wheel weight hoarding

[labradigger1]

Dont ever stop! I use alot of lead in a month, alot more than i used to since going to 250 grainers, they drain a pot quick. I never stop and constantly seek it every week and sometimes more frequently. I picked up 2- 5 gallon buckets today for my usual $15.00 a bucket. More iron in them nowadays than even last winter so less lead and more **** to sort out. It will get worse and the price will continue to go up and the amt of lead in them will dwindle away. Get it while you can and where you can. It will get harder to get, it already has. Used to be free most places. No such thing as to much. You can always sell it or trade it. Some may say its a hoard, i call it a good start.
Lab

[Pepe Ray]

I believe that you'd get more responses if we had some idea of your neighborhood.
I just made a purchase when I found out the seller lived near my brother.
Get it? Some call it NETWORKING.
Pepe Ray

[fredj338]

1000 pounds? Piker. Keep going. 1k is barely a good start.

^^This^^^ I have maybe 1200#, sounds like a lot, but if you are shooing big bores, not really. I don't spend a lot of time scrounging, gas costs $$, but I am always keeping an eye/ear open. 1000#, only 34k 200/45s. Sounds good, but shoot 7k a year, only 5 yrs worth? I am pretty sure I got that many more shooting yrs left. As noted, you can always sell it or trade it. In a shtf, could be worth more than gold or silver in the form of bullet..

[Jailer]

I just bought another 600 pounds of scrap WW today. Didn't need those, but the price was damn right at 20$ a bucket.
There is still another 5 gal worth of ww in that tub but I am starting to think that I will never smelt/use that much lead in my life anyway.

Probably have stacked over 1000 pounds of usable lead so far....

keep hoarding or stop? I almost feel bad for the guy selling me the ww for 20$ a 5 gallon. Big tire shop, emptied the container last year, they probably produce around 5 buckets worth a year. Cant but it all, uh. I mean, what am I going to do with tons and tons of lead anyway. The only thing I see is that I could turn around and sell it for 3x the price I paid for it, but it's not worth my time to hand empty the tub in buckets, then go to the scrap yard, etc etc, in benefit, so it's more a hoarding obsession thing....

Maybe I'll just try to smelt it all during the vacations this summer to get nice ingots and then stack those. I hate stocking pails of scrap ww, it's ugly, dirty, and space inefficient.

Now that you've started you better keep going. The more you have the more you will shoot. I'd be nervous with just 1K.

Where you located I'll give you $50/bucket. I cannot get my hands on WW in the Detroit area.

Go north and hit some smaller towns. Free lead is a thing of the past but cheap lead is still out there.

[Harter66]

I still have a couple of Enablers around.

I thought I had the gig of gigs going on , I was doing the backer boards at our local range as part of my job . I had trap boxes on the pistol backers .I took probably 700# that way ........then the Army closed the range poof no more easy lead and you can't even skim the 30yrs of surface picked back stop now.

The property reutilization office here will let joe public buy a couple 100# of demil balast a quarter or so at dirty scrap prices.

[kryogen]

can you guys believe that 3 years ago before I though about casting, we had a large 300 pounds counterweight of pure lead and we didnt know what to do with it so we brought it to the scrapyard and PAID 60$ to get rid of it. Oh god.

Could have been paid 150$ at the metal recycler at least, or better, melt it into ingots....

[RogerDat]

Where you located I'll give you $50/bucket. I cannot get my hands on WW in the Detroit area.

You might want to check up around Flint & Saginaw area. Lot of scrap yards up there, several on Dort Hwy. you might find some that sell lead, or take in WW's from tire stores (being a licensed recycler) which they will resell. Little Google and some phone calls may yield a source just up I-75 from you. Be prepared to pay 70 cents to 1 dollar a lb. That would be more like $90 to $130 for a 130 lb. 5 gallon pail.

Check the phone book, none of the chain tire stores that I have checked will sell them to individuals. Use the phone book or places you drive by that are independent tire stores, pay special attention to those stores that sell used tires. People tend to buy used tires for older cars, older cars tend to have lead WW's rather than zinc or steel. When you call those scrap yards north of you find out what they pay for WW's and be prepared to offer the independent tire stores 5 or 10 cents more per pound. Take a bathroom scale and some 5 gallon pails with you. Cheaper than buying at a scrap yard more like $40 a 130 lb. bucket. Better deal for the shop too.

Also have heard of people going to auto salvage yards with a WW removal tool and collecting from old car tires right off the cars. Downside is time spent, upside is you don't collect anything but good lead by nipping with a pair of diagonal cutters if you think they might be zinc or steel .

As some others have pointed out it is not as easy or cheap as it used to be to find lead but it is possible with some work to secure a supply.

[JeffinNZ]

I still maintain that the reason our house survived the earthquakes was due to the amount of lead in the garage hold the building down.

My theory is if I stockpile now, at least I have plenty to use down the line as will my girls.