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Thread: how many pounds in a 5gal bucket?

  1. #81
    Boolit Master


    Matt_G's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sw282 View Post
    l got a gal ful Sat and it weighed in @153 lbs. After sorting/smelting l got 101 # ingots. 23#stick-ons. The balance in steel/zinc/trash and a bag of 2 new valve stems. Cost me a 50 rd box of American Eagle 9mm 115gr fmj
    Nice...very nice.
    Matt

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  2. #82
    Boolit Master
    Lefty SRH's Avatar
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    FWIW, I did a marathon smelt yesterday. I fired my burners up at 9am and turned them around 6pm. I did 4 1/2 buckets of GOOD presorted COWW and miscellanious boolits I have collected. Hopefully my numbers are close. I was so tired by th end of last night I didn't care to count all the bars of lead. BUT I counted this morning, 321bars at 2lbs each (average) so thats 642lbs of good boolit lead! That come to about 142# per 5 gallon bucket.
    My back and legs really hate me this moring.....

  3. #83
    Boolit Bub
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    You have to feel good (after the soreness goes away) about all the boolits you'll be able to make with that stash. I, on the other hand, came home with about 200 lbs. of WW and 100 lbs. of roofing lead the other day and my wife accused me of being a, "hoarder." I was previously down to my last 200 lbs of processed ingots. 37 yrs of marriage and she still doesn't understand.

  4. #84
    Boolit Bub
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    i just got a 5 gallon pail full for free from a friend at a garage.he said come back in a few days and he will have more.

  5. #85
    Boolit Bub
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    Thin pickings at the tire shops.

    The last 5 gal bucket I picked up, once separated, cleaned and processed into ingots, yielded only 25 lbs of useable WW material. This anti lead movement is really starting to effect my supply.
    I guess it's for the best, it will save a lot of birds from getting hit by cars as they try to peck those lead weights off rolling wheels.
    Last edited by Texxut; 11-24-2012 at 11:05 AM. Reason: spelling

  6. #86
    Boolit Master
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    Hi guys.Talk about lucky.Last summer(2012)a friend that works for a demolition crew was tearing down some really old buildings,and one of them was an old PRINT SHOP.He found 20
    50 lb ingots of LINOTYPE metal that his boss gave him for FREE.
    He has more luck than any ten people should be allowed to have by law.
    Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
    Leo

  7. #87
    Boolit Bub
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    My first adventure into casting, I picked up a partial bucket of WW that yielded me 75#'s of lead COWW and 6#'s stick on lead. I'm hoping to end up with 60#'s of ingots.

  8. #88
    Boolit Bub
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    I found a sailboat that is for sale, $500 best offer and it is said to have a 4,000lb lead keel, any one want to help salvage that lead? Obviously not a 1 man job!

  9. #89
    Boolit Grand Master

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    If I lived closer, I'd do it in a New York Minute.
    If the boat is trash, you might get it even cheaper, or let the owner dispose of whats left. Salvaging the lead will be more of a job that it appears.

  10. #90
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    Make sure it is lead and not cement. Sorry I can't help you either I'm stuck in New Yorkisstan.


    Quote Originally Posted by giericd View Post
    I found a sailboat that is for sale, $500 best offer and it is said to have a 4,000lb lead keel, any one want to help salvage that lead? Obviously not a 1 man job!
    My last real haul of WW were fromn the local BJ's. I had left a business card and told the guys when you get over run call me I'll come pick em up and by everyone lunch.
    Well they got a new manager, one of those experts in everything who looked at the buckets and said in a demanding voice; THORW THOSE IN THE DUMPSTER!
    Yea well after the DEC got done with him he was a little more humble so the tire shop reminded him to call me , but he had pulled my card off the board and threw it away.
    On a hunch I rolled in one day and picked up 7 or 8 buckets. My yield was around 22 lbs per 28 pounds weighed.

    I take all the scag from smelting toss it in a tin can and when I scrap out metal it goes in as additional weight. Hey .09c per pound is better than nothing.

    I stood in a auto shop a while back and looked in their bucket with sadness in my heart as a good 80% of that bucket was zinc or iron. Being the thrifty fella I am. I said to myself, zinc brings .70c per pound so we may have an option to make a few dollars by scrapping the new stuff as well.
    Last edited by Black Powder Bill; 01-04-2014 at 01:16 PM.

  11. #91
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    RogerDat's Avatar
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    I made a run this weekend in search of WW's. I checked the local scrap dealers price and it was up 10 cents from last week to 30 cents a pound. I offer the tire shops what he would pay. Plus a dozen donuts for the shop.
    Results:
    One shop with 3/4 bucket with yield of 63# of CWW, 8# SWW and 14# of assorted Zn, Fe and debris.

    One shop (part of a national chain) said they could no longer sell to anyone but scrap dealers licensed to handle hazardous waste.

    A shop that said they didn't really have any because a "math teacher had cleaned them out for student experiments" just a couple of days ago. Call me cynical but I'm not buying a school allowing students to work with a couple hundred pounds of lead without considerable flack from parents. Me thinks someone is not being totally honest. The shop did say I could come back in a couple of weeks when they would have more.

    FWIW when I'm asked I tell the shop WW's are a very good lead alloy for casting. If they enquire further I tell them what I'm casting. I figure they have a right to make their own informed decision.

  12. #92
    Boolit Bub
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    I have a plastic five gallon bucket full of lead pucks. It is really heavy...

  13. #93
    Boolit Mold
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    I just got though smelting two presorted 5 gal. buckets this past week. I took about four hours and yielded a good bit. 118 round muffin pan (9 per pan ) ingots. Each weighs about 2+ lbs. It is work----period.

  14. #94
    Boolit Bub
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    I had a similar issue with a tire place in MN, guy told me they save all their WW and donate them to local boy scouts/cub scout leader for use in the wooden car races, said they use the lead to weight their cars. I LOL and told him that those cars can only take a few grams of lead an a single bucket would be enough lead to do about 10,000 cars. He looked at me kind of sideways and said he would have to talk to the guy next time he came in to get his 'free' lead donations.

    Quote Originally Posted by RogerDat View Post

    A shop that said they didn't really have any because a "math teacher had cleaned them out for student experiments" just a couple of days ago. Call me cynical but I'm not buying a school allowing students to work with a couple hundred pounds of lead without considerable flack from parents. Me thinks someone is not being totally honest. The shop did say I could come back in a couple of weeks when they would have more.

    FWIW when I'm asked I tell the shop WW's are a very good lead alloy for casting. If they enquire further I tell them what I'm casting. I figure they have a right to make their own informed decision.

  15. #95
    Boolit Master beezapilot's Avatar
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    My tire shop gives me a preference because I GIVE HIM EMPTY BUCKETS- well, mostly empty, they have a 6 pack in them. Everyone picks them up, nobody drops them off.
    The essence of education is self reliance- T.H. White.

    Currently seeking wood carving tools, wood planes, froes, scorps, spokeshaves... etc....

  16. #96
    Boolit Man louism's Avatar
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    Just finished a 5 gal bucket this weekend that I picked up last week from a friend that owns a tire repair shop. It yielded about 110lbs of ingots. a fair amount of steel weights but very few zinc. Still not bad considering it was free. Only cost was a quart of naphtha for the Coleman stove. Another plus is that I actually enjoy making ingots.
    "If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk.." --Lord Robert Baden-Powell

  17. #97
    Boolit Master
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    I got about the same 200lbs in 2 full buckets it cost me 50.00

  18. #98
    Boolit Bub

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    I Got 115 lbs from one 5 gal bucket cost 25$Click image for larger version. 

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  19. #99
    Boolit Bub
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    Quote Originally Posted by Polecat View Post
    I Got 115 lbs from one 5 gal bucket cost 25$Click image for larger version. 

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    That's pretty awesome!!!

  20. #100
    Boolit Bub
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    I pay the scrap yard 50c/# for pure lead sheets from xray shields. I found a guy with a PALLET of shielding but he can't weight that much so he won't sell it. He also got poisoned from melting it with a torch inside so he won't use it. I think it had some paint and other junk so his 2 day puke fest was probably from that, not lead. He was using a oxy/prop torch to melt it into a chair base?! Idk some people want to burn their house and lungs. Point is lead is everywhere. In Arkansas I get tons of ww for free just for asking or trading factory ammo. Got 80+ #s for 16 rounds of 5.56.
    Problem is I can't always make my alloy even so I ended up making some really soft boolits, bad leading too. I melted 500+ back into a pot of ww @ 50/50 so maybe that will work. The ingots are nice and hard.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check