How much lead in ingot form do you have and how much should we keep on hand?

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

How much do I have? Quite a bit

Is it enough? It is until I find a stash or someone gives me more.

Tin ---------- Don't waste the money. Save it for powder and primers.

The images of bullets which are attached show a bunch of boolits all cast from just plain ol'wheel weights, except for the boolit on the left (group of 4) which is cast for my 45/70. A 465gr Wide Flat Nose boolits in which I use a 50/50 alloy of WW/lead in which the tin content is half of the small percentage found in WW and they cast ever so well.

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[jsizemore]

As much as you have money and space.

[runfiverun]

well I got enough in ingot form with 1% tin already added in to make a little over 100-k 200 gr boolits.
that don't count the lino-type, the core material for the bullet swaging, or the target rifles alloy.

I have a line on some bigger truck ww's that have been stored upstairs at a tire shop for quite a while now. [they couldn't get rid of them?]
hopefully I get the call this week, cause I have either 5 or 6 buckets I need to get cleaned up sometime this summer.
getting some more would get me going on them.

[RogerDat]

Simply put it takes time and/or money. The more time you invest the less money. I have run into around 3 or 4 somewhat major finds. Other than that it would be mostly going around to tire stores until I found some that would sell me the weights, then being consistent in going around to collect them. That went on for a period measured in years.

This was one of the batches of assorted printers lead mostly, along with making some Lyman #2, the stack that is darker and directly behind coffee can might be plain.
You can see some of the under bench storage of SFRB's in the back right. In the front left there is a doctors office type scale with a Lee catalog on it. I don't recall the exact weight of this batch but those are 12 - 16 lb. slabs. And there is 15 lbs. of pewter in the coffee can.


These are over 20# pounds per box 4 deep, picture is over a year ago, added to it since then.
To the point where the upper shelf was full so I bought heavy steel rack to store it.


One of those good scores I mentioned. That 35 gallon barrel behind the 5 gal. buckets was a 480# purchase of printers lead.


Sheet lead, have over the years accumulated many hundreds of pounds of it. Regularly going and purchasing what I could afford.
I do suggest if at all possible avoid the stuff with the glue on the back or tar.


Because it is flammable, smokes, and stinks. Probably bad to breathe also.


For me the trick has been to educate myself on what the different types of scrap lead and pewter are. Consistently search for it, and purchase steadily, even if we are talking 25-30 lbs. It is like I told the tire store guy, "I can eat an apple in small bites same as big ones, so how much you want for that partial bucket?" Save money aside in order to be able to jump on a good deal. If I can budget X amount a month for lead then I set 20% of that aside to build up so when someone says I'll give you a deal on the price IF you take all or some larger amount of lead in one shot, I can swing the deal. So yeah it took some years but now I seldom add much to my excel spread sheet of inventory. Even though I still check to see what is available regularly, if somewhat less often (E.G scrap yards once a week not twice, maybe skip a week) and will only purchase small amounts or something that is especially good, or a good deal.

On tin I am a ways behind Banger on quality but not that far back on quantity. About 350# of assorted solders and pewter. I think my last calculation worked out to the entire pile being 50% tin when the tin percentage of each item was factored in. That reflects a good amount of solder found by digging through a bin filled with large pieces of sheet lead and scrap pipe to get to the solder bars that fell to the bottom, in the middle of winter in an unheated, open on three sides storage area. And hitting anyplace and everyplace for pewter for at least 2 or 3 years. Lot of garage sale solder in that mix too. Don't think the tin percentage has a good amount of pewter factored in. Might have nudged that tin percentage up a bit.

[robg]

Could always use more have more ,but I've got about 100lbs of ingots and 25 lbs in pipe,flashing wheel weights .not much compared to you guys but better than nothing.

[RogerDat]

Could always use more have more ,but I've got about 100lbs of ingots and 25 lbs in pipe,flashing wheel weights .not much compared to you guys but better than nothing.

Difference between me and Bill Gates is I'm still working on my first million Bill is past that million already. Takes time, and a desire. Lot of folks don't want much more on hand then they need. I did a spring casting of bullets intended to last me through the summer and it was much less than 100 lbs. I would guess less than 50 lbs. and I that should about cover it till fall. Given several months I'm sure most folks would have no trouble replacing that amount.

I like having a supply of materials on hand that my kids will probably sell the leftovers after I die. Others might have a different use for 7 foot of garage wall space.

[Loudy13]

I am at about 400 lbs of ingots and just finished the last of the WW's I had to melt down. I would like to get at least 2500 lbs on hand that I figure is the minimum to keep me in bullets...unless I live a lot longer than I think I will!

I did just strike a deal with a local range to farm the lead outta the berms, that will help!!

[modified5]

Right now I have about 25 lbs of coww and 24 lbs of soww in ingots.
Have about the same amount in raw.
Price thus far? Free from work.
Im just getting started though.
For now I don't see myself being a huge volume caster due to time constraints, 3 young kids and an 18 acre horse ranch to take care of, but I am of the philosophy that too much is never enough.

[tygar]

Just guessing but a couple k in soft thru mixed alloy from 10 to 17 bhn & 4k in lino, mono, foundry & 2 hundred in pewter/tin. Not counting a whole Lot of already made bullets from .225 - .501.

OOPs most of the lino stuff is in original form. Probably less than 100# in ingot form.

[Chris C]

I'm workin' on my "stash" but have a whole, whole lot less than most of you. (embarrassing to say just how little in comparison) I keep scouring the tire shops and have done pretty well over the last month. But what I'm worried about is the only tin I have on hand I had to purchase in pure bars. $$$$$$ And there's nothing frugal about casting lead if I have to purchase pure tin bars. Can't seem to find any tin or pewter anywhere. Not really sure where to go since the garage and yard sales around here don't ever seem to have pewter in them. I live in the country and most items at sales around here are children's junk, clothing and farm related items.

[merlin101]

I've been slackin off on scrounging lead lately. The only stuff I've picked up was about 20 lbs of range turds while changing targets. I did find 3 buckets full of WW while cleaning my carport, I had forgotten all about them being used as winter weight in the back of my pick up truck.

[John Boy]

How much should one keep on hand?

Depends on how much you cast and shoot what you cast. Otherwise it's just unproccessed lead ingots

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

Chris C,

Providing you are not starting with pure lead, your wasting money to be buying tin in almost all cases.

Some folk seem to think they must use tin, but look at the bullets shown in my last post and then try to tell me that they would have been better with expensive tin added.

Millions upon millions of great bullets have been cast and shot from just plain old wheel weights, which according to the Lyman cast bullet book have a nominal .5% of tin.

Look at the 465gr Wide Flat Nose bullet cast for my 45/70. It is cast of 50/50 WW/lead and would therefore have waaaay less tin then the .5% in the WW alloy.

Some molds might be more difficult to cast good bullets with, but I cast bullets for .30cal, 9mm, .38/.357, 10mm/.40, .44, .45acp and the 45/70 and the dozen or so molds involved all cast well with the minimal amount of tin found in the wheel weight or 50/50 WW/lead alloy used.

If you can't get good zinc free WW, you might run the percentages of lead/antimony/tin found by making your own alloy starting with a known alloy from a place like Roto Metals.

Any home brew alloy that closely approaches the percentages found in WW, will do the job for almost all casting/shooting, even at velocities closely approaching or even exceeding 2000fps.

I did a bunch of shooting/testing with the 45/70 at velocities over 2000fps and even as high as a touch over 2500fps.

Bullet to bore fit is MUCH more important then using costly tin.

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[rancher1913]

had a line on 800 pounds of soft from a roof tear off but was literally a day late, his guys threw it away.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Seeing as how I may be nearing the end of my road ,health wise that is, I believe my total of 1.700 - 1,800 lbs of 4 types of lead in ingots along with (4) 5 gal. pails full to the top of sorted WW`s together with another several hundred lbs. of sheet soft lead should last me thru. Also, have a bunch of large isotope shields and some linotype ingots both unsmelted. So I would guess if everything was in ingots I would be over the ton mark by a few hundred lbs.Robert

[nylocmik]

The wife told me I best start stacking lead on opposite wall in reloading room, rain is pooling on that side of the roof.

[triggerhappy243]

in excess of 3000 lbs of indoor range lead............ no zinc guaranteed. factory ammo only. and somewhere around 700 lbs of wheelweights(clip on.)

[DerekP Houston]

The wife told me I best start stacking lead on opposite wall in reloading room, rain is pooling on that side of the roof.

At least she didn't ask you to move it all . Just even out the slab with the next few purchases.

[Ken in Iowa]

Compared to you guys I don't have any lead.

[Kraschenbirn]

600+ lbs of 'known' alloys in ingots + a few thousand sized/lube boolits of assorted calibers + 300-400 lbs of 'raw' (unsmelted) range scrap but ALWAYS on the lookout for more.

Bill