Sigh. Sign of the times I suppose.

I smelted down a 5 gallon bucket of wheelweights over the weekend, the most recent pick up from my source. It wasn't full to the brim, let's say 4/5 full. It weighed in at 97 pounds as it sat, I broke it into 3 roughly 33 pound lots for melting on the turkey fryer burner.

The usual pile of clips was to be expected of course, and certainly some other junk, but in the end I got 49 pounds of usable lead; the rest was all steel, zinc, clips, or other junk (valve stems, hose clamps, etc. etc.) That's a new low; usually I have found about 60-70% of a bucket was usable lead, apparently now we're down to 50%. Additionally, most of the weights were the ones with the silver plasticized paint on them, which while they seem to work fine, is a real pain to melt down because of all the smoke and mess.

What are you all finding now?

Range scrap is starting to look pretty good... I still have about a 10 year supply of wheelweights but even so.

If it was free, oh well.
If you paid for it, I might say something.

Yes. My last couple of hauls (glad I didn't pay for them) were about 50% junk. That was a new low for me, too. I still have the nearly full bucket of junk sitting on the deck - rusting. Mike

Since the once great state of Washington outlawed lead weights a few years back I've all but given up on COWW as a "reliable" source...if I can't purchase lead from the site vendors and what I can salvage from my own shooting area, I'll be forced to buy from foundrys...shipping can be brutal..or just start buying "ready mades".....and like some others (probably all) I've got a pretty good pile of reject WWs "stored" under my workbench in the shop..

Fortunately I got them for free, so it's all good; but that doesn't mean I wasn't suprised and a bit dejected.

I was trading them to another board member for pure lead anyhow, so it worked out; my part of the deal was to send roughly 50 pounds, and it worked out just right for that.

My source (son of a good friend who worked for Les Schwab Tires) of free WW dried up about 8 months ago when the young fella got promoted to a manager's position and transferred to The People's Republic of Kalifornia. During the last year he was here and supplying me with WWs, I found that lead yield was rarely above 50% and often was less than that. Since we're located close to the border with Kalifornia, I guess I sort of expected this to be the case since that state(?) outlawed the use of lead WW several years ago and many people coming to our local Les Schwab store were from Kalifornia (trying to avoid the sales tax). Fortunately, before my supply dried up I'd stockpiled over a ton and a half of ingots so I think I have more than enough to cover my needs, considering that I'm over 75 and I just don't shoot as much as I did a few years ago. My son will have plenty to work with after I leave the range but I'm still having him collect what WW he can come by since they're only going to get more scarce as the years go by.

sleeper1428

Since I pay they let me sort what I want from what I don't want. If I would ever run across free ones, i'd not say a word and walk away with a huge smile.

The last bucket that I got has not been sorted yet, but looks to have a high % of zink and other junk. I probably have all that I will ever need, but its still sad to see this. Lightman

Sleeper, getting WW lead in CC just south of you was a no go when I got here in 1989. I went to every tire shop here and got stopped cold. I think the last bucket I picked up was from Les Schwab in Brookings, and that was 1992. Wheel weights were anywhere and everywhere in Kern county before I moved north. For the past few years I've been buying or horse trading from members here. It has become more difficult but not so much that I will ever give up casting

What are we going to do when we can't get wheel weights any longer? :)

In my area of the country, I am having better luck. I picked up over 400# of lead from tire shops earlier this year and pre-sorted and am waiting for smelting. I am at 80% by weight COWW and SOWW but will lose a little from the clips. That doesn't usually account for much of a percentage of the total, though. I expect to be well over 70% lead in this batch but I've got plenty of ingots and may wait another year to smelt it.

I had planned to swap out my zinc here but I've still got a good ways to go before I get 40#. But that is a good problem to have.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sleeper1428

My source (son of a good friend who worked for Les Schwab Tires) of free WW dried up about 8 months ago when the young fella got promoted to a manager's position and transferred to The People's Republic of Kalifornia. During the last year he was here and supplying me with WWs, I found that lead yield was rarely above 50% and often was less than that. Since we're located close to the border with Kalifornia, I guess I sort of expected this to be the case since that state(?) outlawed the use of lead WW several years ago and many people coming to our local Les Schwab store were from Kalifornia (trying to avoid the sales tax). Fortunately, before my supply dried up I'd stockpiled over a ton and a half of ingots so I think I have more than enough to cover my needs, considering that I'm over 75 and I just don't shoot as much as I did a few years ago. My son will have plenty to work with after I leave the range but I'm still having him collect what WW he can come by since they're only going to get more scarce as the years go by.

sleeper1428

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A ton and a half? Brother you are well set. My 100lb stash of self-smelted ingots is my 'backup' and I am only 33 years into this world

Perhaps in my travels back to my GP roots/family I can purchase some of this loot which you possess. Wheel weights are $.75 /lb at best here in eugene where I have found them. I would gladly go $.50 for an unsorted batch or more for smelted and ingoted.

Fellow oregon caster and shooter

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrCaveman

A ton and a half? Brother you are well set. My 100lb stash of self-smelted ingots is my 'backup' and I am only 33 years into this world

Perhaps in my travels back to my GP roots/family I can purchase some of this loot which you possess. Wheel weights are $.75 /lb at best here in eugene where I have found them. I would gladly go $.50 for an unsorted batch or more for smelted and ingoted.

Fellow oregon caster and shooter

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I wish I could offer to sell you some of my stash but unfortunately, at least for you, my son will have first dibs on them. While his business interests and family duties in the past several years haven't allowed him much time to do any casting, much less shooting, he has expressed an interest in carrying on my hobby/addiction when he has more time to devote to it. Sure hope he does but if not then when I 'leave the range', all my casting equipment as well as my 50+ moulds - seems the number keeps growing each year compliments of MiHec and NOE producing such beautiful moulds - will likely be put up for sale on this site and that will include all my remaining already cast boolits, lead and lead alloy ingot stash.

sleeper1428

send that zinc to me for lead

Here in Virginia, you can still get WW's. My local tire store gives them to me, but, times a bad, and it's only 20 - 25 lbs at a time. One of the local stores, part of a chain, requires the local stores to sell them to a verified 'salvage' dealer, and then they have to send the check to the home office. I then have to go to the salvage dealer to get them. The nice thing about that is that they clean them of junk. My last haul from them had only a half dozen of the steel variety, and a like number of zinc. My new source sells them to me cheap, but, they are about 40% junk. But, for the price, it's still worth it. Busy learning new ways of getting lead. Molten metal is neat!