Best return on raw wheel weights

[Budzilla 19]

Update on my most recent purchase of wheel weights!!! 264 pounds of clean ww ingots, 12 pounds of soww,8+ pounds of zn weights, and I didn’t weight the clips!!! Lots of 2,3,4,5, and a couple of 6ounce weights!! Big mud grips take some heavy weights sometimes.Pipeline contractor moved in to this town and his business exploded.
This is THE ABSOLUTE BEST return I’ve ever gotten!! ( yeah, I know, I’m repeating myself) . Keep looking, guys, they are out there!! Don’t overlook the little shops, I found these in a hole-in the -wall tire repair place in a tiny Texas town. I didn’t hesitate when the owner said $40 for 2-5 gallon buckets!!!! He set the price also.

Good luck in your hunting.
(oh yes, I’m also done with looking as this is my weight to go over one ton in wheel weight ingots.)

[CastingFool]

That was a nice find! I recently picked up a 5 gal bucket, with 68 lbs of raw wheel weights. When I sorted them out, I ended up with 2 gallon paint cans full of coww, about 1/2 gal of Fe, 1 qt of soww, and 1 qt of Zn. That was from a small shop, also.

[RogerDat]

One ton is a nice goal... but a lousy stopping point.

Here is the thing, your going to use them and when you get down a few or several hundred pounds then you will want to get some more. Problem is all your old sources will be gone. Either others will have become their "regular" customers or they will have made some commercial arrangement. I slacked off a bit on lead and focused my search and money more on solder, pewter etc. Over time some of those prior lead sources sort of dried up.

I think some would have become unavailable anyway but instead of my finding a new source as each one dropped I found 3 or 4 gone by the wayside when I decided to restock the used WW's and found I had to start over from a pretty small base of supply. I think I would have been ahead to have continued buying at least some amount every month or two from the different sources in rotation. I will say it did help that I stopped by a couple of places with some donuts just to say hello even when I wasn't buying any lead.

Now I'm sort of aiming for around $40 - $60 worth of lead each month split between a couple of places. Rotate who I buy from so I maintain contact with and spend some money with all possible sources on a regular basis.

[lightman]

That was a nice score and you got a good yield from it! But I wouldn't quit looking. A ton stashed away would allow you to be more picky, both price wise and quality.

[kevin c]

...A ton stashed away would allow you to be more picky, both price wise and quality.

I agree with lightman that with enough of any casting metal in reserve, you won't be tempted to buy more of dubious quality or excessive price. But the hunt is still worth while for the fun of it and the satisfaction of good scores that reduce your overall cost per pound and up the amount of quality stock.

There's very little WW out my way (Left Coast) but there's some pewter, and my collecting now is to add to my already adequate stock, and now follows the pattern described above: no dubious or high priced or possibly collectible items that'd be a shame to melt are being bought, and my cost per pound is down substantially from when I started. Same is true for lead scrap.

Also true is that it took years for me to get to this point.