$75 a 5 gallon bucket

[292]

Largest local tire store has an endless supply, good price? Can I smelt and offset the cost by selling ingots?

[finishman2000]

not at $75. at $25 a pail you can amke a little by doing the work.

[Moonman]

Paid TOO MUCH to try to make a profit.

You moved it (Gas Money & Your Time)

Sort & Clean it (Your Time) Plus the loss for
Valve Stems, Steel Clamps, Zinc Weights, Trash, & Chew Spit/Wads

Smelt It (Your Time/Propane)

Cast it into ingots (Your Time/Safety)

Take to Post Office to Ship (Your Time and Gas again)

Available here in cast ingots for about $1.00 a pound.

[Freightman]

Do the math that comes out at $0.55 a pound, then you take and loose 15/20% then you have to buy propane $17 a bottle + your time and effort. I have sold already smelted lead for $65 shipped, but not lately, you would be loosing money by buying that. Order some from one of our members.

[captaint]

Hell, if somebody GAVE me wheelweights, I wouldn't smelt them and then sell them for 1 buck a pound. Too much work & hassle. I'll do it and use it myself - that's different. Mike

[292]

Y'all are confirming what I thought. I did right to walk away.

[Roundnoser]

Y'all are confirming what I thought. I did right to walk away.

Good call! In my neck of the woods 75 cents a pound would be extremely high. The most I ever paid for a bucket is 30 dollars per bucket full. -- Most tire shops here will sell them for the going scrap price (25 cents / lb right now), because if I buy them, they don't have to spend time or gas to transport them to the scrap yard.

[fredj338]

It depends. If the 5gal bucket is full & all lead, doubtful, then you are looking @ about 150# less waste, so call it 120# of alloy. Do the math, but that's only 62c/#. A lot of work to sell them for $1/#.

[imashooter2]

And don't forget that your $75 bucket is unlikely to be all lead weights these days. More likely 30% or more zinc and steel weights.

[leadbutt]

Glad you walked away. Keep looking and youll find someone fair. The way it works for me is if i go out to just look for places to pick up some ww's i never find them. When im just riding down the road and stop at a place out the blue i norm walk away with a good bit for free.

L. Bottoms

[Freightman]

Why do you think I haven't sold any lately? too much work to dig it out and smelt. If I need the money I will do it again but thing are easing up for now, but if they tighten up I will sell some more.

[pistolman44]

My local scrap yard sells used clip on wheel weights for .25 lb. That is the going rate for lead here in Pa.

[Roundnoser]

My local scrap yard sells used clip on wheel weights for .25 lb. That is the going rate for lead here in Pa.

Sells them, or buys them at 25 cents per pound? -- If you can get it at 25 cents per pound, I'd say buy as much as you can!

[imashooter2]

My local scrap yard sells used clip on wheel weights for .25 lb. That is the going rate for lead here in Pa.

That hasn't been the going rate here in the Philly suburbs for years now.

[SlimTim]

Largest local tire store has an endless supply, good price? Can I smelt and offset the cost by selling ingots?

I'm not sure I agree with the others. Is your purpose to provide yourself an income, or to have free ingots? If the latter, you should be able to keep around 1/4 of the ingots you make and have nothing in them if you don't count your time. Propane cost should be minimal for a 5# bucket I'd think.

If looking for an income, you'd be better off selling the raw ww. You'd gross ~$120 a bucket I'd think, depending on how much junk you'd have to sort out. This is based on what I've seen lately, folks paying as much or more for raw ww than for ingots.

SlimTim

[Defcon-One]

I did two buckets last night. Both 5 gallon, both full to the brim.

Total as follows:

Bucket #1:

115 lbs. COWW
18 lbs. SOWW
The rest was steel, Zinc and trash.

Bucket #2:

105 lbs. COWW
12 lbs. SOWW
The rest was steel, Zinc and trash. (Quite a few lug nuts!)

So, I got 220 pounds of COWW Lead and 30 pounds of SOWW Lead for $35.00, which is what I paid for both buckets.

That is only $0.14 per pound! Glad you didn't buy yours at $75 a bucket!

[selmerfan]

I just stopped by my local steady supplier. Heaping 3 gallon bucket for the standard rate we've had for two years now - $10. Still have to sort and melt, but I can't go wrong this way - plus those 3 gallon buckets are perfect for cleaning up, spray-painting and using for containers for my wife's beloved dahlias. It's a win all the way around!

[onesonek]

My one and only supplier of WW's here, is a case of beer for a 5 gal. buck full. Fortunately, I haven't been seeing much for Zinc or Steel WW's here. Last bucket only had 6 lbs of unwanted metals and junk,,, besides the clips.

[257]

i get my wheel weights for 5.00 a 5 gal bucket for every one i buy i get about 6 buckets that people give me

[John in WI]

man--you guys are making me drool here. I'm very new to casting, and the only source I found so far is charging .55/lb for raw wheel weight. The guy seemed interested in guns, so I'm hoping I can sweeten the deal with some cast boolits!

man--at .55/lb, a bucket would cost in the ball park of $75. I need to start making some friends in the scrap industry. Granted a bucket full would give me about 100 pounds of ingots or so--and that would make a LOT of boolits. But I'd like to buy all I can, because sources seem to be drying up!