How much lead is too much?

[Sig556r]

If you gotta ask, you ain't got enough...

[leadhead]

To much is never enough................
Denny

[dondiego]

If you how much you have, you need more!

[RogerDat]

If you how much you have, you need more!

Thank you! I have always wanted a good solid excuse for never getting a complete inventory. Now I have it. If I figured out how much I have I would be forced to go purchase more.

Oh wait I was going to go purchase more anyway.

It always boils down to it won't spoil, if you don't use it someone else will. Provided you make arrangements to sell or give away what you find you don't need. Lead is not going to "vanish" from the market but price may go up and many desirable types of lead and lead alloy will no longer be in the waste stream.

Body solder? Lead water pipes? Lead underground cable? Thick x-ray wall liner? Roof flashing and seal under bath tile? Printers type? Linotype? Wheel weights? Even pewter had a period of high popularity that is long past. These items in the scrap metal stream, tire shop, or showing up in estate sales will decline as time goes on. And with them goes an inexpensive source of casting material. So taking advantage of current availability to stock up at low prices is just smart.

Go price foundry lead at Rotometals. Something close to COWW's goes for $3 per pound at foundry prices. Currently one can purchase near the same alloy for $1 a pound in S&S forum. I would like as many of those $1 a pound ingots as I can so I can avoid or postpone buying the $3 a pound casting material as long as possible.

[lightman]

I don't know exactly how much I have. So I better keep collecting! I do know how many milk crates and partial milk crates of which alloy I have. And I know how many buckets of mixed type metal and how many Linotype bars that I have. I also know how many buckets and containers of un-smelted scrap that I have. I have scored enough or almost enough wheel weights since last year for another smelting day. (350-400 pounds) I'll do that this winter after hunting season closes. I also have a gallon can of battery cable ends and another gallon can of net weights and decoy weights. I usually post some pictures when I have a smelting session.

[bigdog454]

lightman: If you can inventory it you don't have enough.

[Conditor22]

There are variables. A friend built portable boolit traps for handgun use so our only lead waste is higher pressure rifle loads. Were working on a portable method to salvage that also.

[RogerDat]

There are variables. A friend built portable boolit traps for handgun use so our only lead waste is higher pressure rifle loads. Were working on a portable method to salvage that also.

I have been tempted to place a short log or two such as one would use for a chopping block at a couple of places where folks shoot. Figure by the time they have been there a few months as potential targets, something to pin paper targets on, or set physical targets on top of they would be filled with spent bullets.

End of that few months I could pick them up, leave new ones and burn the old one to gather the lead that would melt out. Bullet trap for the other fellows bullets.

I wish now that I had stuck to my guns so to speak when we bought this house. I wanted something with a bit more land with fewer houses nearby so I could have a backyard range. This location is nice being on paved road, convenient, not too crowded but not enough land or enough buffer for a range. Two of my neighbors have them, one lets me use his but it really scares his one dog he acquired a few years ago so I am reluctant to ask to use it, and it only provides pistol distances. Hmmm maybe I should check on berm mining?

Guy made a killing on .223 ammo had purchased a number of cases well before the "troubles" enough that he didn't mind at all selling much of it at the high prices that it commanded during the shortages. I think his berm is full of that and 9mm which would be pretty slim pickings.

[bdicki]

It only becomes a problem when you move, it comes in a little at a time and has to leave all at once. I have 2500 pounds of #9 shot and an unknown amount of lead.

[drac0nic]

I have a simple line of logic to this question. If you can never have enough ammo and lead is a key component of making ammo then you can never have enough lead.

[Winger Ed.]

. Hmmm maybe I should check on berm mining?

I'm not running short, but I hate to miss an opportunity.
Our range master gave me permission to mine the butts if no one is out there shooting.
I was going to make a 2' x 2' square frame from 2 x 4s with a mesh screen on the bottom to shake like they do for archology digs.

Shovel dirt in, shake it out- when done, shovel the sifted pile back up on the berm.

If you're on a rich lead deposit, you should get 2-3 gallons in about 1/2 a hour.
And you can't beat the price. With the jackets that smelt out, ya might be able to sell them as Copper scrap.

[lightman]

lightman: If you can inventory it you don't have enough.

I hear ya!

[Slugster]

I believe that I will have enough lead stockpiled when the earth starts veering off course from all of the weight I have piled in my shop.

[Winger Ed.]

I believe that I will have enough lead stockpiled when the earth starts veering off course from all of the weight I have piled in my shop.

Move to Guam. If you cause it to turn over,
beyond some sort of global warming issue, it won't hardly effect everybody else.

[Hossfly]

I have 3 cubic feet, that’s about a little over a ton, at 700 lbs. per cu. ft. Not ne’er enough tho. Still have some soft telephone box lead to melt.

[rcslotcar]

I bought a Saeco lead hardness tester to be able to mark all my ingots. I have about 2000# pounds of B/H marked ingots, maybe more. I've made ingots from pewter if find it cheap enough. I cast bullets to fill 50 cal mil cans in all my calibers. I still collect any scrap lead and alloy it when I get enough to fill my 80# pot. I also believe lead will be harder to find in the not so soon future so I continue my hunt.

[jimb16]

I'm a little low myself. I've only got around 2500 lb of wheel weights, 55 lb of tin, 50 lb of pewter and 150 lb of linotype. Need to start looking for more....

[JBinMN]

I have 3 cubic feet, that’s about a little over a ton, at 700 lbs. per cu. ft. Not ne’er enough tho. Still have some soft telephone box lead to melt.

If it is 700 pounds to a cubic foot, then I think I have more than 1200#. More like 2100- 2500 pounds, as I know the ingots & stuff yet to be smelted takes up more than 3 cubic feet stacked. Hell, the ingots alone are likely over 3 cubic feet themselves & I know I just piled up 500 or so pounds of mixed lead in sheets, pipes & such for smelting that I obtained over this past summer. Not even counting a couple of pretty full 5 gal buckets of COWW. (< they don't weigh 700 pounds though. I would guess more like 75-100 or so. Maybe that is why I was thrown off for weight earlier when I posted...)

Yep, I think I underestimated now, looking at it using cubic feet= 700# for a count...

I still say I think have enough though, as I just do plinking, some impromptu target shooting on occasion with friends & family & such, & not competition stuff like some here do.

As like was mentioned earlier, I have 4 or 5 boolit traps made out of wood & rubber mulch inside, & I also use 6x6 chunks of cedar screwed together to each other, that are drops from back when I built some fancy front porch columns a few years back. I stack them 3 high & 12" long & shooting into them saves a lot of lead, until the hole where the Bullseye is gets shot thru. They are quite lightweight until they get full of lead too.
Once I have shot out the middle, then I retire the middle chunk & save the top & bottom & reuse them for middle pieces until they are shot thru. Makes for good kindling to start fires & easy to dig out the lead.

Thanks for pointing out the cubic feet deal. Makes me feel a little bit better about my stockpile anyway...

[BNE]

I probably have enough. But I hope I get to shoot a lot more in the future, so I keep looking. I also enjoy the hunt, and the smelting. It’s just as much a part of the hobby as the shooting part.

[WRideout]

I'm not running short, but I hate to miss an opportunity.
Our range master gave me permission to mine the butts if no one is out there shooting.
I was going to make a 2' x 2' square frame from 2 x 4s with a mesh screen on the bottom to shake like they do for archology digs.

Shovel dirt in, shake it out- when done, shovel the sifted pile back up on the berm.

If you're on a rich lead deposit, you should get 2-3 gallons in about 1/2 a hour.
And you can't beat the price. With the jackets that smelt out, ya might be able to sell them as Copper scrap.

I made a small screen from scrap wood and a piece of hardware cloth. I use it to mine the berm at my club's pistol range. I tried the same thing at the rifle range, but didn't have much luck. They bury deeper, and are shot at a lot less.

When I smelted the used bullets, I always had a fair amount of just plain dirt that stuck to them, and had to be skimmed off. So I started putting the sifted bullets into a plastic bucket with holes in the bottom, and I wash them off with a gallon jug of water I bring to the range with me. I don't even have to dry them off if I add wet bullets to a cold pot for smelting. The water cooks off before the lead melts.

As a rule, I like to bring home more lead than I deposit. Range lead is pretty much an unlimited supply. Right now I've got about three buckets and a couple of coffee cans of range scrap ingots, along with the same amount of wheel weight, and some additional pure lead (about two coffee cans full). Pewter is kind of hard to know because a lot of it is still in mugs and vases. I do sell the jackets to the scrap yard; they give me the price for yellow brass, which is OK.
Wayne