My first score! WW Lead

[htuong95]

Just got back from picking these babies up. I paid $10 a bucket and got 14 buckets. Travel expenses were $25. Total cost per bucket came out to be about $11.80. I am from California so I am not sure how much lead are in each bucket. Hopefully I did not over paid. While driving home, my truck was bottoming out every time I hit a bump. Getting the buckets off my truck and moving them into my backyard was a PITA!

[BK7saum]

If they have a decent percentage of lead you probably did okay. If I found those locally they would likely be 60-75% lead weights, maybe more. Being as these are in California, you might have very little lead wheelweights in the buckets. Only one way to find out...
Hand sorting

I would buy all I could here for $10 a bucket, but we use a large amount of lead wheelweights.

Brad

[62chevy]

That will be a whole lot of sorting you need to do.

Hope you get over 50% lead !!!

[bangerjim]

Hope there is some Pb in there! CA is horrible about banning our favorite mineral. From what I read from your buddies over there, Zn and Fe rule the rooste these days.

Good luck. Let us know how much Pb you finally end up after melting it down.

bnagerjim

[Yodogsandman]

Great haul! Smaller buckets help or dump half or less of the full bucket into another one from the tailgate. Even if only 50% PB, it's a GREAT HAUL! Congratulations, put em all in the X ring!

[RogerDat]

Lot of sorting but a great stash, don't forget you can take your "scrap" steel and zinc to a scrap dealer and get paid for it. Will get a better price if you keep the Zn and Fe separated as you sort. Even at 50% lead the other 50% that you would scrap will probably pay more than $11.80. Good score!

[bruce381]

LOL I saw those on Criagslist glad a cast boolit guy got them, good luck hope there is a lot of lead in there.

[htuong95]

LOL I saw those on Criagslist glad a cast boolit guy got them, good luck hope there is a lot of lead in there.

I had to drive down there from Sacramento. They still had 3 more buckets left. I sorted one bucket, there are a lot of zinc in the bucket. I am a fisherman and have friends who fish, so I can use the zinc for fishing weights. I am happy with that.

[fredj338]

Since the lead ww has been gone here for almost 4yrs, the buckets should be 90% zinc & steel. If you do better than that, you got lucky. Avg life of a set of tires is less than 3yrs for most, so all the old ww are gone. Why I don't even bother anymore,

[littlejack]

There is a member here on the CastBoolits, that will swap you lead for your zink.

[BK7saum]

I don't think shadygrady is doing that anymore. Don't know of anyone else either.

Brad

[bruce381]

yeah I wondered about the drive and what would be in there at $10 per pail I knida figured the guy know they were mostly zinc.

[BK7saum]

Did you have a chance to do any sorting yet. I just picked up a small bucket locally. After sorting I had
7 lb 11 oz SOWW
30 lb 11 oz COWW
11 lb 9 oz Fe mixed
1 lb 5 oz Zn mixed

I wish you the best with your batch. Even in a state that still uses lead wheelweights we have a fairly high percentage of Fe and Zn. Just did the math and its still about 75% PB. Better than I at first thought.

[htuong95]

I only sorted one bucket. I say about less than 10% is lead, 65% zinc and 25% steel. Hopefully the other buckets will have more lead in them. I've been buying lead for $1 a pound. If I get at least 165lbs of lead, then I will be ok.

[fredj338]

What I suspected. Just not worth my time & $$ Anymore. I would rather scrounge range scrap, at least I know it's 95%+ usable alloy.

[62chevy]

What I suspected. Just not worth my time & $$ Anymore. I would rather scrounge range scrap, at least I know it's 95%+ usable alloy.

Yup and most of the time it only cost a bit of labor to git.

[htuong95]

I sorted another bucket today. Out of 2 buckets, here are the results. Looks like 50% is zinc, 30% is steel and 20% is lead. Looking a little better.


from left: steel, zinc, coww, and soww.

[el34]

Springfield's isocores are $1.18/lb shipped. 10-11BHN, 1% tin, nothing left to do but ingotize and make boolits. That's my new reference for comparison.

[htuong95]

This has been a learning experience for me. Three weeks ago, I melted some range scrap for the first time, that was hard work. Now sorting the WW is even harder work. I have found a box cutter blade in the bucket, cat poo and cat urine. I think the local cat was using the buckets as a litter box. I still have 12 more buckets to sort. All in all, I think it is still worth my time. It is all part of the hobby.

[intimad8r1]

I have a large amount of isocores and I'll do $1.15/lb shipped.