Do You Have a Lifetime Supply?

[kevin c]

A long ton of Lino. That was a very good friend, worth remembering by and honoring with every boolit cast of the alloy made from that pile o' pigs.

[Eddie Southgate]

I am a hoarder and proud of it , no such thing as too much or enough . All I can get is not as much as I want , this weeks haul so far is 200 lbs of Foundry type and 150 lbs of pure from sheet lead . Have no idea how much I already own but I have a 20+ foot sail boat to salvage the keel from when I get around to it . I should have a lifetime supply for myself and my two sons and probably the next couple of generations to boot.

Also know the location of at least 200 pre 1960 drink boxes that are dumped on property I have access to , good source of block tin that has not been tapped yet .

[spoolnaround]

I was able to secure 2K lbs of indoor range scrap so yea its a lifetime supply.

[Divil]

If I never cast again then I have enough lead alloy. Otherwise, I am going to be short.

[jdfoxinc]

My wife thinks so.

[The Dar]

I do not have a lifetime supply, but I got a little closer today. Got 100lbs of COWW from the scrap dealer.

[kevin c]

I was able to secure 2K lbs of indoor range scrap so yea its a lifetime supply.

Lotta folks here might allow that you've gotten off to a good start...

[Three44s]

More than 4K, is that enough?

Three44s

[kevin c]

See my comment above...

More to the point, as others have pointed out, it depends on how much you shoot, how long you plan on shooting, whether either might change, how available lead is now and in the future, how much it costs and will cost, how much money and storage space you have and how much you want to stockpile.

Ten pounds of lead might do for a few years for a casual rifle shooter. There are folks here though, that have a thousand times that amount, likely because they put a thousand times the number of rounds down range.

[kavemankel]

I am of the mindset of "always acquire", since you don't know when it becomes valuable to other people and they stop giving it away.
Tend to hover around 700lbs of "choice" alloy.

[wnc435]

I personally cannot see having enough. In the last 5yrs. I have made 7000# of shot for trap and skeet shooters. I have since quit making shot for others unless I get 50% of lead after making from ingots. If they bring me W/W I get 60% and a lot of steel and zinc. I cast around 600# of bullets a yr. Only for me and my immediate family which are shot at home and recovered. I know I won't have enough.

[baragasam]

Nope, if anyone has lead to ship or transact face to face in SoCal DM me!

[bigjake]

I have plenty of WW lead, a fair amount of pure and probably too much babbit of some type. the babbit was from the mach shop i work for. i found it in a garage that was used for storage. its hard as heck. i cast some boolits out of it and could hardly get the darn things out of the molds. I had to beat the tar out of it. I checked the mold with ww and the bullets came out easy. I'm guessing that the stuff did not shrink at all which is a trait you'd want if making a certain size bearing or something.

[kevin c]

I guess you could use the Babbitt the way more than a few folks here use tin: add a little at a time to the pot until the alloy casts to your satisfaction, or start with an exact measured amount of alloy in the pot and measure in the Babbitt 'til it's right (that way you have the exact amount of each so you can mix to that ratio again in future sessions).

You can also send a small blob of it to BNE, along with a pound of lead, and he can tell you its composition (if you don't already have that information). Useful if you're the exacting type.

//thread drift off//

[kevin c]

HaHa!

I just glanced at my window title bar and this thread was abbreviated to "Do you have a life...".

As a caster and inveterate CB forum reader, the answer is a definite and emphatic "NO!", but with the equally definite and emphatic qualifier, "but, I'm loving it!"!

[psychbiker]

I'm guessing around 1k maybe 1200lbs. Gonna cast about 40lbs next day or so then likely put the cast stuff away for awhile, wife and I having our first child due July and I'm concerned with the time and health/safety of casting around a newborn. My time to shoot will also drop a lot.

My hopes is keep acquiring lead when I can but it goes for $1.50lb or more in Norcal. Often it's cheaper to ebay hunt find ingots ready to go for just over a $1/lb.

I'm hoping I can replace casting with putting together a 2x72 grinder so I can make knives and handles, surprisingly pricey machines if you want the ability to go horizontal, vertical, and slow down.

[mha]

Probably. Around 500 lbs linotype, few hundred lbs of coww, and maybe 200 lbs or less of pure. Need more pure lead obviously. Had to buy the lino since it was $1 a lb and still in type form, although some appears to be monotype as well. Quit casting 20 years ago and used up my lino pig casting fishing weights, so just now starting to cast again. Cannot find my old pot yet but have another that kind of works. Been buying lead the last 10 years or so for fishing weight casting so looking forward to doing a lot more bullet casting when I retire someday soon.

I have a small handgun rated bullet trap (vintage) but it puts out a horrible amount of lead dust with anything except .22's, so I am a bit afraid to use it much as I prefer not to cover my range area in lead dust or breath it. So at the moment I am not recovering anything I shoot.

[mha]

And now an opportunity to add another 200 lbs of lino and foundry type to the pile......hmmm.

[vtech26]

I am 46 yes old and I've been collecting lead for around 10 years now. Between relatives, fleamarkets and tire shops I've accumulated about 150 lbs of Monotype, 75 lbs Linotype, 2000 lbs of wheel weight lead, 1400 lbs of Stick on Wheel weight, 1000 lbs of pure and around 75 lbs of Pewter. I cast for all of my guns. Do I have a lifetime? That's a good question!

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[Petander]

My chances for a lifetime alloy supply just multiplied:



Much easier than mining the berm.