Just finished melting down the last of the ww's in the 5-gal bucket I bot a week or so back.
In case anyone is interested, here are some facts and stats:
1) Wasn't a full 5-gal bucket but easily 3/4th-7/8ths full. Didn't weigh it but it took two sturdy lads to hoist it onto the bed of my pickup.
2) The yield (using a Lee ingot mould) was 57 1-lb ingots and 45 of 1/2 lb ingots ... call it 80 lbs. Considering that I paid $38 for the 5-gal bucket, that works out to about 48 cents a lb for the completed ww ingots which makes me reasonably happy.
3) I followed the advice of some other good Pards and melted the soww's separately and labeled the ingots as soft lead. Can use 'em for muzzle loaders or otherwise will know to add some hardening material -- lino ingots for instance -- if I used 'em for loading cartridge ammo. Labeled all the other ingots as WW.
4) I weighed the pot of non-lead ingots using a sophisticated, hi-tech method: weighed myself on bathroom scales and then weighed myself holding the bucket. Came out to 38 lbs of non-lead ww's. I may eventually go thru them and separate out the iron and zinc ww's but that is a project for another day.
5) Other detritus in the 5-gal bucket: 18 lug nuts, 3 washers, 8 rubber tire valves, a couple of sockets, and a flat-head, screwdriver bit. Oh yes, several bits of trash but, thankfully, absolutely no cigarette butts.
Glad the hard work is over and I have a stack of ingots to work with. Should I want to use ww's again, unless a have a free source of 'em, I'll probably bargain a little harder. Think my future efforts will concentrate on range lead which is essentially free for the picking.
Might try my hand at casting zinc bullets at some point in the future. Anyone have any ideas on what to do with the steel ww's? All else fails, I'll put 'em in the recycle bin and see if the city can make use of 'em.
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