What are you paying for scrap lead and wheel weights?

[fredj338]

All depends on where you live. Out here, if you can even buy a bucket, it will be 80-85% unusable krap. I don't even bother anymore. I wouldn't turn down free, but I wont buy ww here anymore.

[huntersdog]

I can get WW for .25lb or lead for .35lb from my buddies scrap yard, that sounds pretty fair.

[EDK]

My buddy at the range mines the backstops. He sorts it, washes off the dirt, and smelts in steel coffee cans on his wood burning furnace. The scrap yard pays 50¢ per pound, but I have a standing order for 100 pounds or more anytime he has some to spare.

[Blackwater]

I have been getting mine lately from my service center for our vehicles. There, they're mildly ambivalent about what they get, and I got about 150 lbs. or more last time for $25. It's kind'a a "good buddy deal," and I need to check if I can get more as soon as I think of it. I'm out of the habit of asking and I need to get better at it again. We often don't think about supply until we're empty, and that can make for problems. Add in the fact that the only thing I have getting stronger is my "forgetter," and ... well, you know.

[truckerdave397]

is $600 dollars for 1,015 pound of wheel weights good?

The scrap yard I work at charges me $.60 a pound for WW or any other type of lead but that is hand sorted by me.

[scottfire1957]

I just "paid" 385 dollars for 30#!


Actually, I bought two tires for the wife's car and asked if they would throw in some used weights. 30# just for asking. Discount tire.

[randy_68]

A case of beer for 2 buckets, hot a couple others for free.

[TheGuyFromSouthamerica]

I am located in Southamerica and I pay here about 18 cents (US cents) per pound of assorted "lead" Wheel Wheigths. It contains as well Zn, FE, AL WW. That is why my bullets have an high Zinc content since it melts as well along the Pb (lead) WW. The bullets are wrinkled but they shoot well (I just make sure the base and point have sharp edges).

It is for pistol and revolver shooting.

That turns out to give me a cost per bullet (lets assume each bullet has 124 grains) of 0.00321 US$. To compare an Winchester factory FMJ bullet costs here 0.23 US$ (23 cents).
In Southamerica relaoding and casting saves you lots of money (about 80%) and without casting you save about 50% (reloading only).

[TheGuyFromSouthamerica]

Till now I may have stockpiled about 300 to 400 pounds of Wheel Wheigths.

[RED BEAR]

the last i bought was dirty but at 30 cent a pound i will clean it ( i bought enough to last me the rest of my life) but that was about 5 years ago. for clean lead ingots they charged 60 cents. again about 5 years ago i still have about 100lbs left to clean the rest has been fluxed several times and is in buckets. wheel weights i still have a tire shop willing to give them to me.

[snowtigger]

The last metal I bought was 200 lbs of Lino ingots for $100.00. It's been a while. I had a source for wheel weights, and got about ten buckets before that dried up. I still get the occasional bucket. I also acquired a thousand pounds of sheet lead from a radar site.
I cast all my bullets from either straight ww or 50/50 ww/pure, with rifle bullets and higher velocity handgun bullets carrying gas checks.
I am about to start casting for .223, so I will start using more lino.

[georgerc]

I just got my first half bucket for $20, surprisingly only a handful of ZN but about 1/4 FE, most stickons were FE, all in all I got about 40# of the soft stuff, I got to go through it again make sure I didn't miss any ZN ones, I only got a few and saved them for a sample, pretty hard on my wire cutters vs lead, am I on the rights track sorting?

[buckshotshoey]

I just got my first half bucket for $20, surprisingly only a handful of ZN but about 1/4 FE, most stickons were FE, all in all I got about 40# of the soft stuff, I got to go through it again make sure I didn't miss any ZN ones, I only got a few and saved them for a sample, pretty hard on my wire cutters vs lead, am I on the rights track sorting?

Yea. Thats the way i did it. Zinc wont take a mark with a side cut pliers, lead will. Down side? Had a blister on my palm after a half bucket! lol

[facetious]

The last time I bought any WW's thy were $5.00 for five gal. bucket. In the late 80's.

Two or three years ago I bought 90 lb.of what I think was a mix of WW and range scrap for $45.00. Thy were all ready melted and cast in to ingots and in a pail. In the bottom of the pail was some un melted WW's and some range scrap so I'm thinking it was a old shooter who died and the kids were cleaning out his stuff. After casting some with it, it seams just a little softer than WW's.

Last week I had a chance to go shooting and took along the front grill off a fan that had quit to use as a sifter. Should have took more pails. I put as much range scrap as I could move in two pails and about killed my self getting them to the car and in to the trunk. Put them on the bathroom scale and came up with 168 lb's. I am hoping to get a 140 to 150 lb's after cooking it down and cleaning it up. Should make enough wad cutters to last along time. The cost was about 1/2 hr. to scrape the dirt up and sift it.

[rototerrier]

The term "lifetime supply" is often grossly miscalculated by some folks. Lifetimes vary, but here's some simple math.

A 40 year old male shooting 1000 230gr boolits per year who expects to live to 80 would need approximately 1300lbs of lead!

I shoot far more than 1000 / year.

I always get a good laugh at what some consider to be a lifetime supply. Clearly it's all relative...but unless you shoot very little or are already up in years, 300-600lbs ain't a lifetime supply.

Best to keep scrounging and just plan on leaving some behind on departure. That's my plan anyhow.

My last scrap ww score came out to .45 / lb.

Every year it seems to go up about .10 more. It's definitely gotten harder to find and keeps increasing in price...kinda like healthcare.

FYI I'm a healthy 38 and my LTS target is 1 ton stockpiled.

Even then, I feel I might come up short...but then again, I may not make it to 80. Who knows.

[georgerc]

well I guess it depends where you do your shooting practice, I don't go to a range so there is no range scrap picking and free brass, I shoot on my own land so I pick up my brass, and every time I loose some, as for the mound I shoot at, I picked up some out of it before, so I guess if I had some 600lbs stock, I could shoot that a few times over

[rototerrier]

Open range on steel. Not much to recover once it hits the steel. I recover a few pieces of lead here and there, but not much.

[bamabound]

Got about 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket of WW for free, 83 lbs before sorting and around 52 pounds of ingots . I have one shop that will sell and two others who said they would start collecting them for me but who knows how that will pan out.