I need more lead! What are the latest best sources?

[Blackwater]

Tire shops and service stations that sell tires have been the cheapest place I've purchased from for many years. I used to actually get 5 gal buckets for FREE back in my younger days, but that ended quite a while back. In my neck of the woods, one can occasionally buy COWW's for as little as 25 cents a pound, but prices are climbing. If you do all your gas buying and auto servicing at one place, that's your best bet, but you never know what you'll find until you go asking around. That's why they call it "hunting" for WW's instead of "finding" them! But it's really not an intolerable experience, and only our own laziness keeps us from finding good places to get WW's. And WW's will do fine for 90%+ of all our handgun shooting. I've considered getting a shot maker for shotgun, but haven't pulled the trigger on that one .... yet.

Second best source, and it's for very soft lead, is lead sheeting, which is more "catch as catch can" in my area. But it shows up and is good for ML'ers and soft, target loads with wadcutters, if you still shoot .38 revolvers. Plus, it can be alloyed with WW's and linotype (if you find it), to produce just about any temper of lead you might wish for. Linotype is seldom used these days in printing, so it's harder to find than the first two, but .... you never know until you ask! Scrounging lead is an adventure in itself, and the feeling of glee when you find a good stash really makes it worth the effort.

Oh! And when you find a good deal, stretch as far as you can, and get much more than you need! It seems that one's shooting tends to depend heavily on how much lead we have around! More lead = more shooting = better shooting = better accuracy and quickness with our guns. It's hard to beat that combination of qualities!

[D Crockett]

go to vendor sales and look up the captain and order from her she is the best bet for lead D Crockett

[rsrocket1]

Has anyone tried the re-claimed shot from Rotometals for bullet lead?

No, but I cast all my bullets nowadays with reclaimed shot from the trap and skeet club I belong to. At $25/bag, it's $1/#pound which is about as good a price I can ever find from any reliable source. Sometimes, I see ads for $0.75 or $0.60/pound for a keel weight or creek cleanup sinkers but those offers are usually scooped up immediately or are for a half ton or more in one piece.

I smelt the shot in my Lee 4-20 and have to scoop up the graphite (about 2 tablespoons full per 15 pounds) and start casting with my PID set at either 675 or 700 depending on the weather. I've experimented with up to a half pound of solder added to a pot, but it didn't seem to make much difference one way or the other so I simply leave it out now. There is often a couple of steel shot pellets per pot, but not much because even though the club asks the shooters not to use steel shot, some idiot newcomer will bring a box of steel shot every now and then and use it despite them selling shells at some of the best prices around.

The shot is probably lead with antimony and little or no tin. One caveat is not to cast at too high a temperature. One time I made a batch of 9mm bullets with the lead melt > 750F and about 5% had granular "crystaline" splits in them after water dropping. I only discovered it after drying out the batch and inspecting them. I culled them out and used the rest and performance didn't seem to be affected the ones without the defects. If they were rifle bullets, I would have probably remelted the batch.

I powder coat my handgun bullets which give them a surface harness of about BHN22 (#2 pencil hardness according to the PC label) and I lube the .308 rifle bullets with 2:1 Beeswax Valseline and shoot the gas checked bullets at up to 2400 fps and the non GC bullets up to ~1800 fps.

I've done some searching and there are a number of clubs or ranges around the country that sell reclaimed shot at this price or close to this price so check around.

[40sand9s]

The pistol club I belong to has several thousand rounds shot at it per month in the various pits. The first day my brother and I scrounged we got 3 half gallon juice jugs full in about an hour and a half. That was a lot of work, now we just settle for a shotgun box or 2 each and call it a day. We are still getting about what we shot and not nearly as hard on the back. I have several hundred pounds in my garage I'll get to smelting one day. All pretty much free and you get the satisfaction of knowing you got it yourself. The first couple hundreds of pounds though I bought off Devildog here on the sight and was happy with them.

[therealhitman]

+1 on Jetsfan24

[pls1911]

My best current recommendation would be roofing contractors.... every new roof gets new vent stacks, and old ones are great pure lead.
Most houses should yield 20-30 pounds if you can keep the roofers from hoarding it to sell for scrap.
My friendly contractor provided a few garbage cans full before he retired.
I imagine Houston alone should have yielded tons of scrap lead.

From a different source, I got four ROLLS of 30" lead flashing from an over run on one job... about 400 pounds.

Total cache is undetermined, but I'm not actively collection at thois point.

Combined in a mix of 75% pure to 25% with my stash of already alloyed wheel weights, a 55 gallon drum of printers blocks (I need to go through it for historical material), and a hundred pounds of fresh babbit lead, 50-50 solder bars and pewter, I'm set for the duration.

[sigep1764]

Got lucky today. Went down to my normal scrap yard today for some wheel weights. 65 cents a pound. Turns out they had half a 55 gallon drum of Lyman ingots marked WWR which I assume is two parts wheel weight and one part range lead. They ring when I drop them. Walked into the office and asked the price, said 1.10 a pound. I came with a hundred dollar bill and left with a bucket of ingots. Saved me a day off full of smelting. Now I get to cast all of it today and tomorrow. Im happy.

[Soundguy]

Go buy a lottery ticket!

[59sharps]

Scrap yard 90 cents a lb. last Saturday.

[justashooter]

buddy of mine got a keel out of a scrapped sail boat for me recently. boat yards and marinas where they scrap boats are worth a call. he saw a yard worker throwing the keel pour inot teh dumpster.

[pls1911]

sigep1764....now THAT's a great find!
The labor involved in clean up via smelting and alloying to quanities can be substantial... TRULY A GREAT FIND!

[2011redrider]

RMR Bullets also sells bullets cores that didn't make the grade. They show they are BHN 12, about 1.50 lb and free shipping like their bullets.

https://www.rmrbullets.com/products/...inell-hardness