Motherload stories

[Super Sneaky Steve]

I want to hear about your big score. The time you found a huge supply of lead for free or a very good price.

I'm sure I can't be the only one that gets a tingly feeling from finding grey gold.

[David2011]

A buddy was at a PPC pistol match recently. After the match someone hollered out "does anybody want this?" He snagged it and brought me a 5 gallon bucket of linotype, still in printable form. Scooooooooooore!

David

[Hardcast416taylor]

About every 8 months or so I stop by a car dealership that a buddy owns. I get my oil changed and ask if there are any scrap weights to be had by the tire changer? I usually get about 3/4 of a 5 gal. pail of weights for no charge. Even with the new non lead weights accounting for a part of the pail I still am getting a decent amount of lead weights.Robert

[bangerjim]

How about 450# of Sn for a buck a pound?

Or 500# of hardball for $0.85/#?

Scoreeeee enough for ya?

[BACKTOSHOOTING]

450 # of raw WW at a garage sale for $25 Dose that qualify fscooooreore

[rintinglen]

In 1976 I was working at a Montgomery Wards Store in Escondido, CA. I mentioned to a friend in Automotive that I would sure like some wheel weights for casting boolits. That Friday at closing for a Six Pack of Bud and a Pizza, which I shared, I got a 33 gallon trashcan full of whee l weights. You should have seen me gingerly piloting my poor old Pinto Wagon home with something like 1100 pounds of wheel weights! I shot for years off that score, finally selling the last couple of buckets to a friend when I moved up to LA.

[mart]

Twenty some years ago I stopped into a small town print shop on the spur of the moment. They had quite a bit of linotype and were a few days from hauling it to the dump. I asked if they wanted to sell it to me and I'd save them the trip to the dump. Lead was 10 cents a pound at the time. Hauled home 996 pounds of linotype for $100. Still using that linotype.

[varmint243]

Lead was free and readily available when I started casting
All you had to do was ask around or go to some tire shops and get all you want

[bullet maker 57]

Went to pick up what was supposed to be 1000lbs of lead. Ended up with 2800lb of ingots,sheet,ww,big chunks, and cast boolits. All for $.30 a pound.
I think that qualifies as a score.

[Trapperscott]

Bought a sail boat for $400.00. Had to pay the dump $50.00 to dump it. The keel weighed 2600 lbs. Sweet!!!

[44man]

Lucky fellas! I once got a huge pile of cable sheathing with wire in it, sold the wire too.
Thought I hit a gold mine once at the scrap dealers. 55 gal drums of WW's that they were paying 10 cents a pound for. I asked and was told they do not sell to the public anymore.

[Went2kck]

A lady the wife works with had a bunch of old reloading from her Dad that passed away. Their was about 30 lbs of powder, 8 lyman molds, a lyman 310 set with dies for 45, 30-06, 300 win mag, 45 colt, and a couple others. A trimmer with holders in the different calibers. savage press, 450 luberi seizer. 5 30 carbine magazines, shell holders. 200 45 colt and 40 300 win mag 150 38 brass cases most are new. about 800 30 cal gas checks. A new box of 25 cal gas checks. And some other stuff I cant remember off the top of my head. All this for 200.00 dollars. Unfortunately their was no seizer dies for the 450 lubber. This was a good deal from stuff from the 70s. I did get about 15 lbs of lead to that was cast into bullets that I melted down as I could not use any of them. wrong caliber for my use. Dangit any way.

[1johnlb]

650 #s of raw range lead for $80. I processed 200 # of it and got $35 worth of copper and bimetal from it which I quickly turned back in for 70# of ww. It's about time to process another 200#.

[websterz]

We're currently mining out a berm that has seen half a century of use. I have no way of knowing for sure but I believe that there is at least 20 tons of range scrap there and we have exclusive rights to mine the whole hill. All it's costing is time and effort.

[Went2kck]

We're currently mining out a berm that has seen half a century of use. I have no way of knowing for sure but I believe that there is at least 20 tons of range scrap there and we have exclusive rights to mine the whole hill. All it's costing is time and effort.

That would be a great deal right their

[Guesser]

I got 800# of dirty lino out of an old print plant back in 2012 got 80$

[Walter Laich]

I found a lead WW on the street one time

[Blackwater]

Back when I first started casting seriously in the early 70's, I was working to put my wife through college to finish her degree. Then when she completed it and got a job, I went back to finish mine. We were always pretty well "broke" but eked out a living for ourselves and our son, and though funds were low, powder and primers were cheap and even we could afford that. Learning to cast was a great boon, because I was getting all the WW's I could cast for free from a service station I patronized because I liked and trusted their owner/mechanic. Free WW's was a boon to a poor working couple, and allowed me to shoot in the volume I wanted to, or at least had the TIME to do. After going back to school again, I worked as many as 3 part time jobs in addition to my studies, and we eked our way through those times rather happily, if frugally.

Nowadays, it's awfully easy to forget is was once like that, and that it was REAL. Many here aren't old enough to have known those times, or what they were like, but it WAS, and it was good, too. It's not impossible that times like that could return, but it sure looks unlikely with the way we're going now, and the bents we seem to have, but us ol' pharts DO relish those grand memories of another day and another time when a sudden big score wasn't necessary, or even really desirable because of the necessity of moving a large amount of solid weight.

More recently, I found a largish container of lino, and was VERY proud to get it here, where it's really rare to come across.

[dondiego]

They were repairing the road in town and one of the workers that I knew asked me if I wanted any lead since they were replacing the lead water main. I said sure! He brought over about 200 feet of soft lead 1 inch pipe. Useful stuff!

[45-70 Chevroner]

We ( my wife and I ) were going through Hawthorne Nevada last September and we had tire tread separation on our fifth wheel. I ended up buying two new tires. I happened to notice a bucket of wheel weights "daah". I ask one of the guys, what's the chance of getting some tire weights? he said how much do you want? I said what ever you can spair. He put the bucket in the bed of my truck. He said because of the distance Hawthorn is from any large city they can't get rid of them except to give them away or take them to the dump. Unfortunately I live about 700 miles from Hawthorn. He also said that thier were a couple of cast boolit shooters in Hawthorn. This was at a Firestone dealership.