Where do you find lead?

[JBinMN]

It isn't necessarily a good idea to let "everyone" you run across know more than necessary.

One local thrift shop near me, where I USED to go to get pewter no longer has any it seems. The prick who is married to the owner was in the shop when I was describing to the owner & a clerk why it was I was usually coming in each week and only looking for certain items.
When I told them about my looking for pewter items they said they would call me if any came in. Well after a couple weeks of not hearing anything at all, I stopped in again to check & also to ask them if they had not called due to nothing being in the shop.
The owner was away, but the clerk said to me that once the prick husband heard what I told them about the pewter, he made sure that HE got the chance to get the pewter before I did, so he could melt it & sell it to his Rendezvous attending buddies for melting into their cast muzzle loader balls/boolits. Thus spoiling something which had been a good thing, but once again, the "No good turn goes unpunished" saying came into play, & I lost out by explaining what I was using the pewter for.

So please keep that in consideration when looking out for casting materials.

" The walls have ears!".

[lightman]

It isn't necessarily a good idea to let "everyone" you run across know more than necessary" The walls have ears!".

I agree up to a point. If I had a perter source I would be pretty tight lipped. Especially in a shop. Lead, not so much. I've even given a few new guys ideas that cut into my sources for wheel weights. But then again, I'm pretty sure that I'm a member of the lifetime supply club.

[Bazoo]

Ask all your friends and family to keep an eye out. I got a friend that works at a tire place that gets me some for around 25 a bucket once in a while, local tire place sells for bout that too. Some of the local places say they can't sell though, I'm thinking one of the workers is scoring it!

[jehicks87]

Wow guys, thanks for all of the tips and advise! I will heed your suggestions and purchase a known alloy for now.

Additional information to select the correct type of alloy to purchase I'll be casting:
.45 colt (I've got my eye on a 454276 mold from MOE) for hunting from a Ruger Redhawk
.45 ACP (I already have 230 gr 45 mold for this)
9mm Makarov (either Ruger or Lyman)
.30-06 (I quite like a lyman PB 150gr mold I found at midwayusa)

What alloys should I be looking to buy for these?

From one (old) soldier to another, if you would pm me your address, I can send you a small, flat-rate box of range lead free gratis. The lead is no cost to me, and I'll pick up the tab on shipping. Let me know.

Wayne

Wow, thanks Wayne! You have a PM.

[kevin c]

I have, at different times and varying cost and effort, gotten lead, tin and antimony alloys from:

Rotometals, which may not be low cost but is the easiest (on line ordering with free shipping for orders of $100 or more) and whose metal is analyzed for content. This is how I started out.

From friends and acquaintances who know I am looking. It ranges in cost from free to the going price in the S & S forum (the latter was more a favor to a retiring senior shooter who wanted to clean out his shop). This is a variable source - months can go by without any coming by.

From scrap yards. At least one locally will sell to the public. A reliable source, but with varying content, depending one what they have taken in, and generally at higher cost than the forums here.

From the S & S forum, good cost, reliable alloy. May be I haven't looked hard enough, but it seems that tin and high antimony alloys aren't always available in the amounts I want, though.

From my club's berms (with permission). This was literally boolit metal I was digging out, and at only the cost of my labor and the equipment and propane to clean it up. But it was hard work with a bad back, and I suspect my not using proper PPE may have caused my blood lead levels to go up some. Additionally, there now is more lead free ammo in the mix: local agencies that deposit a lot of lead to our "bank" are going green (California, dontcha know), though thankfully I haven't seen any zinc.

From thrift stores, estate sales and on line ads. The first two are mainly for pewter, though occasionally there will be fishing or dive weights available (which can't always be assumed to be pure lead). Very hit or miss, though persistence pays off with occasional good scores like collections of pewter that go for well under the price of the tin content, or the time I picked up nearly 60 pounds of eutectic solder from a guy who salvaged it from a scrapped wave soldering machine. Buying in person, though, means traveling to where the goods are, and with no guaranteed payoff, while on line purchases means shipping costs, which can really jack the per pound price way up.

My main source is a local radiopharmacy that sells me their decommissioned radioisotope containers, which are very clean metal with little waste, and at a good price. Fortunately the one I work with is a short drive from where I process and stockpile the scrap. Even so, the weight of hauling those loads is hard on a compact sedan. I need to consider getting a truck.

Lead WW are very rare birds here on the left coast; while I did score some through a friend's connections, I haven't bothered to make the rounds of the local tire shops.

[GregLaROCHE]

I use mostly range scrap from my shooting club. It’s an indoor range, so I just have to sweep and shovel it up. The bits of paper targets mixed in works as flux. Maybe there’s an indoor range near you.

When getting lead from someone you don’t know, I’ve heard it said that it is best to say you are using it for fishing weights. You never know these days who is anti guns today.

[Ateam]

My best sources are auto salvage shops, used tire sellers, and small rural tire shops. Giving them your business when you can goes a long ways.

edit: If you post your location in your profile, it makes it easier for those of us who may be local to help

[kevin c]

When getting lead from someone you don’t know, I’ve heard it said that it is best to say you are using it for fishing weights. You never know these days who is anti guns today.

I sometimes did that: cannonball downrigger weights for trolling can weigh several pounds a piece and can cost fifty bucks or more new, which can really justify large purchases of scrap lead. With commercial sellers, they either don't care because it's just another sale and more money in their pocket or like Rotometals the selling for boolit casting is actually part of their marketing strategy.

That being said, it's sometimes suprising to me just how many people I deal with are pro gun, even here in California. The workers at the radiopharmacy I buy from know what I'm doing with the lead; some of them shoot and are interested in coming out to my range. I once wore a GSSF hat to an estate sale and the seller gave me a discount because "we've got a Second Amendment supporter here". But it's true that I'm generally quiet about it.

[gpidaho]

I buy my lead right here at Boolits. Good Vendors right here with great product and options. Gp

[RED BEAR]

Just check around none of scrap yards around me will even sell to you if they had any. I drive a good 30 miles to a scrap yard last I checked they wanted 96 cent a pound. I can buy here for around dollar a pound and it's not nasty as some of there's is. As for wheel weights you just keep checking the larger shops are usually a no go they have contract with battery supplier. Small local shops are your best bet I have a couple that give them to me. I bought a large supply a few years ago and thought it might outlast me but down to a little over 100 pounds of lead so I need to start looking.

[ShooterAZ]

As others have mentioned, keep an eye on the Swap and Sell forum. Most of my lead stash has been purchased there. I really loaded up on the Isotope Core ingots last time they were offered. It's a perfect alloy for handguns, and I buy Lino from Rotometals to alloy with the Cores for usage in rifles. Sadly my local scrap yard has shut down, I used to pick up WW and sheet lead from them from time to time.

[RogerDat]

It isn't necessarily a good idea to let "everyone" you run across know more than necessary.....

..... The owner was away, but the clerk said to me that once the prick husband heard what I told them about the pewter, he made sure that HE got the chance to get the pewter before I did, so he could melt it & sell it to his Rendezvous attending buddies for melting into their cast muzzle loader balls/boolits. Thus spoiling something which had been a good thing, but once again, the "No good turn goes unpunished" saying came into play, & I lost out by explaining what I was using the pewter for.

So please keep that in consideration when looking out for casting materials.

" The walls have ears!".

Not only is owner husband sort of a prick but sort of clueless too. Muzzle loaders use plain soft lead balls. I would not be surprised if some of those rendezvous folks cast for smokeless cartridges too where they could use the tin but I would be surprised if they want any tin in their round balls or even Minnie balls for muzzle loaders.

I don't mind telling tire shops and scrap yards what I do with the lead. I guess I figure if they don't like it they have a right to not sell to me for that use. No issues so far.

Pewter is different, some folks can get really upset at the idea of melting "pretty" things as scrap tin. Especially in shops or at garage sales. Some of our wives I think have that perspective. Shops I look in for pewter just know I "collect" it, I tell them some is in good enough condition or nice enough to keep and some badly damaged pieces I may melt down and remake since the damage destroys the value. Thus leaving some room for price negotiations on damaged pieces. I leave the part out about exactly what I "remake" from the melted ones.

Too much trouble to explain pewter is useful for making Lyman #2 alloy.... then what is #2 alloy.... then why it is good.... No point in confusing folks eh?

[JBinMN]

RD,

Well, that is what she told me, & so I just went on her word that he was trying to do that, or like ya said, help out his buddies that hand load smokeless + maybe make some $$.

Regardless, that source seemed to dry up, & I have not been back there in months , nor have they called me.

I might stop in there this week just to see what they might have, now that I am thinking about it again.

I still remember the "burn" of telling what I was doing & have been very tight lipped about it since. Thus the suggestion for others may want to do the same.

Lots of pricks in the world... LOL

[RogerDat]

RD,

Well, that is what she told me, & so I just went on her word that he was trying to do that, or like ya said, help out his buddies that hand load smokeless + maybe make some $$.

Regardless, that source seemed to dry up, & I have not been back there in months , nor have they called me.

I might stop in there this week just to see what they might have, now that I am thinking about it again.

I still remember the "burn" of telling what I was doing & have been very tight lipped about it since. Thus the suggestion for others may want to do the same.

Lots of pricks in the world... LOL

Some caution makes sense. You know what they say about "can't unring that bell". Once you do say something for good or ill you can't unsay it and have to live with the other persons response. Scrap yards and tire stores have not been a problem. Heck at one the scrap yards they refer to me as "that bullet guy" and let me know if there are "interesting" things brought in. No problem there, but then the office staff are doing open carry so.... I never tell the nice ladies at the thrift stores or salvation army the destination of those pewter items is a puddle on their way to a dirt backstop. Some seem the "sensitive" type and I want to spare their feelings. Yeah that's it their feelings.

Lord knows they already charge too darn much for pewter, telling them it has a value they hadn't considered might well work out as it did in your unfortunate case. Or they would just try to charge me more. I'm just lucky the one store doesn't yet know that stuff marked Zinn is pewter. Their education is NOT my responsibility. Sad really that people rather than seeing your use as a "new" market for pewter items they are selling that might otherwise be too poor of shape to have much value instead cut you off at the knees because of your being upfront with them.

There have been some nice pewter items I bought and then sold at wholesale prices (~ 1/2 retail) to antique shops rather than melt. I ended up paid what the tin was worth or a little better and didn't have to melt nicer pieces down. Not that I want some shop making that decision before they decide to sell to me like they did in your case. I suppose I could have made more by selling retail on eBay but I would rather be doing other things than managing an online store.

Not that I normally ill wish someone but... hoping that the store owners husband will at some point discover that in his greed he melted a $200 antique into a $10 tin ingot doesn't seem all that wrong. If this Karma thing works as advertised it is almost a certainty to happen.

[William Yanda]

Why, you just check along any roadside. It's almost everywhere, just ask the EPA. Purple font off.

[William Yanda]

I tell them I use it to cast lead hammers, and show them one. Even gave one to one of my wheel weight sources'

[ghh3rd]

By the way my first trip to Goodwill searching for pewter I found a couple of items that were stamped Sterling... no good for alloying.

[kevin c]

I usually just tell the curious that I collect pewter. Another approach is casting pewter fIgurines; I mention deliberately that I'm looking for scrap just for the metal content when negotiating the price down on really beat up pewter items. It's worked on occasion.

[LenH]

I have checked Facebook Marketplace and have found lead a time or two locally. Scored about 150# of lead from dental foil at a fairly decent price. It cast real good bullets.

The last 2 or 3 pieces of pewter I have found have been from Goodwill and The Salvation Army thrift store. They are small pieces and are all hallmarked.

[Miller85]

Reading this thread makes me feel fortunate. My lead guy calls me once or twice a year. He sorts the weights for me and sells them to me for 35 cents a pound. He is a hell of a guy even bags them up in feed sacks 50lbs each.