up all the smelted ingots on that first run and I'm going back this week to get all the rest of the raw WW which should probably be about 800 to 1000 lbs worth. That's going to bring my stash of usable lead to close to or slightly over 1.5 tons which should last me for my remaining years - I'm now 72+ - and will provide my son many years of great casting and shooting.

Then again, is that really enough? Guess I'll keep checking the ads. Never can tell when I'll find another bargain.

sleeper1428

[Dframe]

Congratulations on a great find. "May you cast and shoot for Many more years"

[Tom W.]

I met a man at the range yesterday that wanted to start casting. He already handloads, so I steered him to this site. He said he worked at a tire place in Columbus, and they were selling the little buckets that the tire loob comes in, maybe 2 1/2 gallon size, to a guy that reclaims lead for $30 .... I told him that I considered myself robbed @ $20 for a 5 gallon bucketful, and I had to provide the bucket....

[Cherokee]

Good find ! Remember, the stuff never spoils so stocking up doesn't hurt.

[wistlepig1]

Congratulations on a great find. "May you cast and shoot for Many more years"

Amen, and may you see the bottom of the last bucket!

[home in oz]

good score!

[Armorer]

Excellent! I am so jealous! I told my brother-in-law yesterday that I feel like a crackhead looking for a fix when it comes to WW and lead in general. He doesn't get it and just kind of rolled his eyes. But then again, he buys ALL of his ammo.

[Randy in Arizona]

But then again, he buys ALL of his ammo.
I hope he saves the brass for you!

49

[qajaq59]

Good move!!!! And may you use up every bit of it. You never know where lead will pop up. You just have to strike quickly when it does.

[dakotashooter2]

I found a stash when I did a foreclosure inspection of a home. The deceased owner was wasting it casting chess pieces and other decorative items. Now all I have to do is locate the family and negotiate.

[JeffinNZ]

I think the days of free lead are numbered. I have a stash to collect from the local tyre shop at 0.30lb. That's 1.3 cents per 200gr bullet. Still DAMNED cheap shooting.

[sleeper1428]

As I said in my original post, I had originally picked up about 200 lbs of smelted and ingotted WW and was going back to pick up whatever the gentleman had left. Well, as it turned out he had even more than what he'd estimated. Pulling out all those full 5 gal tubs of what appeared to be raw WW and redistributing them into many additional tubs so that I'd be able to handle them alone, we discovered that buried under the raw WW was an additional 600+lbs of smelted and ingotted WW along with about 750lbs of raw WW and somewhere around 70-80 lbs of pure lead sheeting and pipe. So my total take is going to end up being around 1300-1500 lbs of usable lead in the form of either WW or pure lead. My total cost came to a bit over $600, a not insignificant amount, but considering what pure lead, raw WW and already smelted and cleaned WW are going for at the present time, I feel that I got a pretty good buy. And since lead WW are going to do nothing but get more scarce and therefore more costly, I'm going to consider this buy as a hedge against inflation!!

I'm still going to keep watching the classified ads and hitting the tire shops but even if I never score another WW, I think I have enough (1.5+ tons) to last me and my son for a long, long time!!

sleeper1428

[ghh3rd]

he deceased owner was wasting it casting chess pieces

Hmmm... wonder if that had anything to do with him being deceased?

[badluther]

Awesome score! Even with all that lead, you are still looking for more. A true lead hound! I'm the same way. It's a disease I tell you.

[DukeInFlorida]

Disease... yes......

After scoring a 1300 pound stash of linotype, we also grabbed ahold of a 1200 pound pure lead sailboat keel. Add to that the myriad buckets of ww's that we both have....

And, BadLuther doesn't even have his own molds yet. He's been borrowing mine.

It IS a disease....

[Ajax]

Sleeper may you live to see the end of your lead. I wish i could score like that.


Andy

[TCLouis]

1.5 tons, 72 years old . . . Hmmmmmm

You had better locate a source of lead for your later years, now is when you should be shooting the most!

[lawboy]

I had no idea lead was this hard to come by in some parts. I can smelt myself 200lbs of soft lead ingots every week, year round for the rest of my life. Every last grain of it free of charge save for the propane to smelt down the scrap. I've bought a lot of primers, powder and custom handguns selling it on Ebay. Sometimes I sell a couple thousand pounds just so I can make room to store more so I can smelt cuz I am bored!