$80 per pail for ww?

[Albertapete]

Some good news this week on the lead hunt, I managed to score a free 5 gal pail if ww as well as a chunk of nickle babbit that I am guessing to be about 15lbs give or take. I went to see a customer that I knew used babbit for his equipment and he gave me a box full of cast offs and scrap drippings that will melt into a nice ingot first chance I get.
I have yet to cast a bullit but figured I should collect what I can whenever I can so I have lots on hand when I finally get a mold

[looseprojectile]

Not in my lifetime.
My son made a deal with the local Mexican used tire dealer. $30.00 a bucket.
I thought at the time that he was being way too generous. That seems ok now.
I remember that I have bought surplus ammo for five cents a round or less and that seems cheap now but let a few years pass and even fifty cents seems to be the going rate for ammo. A good scrounger can still get lead for free or cheap.
My nephew that I havent heard from in years called a few days ago and told me that he has some lead for me. Couple of hundred pounds. Got it when he replaced an old tile roof.
Get the word out that you want lead and you never know when it will show up.
I do pretty good trading boolits for wheel weights.


Life is good

[home in oz]

They are drying up around here, too.

[a.squibload]

Stopped at the metal yard today, they want 85¢/lb, but all their lead gets thrown into one big box.
Found linotype, cast boolits, different shaped ingots, stick-on WWs, plumbers pipe, sheet lead, all in the same box.
And some weights like from an old scale, one was stamped, certified?
Also saw a bucket with about 2" of j-word bullets, looked like 7mm spire-point boat tails.
I think some reloader/caster gave it up and his stuff ended up at the scrapyard.
I got about 70 lbs, can only afford so much at a time.
The good news: if you're buying, they carry it to the car!

Plumber working on a freind's house last week lives near here,
said he might bring me some pipe once in a while,
said sometimes they're 100 lbs, hoped I didn't mind.
Haven't seen any yet though.

[lwknight]

Sprapyards are probably getting $0.85 from their smelters these days.
The market on lead is $1.02 .
Here is the catch that I have been seeing. Although the commodities market leads the lead prices , there is a delay of several months both ways. A few months ago when the market price of lead was $0.60 the local scrappers were paying $0.75 for lead because the market had been up to over a dollar.
Now the low prices thatwe had 2 months ago are catching up and the same scrap yards are paying only 53 cents per pound even though the market is back up over 1 dollar.

WWs are even lower than ever this year at the scrapyards. I think the going rate offer is thirty cents per pound.

What this exactly means is that the scrapyard prices will go up over the next few months and continue to go up even if the market stops where it is today.

The scrap buy prices are at a low for the year right now , so don't sell anything!

[Randall]

Just priced lead at the local scrapper, $.80 for WW,$1.05 for pure. I really do not want to pay that much so I will wait a while and hope it comes down.

[lwknight]

I think you will be waiting a very long time.

[WILCO]

They are drying up around here, too.

Pliers and darkness are all you need to get some.
I know, I know, too desperate. It's good to have a plan though.

[a.squibload]

Beep beep beep beep woooooot woooooot eeeeeooooo eeeeeooooo...

[FISH4BUGS]

Yes , nice clean pretty ingots are better than nasty old WWs in a rusty barrel.

Call me crazy but a sorted bucket of wheel weights in just as nice as ingots. Up here in NH the fall and early spring are smelting times - not too hot and not too windy. I usually smelt enough to last through the winter until the next smelting session.
It all depends on how much I shoot the subguns, though. You can burn through 1000 loaded rounds in an afternoon of full auto fun!

[9.3X62AL]

Scrap dealers are little more than latter-day alchemists, trying to turn lead into gold. The 'law of diminishing returns' kicked in long ago for me when it comes to scrounging and smelting. I doubt I'll do much smelting again, other than the 150# of WW I have sitting in a 15 gallon barrel under the casting bench. If I hear one more tire dude tell me that it's "illegal" for him so give or sell me WWs, I might just bounce a rock off his head. Scrapper bullsquat has all the tire people scared spitless. The upshot of all this--it's easier and less expensive to buy 10# of marijuana here than to get 1000# of lead.

Less work--less time--less stress to just bite the boolit and get "guaranteed assay" metal from a place like Rotometals. Not a plug for the company, just my view of the "time invested vs. gain received" equation in the Condor Cuddling Capitol of Capricious Crapola--California.

[ulav8r]

Bought a 5 gal bucket nearly full 2 weeks ago for $35, two days later got a 3 gal. bucket from the same tire store for 17.50. They got split and mixed in order to get them home. Dumped them on the drive and used a leaf blower to get rid of some of the dirt. Sorted out the stick ons, cigarette butts, iron and zinc weights that I could find. Ended up with 280 lbs of WW, about 5 lbs of stick ons and 15-20 lbs of iron and zinc weights that were not weighed. Smelted the WW's in two sessions. The first yielded 101 ingots at 126 lbs. The second yielded 73 ingots, not weighed.

My smelting sessions turned up several iron and zinc weights that I missed in my first sort. I skimmed off 30 pounds of clips and had 32 pounds of iron and zinc weights. Took them to the recycler and got $11.28 for the clips and weights.