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Thread: how many pounds in a 5gal bucket?

  1. #21
    Boolit Buddy redbear705's Avatar
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    more lead=less crud!

    JR
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  2. #22
    Boolit Buddy
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    Your location may dictate yield ...

    I live in Southern Oregon just a few miles from the Kalifornia/Oregon border and after my most recent experience with WW melting, I have to say that one's locaton may well dictate the yield that one gets from each 5 gal bucket of WWs. I say this because I just finished melting down about 25 gallons of WWs - six 5gal buckets, each filled to about 80+ % of capacity - with a total yield of 250lbs of 1lb ingots from clip-on WWs and an additional 59lbs of 1lb ingots from stick-on WWs. So my total yield was just about 310lbs which is a good deal less than what others commenting on this thread seem to be getting.

    The reason I think my yield was so much lower was the fact that a lot of Kalifornia drivers come to Southern Oregon to buy their new tires just to avoid the sales taxes that are imposed in Kalifornia. And since Kalifornia has gone almost completely to zinc or steel WWs - deadline for the change is Dec 31 of this year - I'm beginning to see a lot more of those mixed into the buckets of WWs that I get via my family member who works for Les Schwab who, by the way, has stopped using any lead based WWs and is now using only zinc or steel. I was just amazed how many of those useless - as far as boolit making is concerned - WWs I had to scoop out of the pot along with the steel clips from the lead WWs. About twice as many as I saw when I did my last melting about 4 months ago. And my guess is that the number will only increase as time goes on and more and more tire dealers cease using lead WWs in favor of zinc or steel. So that's why I'm getting all I can from anywhere I'm able 'cause it won't be long before the lead WW will have gone the way of the Dinosaurs!! But I guess there might be a bright side to this story since once the lead WW is gone, my ingots will do nothing but go up in value and pretty soon they'll really be worth a LOT of money!! But since I love casting boolits so much, I'll probably never even consider selling them so I guess it really doesn't matter how much they're worth.

    I forgot to mention that my family member who gets me the WWs refuses to charge me anything - I used to take him hunting when he was a kid - but I still give him a few bucks each time as well as making sure that I get all my tires and brakes from the store where he works. Like they say, it pays to have a friend in the business!!

    sleeper1428

  3. #23
    Boolit Master
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    i would not pay that much for a bucket of wheel weights. the most i ever paid was $5. i have 2 buckets that i have to go pick up now for free.

  4. #24
    Boolit Master



    Charlie Sometimes's Avatar
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    I've got a 5 gal bucket full of WW at 175 lbs.- can't get anymore into it than that.
    I have said before that I thought a full bucket would weigh 300 lb. (because I couldn't lift it) but I can not get one to hold that much now.

    Ingots on the other hand, WILL exceed my thresh hold, and bust a bucket, and a gut!
    USMC 1980-1985

  5. #25
    Boolit Master

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    You are lucky! Many of us have to compete with the sinker makers. For more information go to this recent thread:

    http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=40765

    Here is the info I posted in that thread:

    "As I said in my post yesterday, I finished sorting the 2nd bucket of WW this morning. I weighed each pile.

    Misc Trash incl. non-lead weights----- 11 lbs 3.5%
    Stick-on weights-------------------------- 45 lbs 14%
    Clip-on weights---------------------------262 lbs 83%

    Total 318 lbs"


    By the way, one of these buckets was a plastic bucket of more than 5 gal capacity. It weighed 165 lbs before I sorted it.

    Compared to the OP, these 2 buckets should have a good yield of WW ingots. Obviously, the Greenies haven't infected Tennessee to the extent that they have CA.

    John
    W.TN

  6. #26
    Boolit Master

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    My last bucket was a gem. Weighed 142 lbs. raw, After sorting [very little stick ons] I got 120 lbs. of smelted WW.
    Larry

  7. #27
    Boolit Master

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    In total, I have about 100 lbs of stick-ons and 250 lbs of operating room shielding. I know the shielding is "pure" lead. I plan to keep it separate from the stick-ons and compare hardness when I finish converting to ingots. Has anyone done this?

    I know the normal assumption is that stick-ons are also "pure" lead but I'm not convinced yet. When I say pure, I'm not talking 99.99% pure, but within reason. I wouldn't know the difference anyway. If the hardness is within one unit of pure(5 bhn), I will assume pure. Any dissenters?

    John
    W.TN

  8. #28
    In Remembrance - Super Moderator & Official Cast Boolits Sketch Artist

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    always carry you a bucket the tire shops are not in the lead recycleing bus i have gotten buckets of wws and just swapped out a bucket to get home and find half the bucket was trash. And what i mean by trash is not clips but dirt so i got half a bucket full not a full bucket it they want 20 bucks for a bucket of wws they need to have a bucket full.
    Reloading to save money I am sure the saving is going to start soon

  9. #29
    Boolit Master Tokarev's Avatar
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    A really full-full bucket can house 180 lb. I have two in the garage right now.
    Remarks by President Biden on the Hostage Situation at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, January 16, 2022:
    "But you can’t stop something like this if someone is on the street buying something from somebody else on the street."

  10. #30
    Boolit Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ricky P View Post
    always carry you a bucket the tire shops are not in the lead recycleing bus i have gotten buckets of wws and just swapped out a bucket to get home and find half the bucket was trash. And what i mean by trash is not clips but dirt so i got half a bucket full not a full bucket it they want 20 bucks for a bucket of wws they need to have a bucket full.
    I got a bucket one time that had 4-6 inches of gear oil in the bottom. I was glad it didn't turn over in my truck. Didn't affect the weight too much but sure was a mess.

  11. #31
    Boolit Mold
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    if you cant find them at the tire shops or dealers, dont forget auto salvage yards. they charge 10/bucket here if they pull them. you can scavenge the yard and keep what you find if you pull them yourself. havent gotten that hard up for them yet.

  12. #32
    Boolit Mold
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    I just completed a 5 Gallon bucket ened up with 148 lbs:cbpour

  13. #33
    Boolit Buddy
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    Just got a full (and I mean FULL, heaped and rounded over on the top) five gallon pail that weighed in at 160 lbs. Very little trash in it, and only half a dozen zinc weights. I was very pleased.

  14. #34
    Boolit Master FISH4BUGS's Avatar
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    The answer......

    Quote Originally Posted by jawjaboy View Post
    But what if the entire bucket is full of nothing but 4(minimum) to 16 ounce truck weights?
    That will cause you to throw your ****** away!

  15. #35
    Boolit Bub
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    A friend of mine brought me about half a 5gal bucket he picked up at a small tire shop (was waiting for his car to be finished and idly asked for WWs). It cooked down to about 42lbs of muffins and had fewer than 10 zinc/steel weights. There was a good amount of trash and dirt, but nothing too onerous.

    This was my first exposure to zinc WW (I'm new to this). I was happy to learn that they're pretty obvious if you do the pliers squeeze test and that they're also pretty obvious as the lead melts.

    Chris

  16. #36
    Boolit Grand Master

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    A lesson for you young folks.
    No use to have a ton of lead if ya can't sit or stand to shoot.
    I used to be proud of how much I could lift. Now I'm proud if I can lift my butt out of a chair without a groan.
    You will not be young and strong forever. If you abuse your back, it WILL make an old man out of you at an early age.
    Take a couple buckets with ya to pick up the weights. High grade into them on sight, and don't lift over a half bucket. There's no point in hauling trash, and unless its free, no point in paying for trash either.

  17. #37
    Boolit Master Russel Nash's Avatar
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    ^^^^ good point.

    The other reason I bring a lot of buckets along is that I can just load them half way.

    I had a nearly full one go ka-putt on me one time. The wire type handle pulled right out of the plastic and if I didn't have those cat like reflexes like I do, it would have landed on my foot and broken it.

    Talking about stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime.... how much work would I have missed out on if had broken my foot? 5 to 6 weeks worth of paychecks sure would have paid for a lot of those j-word bullets instead.

  18. #38
    Boolit Master markinalpine's Avatar
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    Thumbs up Bring presents!

    One shop I visit is owned by a nice lady. I gave her one of my ingots cast in a corn bread cast iron mould, that I had painted bright yellow and covered the bottom with self-stick felt used by craft people to protect furniture.

    At another shop, I brought the manager a set of rifle and revolver dummy (no primer or powder) rounds that I made while setting up the reloading dies. I also brought along extra dummy rounds to give the workers who were interested. One of the workers mentioned that he would be interest in fishing sinkers if I ever made any, so I gave him an unpainted corn bread ingot. He was quite happy and said he could use it to weight down a trot line for cat-fishing.

    I drove away with two five gallon buckets!

    Mark
    Any way you sell it,
    No matter how you spell it,
    When you start to smell it,
    BO Stinks!

  19. #39
    Boolit Mold
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    Smile How much is in a 5 gal bucket

    WE HAVE 3 CARS WE BUY TIRES FOR. I HAVE BEEN DOING BUSNESS WITH THIS TIRE CO FOR OVER 20 YEARS.WHEN I GO BY THERE TO ROTATE OR BY TIRES I ASK
    IF I CAN GET A BUCKET OF LEAD 5 GAL LAST TIME WAS $10.00 AND AFTER PROCESSING INT WT 140 Lbs CLEANED UP TO ABOUT 110 Lbs OF GREAT LEAD
    ? IS HOW MANY BULLETS CAN YOU GET OUT OF THAT!!!!
    NEVER HURTS TO TALK SHOOTING OR HUNTING AND INVITING THEM OUT WHEN SEASON OPENS. KEEP IT IN THE 10 RING AND INJOY THE SPORT
    GRAY GHOST

  20. #40
    Boolit Mold
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    I lucked out, a large tire store in town gave me 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket of assorted wheelweights about a year ago. I picked out all the ribbon weights and was able to get 25 lbs of ingots out of them and about 25 lbs of ingots out of the clip-on weights. I still have a lot of the zinc and iron weights in the bucket that I'm going to sort out and sell for scrap, which might pay for the cost of some of my equipment. I thought it was about 30 or 40 lbs, based on the estimates I've read, it might have been more like 70 or 80.

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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