Battery cable ends ???

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I just came back from a scrounging tour.
I got lucky and got 100 lbs of WWs from one auto-recycler.
He called his metal recycler for a "buy" price...35¢
that was awesome, last time I bought from these guys,
they charged 43¢...last summer.
ANYWAY,
they had 2½ buckets (5 gal) of battery cable ends.
I passed...but am thinking of going back to get them,
SHOULD I ???
anybody have a clue about the alloy ?
Jon

[geargnasher]

YOU DUMB *** ! :kidding:

Go back and get them pronto if the price is still 35 cents. The alloy varies greatly, but usually falls somewhere between sticky and clippy wheel weights on average. You will need to flux and stir and flux again with sawdust because they make those things out of whatever cheap scrap can be had (like boolits, right?) and they tend to contain impurities. Throw in a pinch of tin and you have a great, guilt-free plinking alloy for all your pistols. Save the copper wire strands from the smelt and resell it as clean copper.

Gear

[beagle]

Yeah, battery clamps are good as gold...I mean lead. Take all you can find and ask for more. The do gooders are even protesting their way into this source and clamps are going to lighter duty steel clamps now so this source may not be around forever either./beagle

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

well....... I went back over to the junkyard this afternoon.
I bought the 330 lbs of battery terminals, yep still 35¢.
Boy will this be a mess to smelt,
I hope I can cut most of the plastic off first.
Jon

[Ervin]

Beware. Buy them but note that I have found zink cable ends. Good buy.
Ervin

[cf_coder]

Oh to have your problems... :-)

[nanuk]

zinc is being used up here for locally manufactured cables

but lead (?) is what is in the stores

[tudor8055]

I have owned a truck repair shop for ten years and run two balancers. I threw the wheel weights away for seven years. After hand loading for about 25 years I decided to try casting. I kick myself for all the wheel weights I threw out. Now I keep all I generate and hit up all my buddies who own shops for their weights. I have a couple 5 gal. buckets of battery terminal ends sitting around so thanks for the info.

[GP100man]

Stay upwind & throw a peice of pariffin wax in when it starts smokin ,give it a second then throw a match in, it should ignite & burn the cruddys so they don`t smoke & stink so bad .

Did find 1 zinc 1 though . It looked alot different from the rst of em though.

& maybe the neighbors won`t smell it & call DEHEC on ya !!! Geeshh a man can`t even shoot his own laptop anymore without gettin the law siccked on em !!LOL

[41 mag fan]

I get on avg, about 30-50lbs of battery terminal straps from work each week, for free.
Right now I'm sitting on 800-1000lbs that need smelted and poured into ingots.

Here's a pic of 1 of 15 miner bit boxes I have full.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/49154f44f911a8968.jpg

[10 ga]

Battery cable and terminal posts are good stuff. I always have a set of the small bolt cutters, a 3 # hammer and cold chisel, and my WW pliers for whenever I happen upon a "source" of "ore". With the scrap prices so high lots of sources have been hauled away out of the woods and field edges. 10 ga

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

well....... I went back over to the junkyard this afternoon. I bought the 330 lbs of battery terminals, yep still 35¢.
Boy will this be a mess to smelt,I hope I can cut most of the plastic off first.

Well, I smelted this yesterday.
The first pot full was a disaster. I didn't heed my own advice of
cutting most of the plastic off. (remember I live in town).
But live and learn. I did smelt all 330 lbs yesterday.
I got about 260 lbs of alloy.
about 50lbs or so of steel and 10 lbs of copper/brass.
I did find about five Zinc ends and many brass ends.
there was a handfull of them that looked brand new.
two of them were the disconnect (with large screw knob) type.

I also smelted some scrap solder/copper wire mix from a electronic company,
that was much easier than I thought, yielded about about 6 lbs of 60SN/40PB

Next up today...WW I have about 10 partial buckets, I learned not to fill them the first time I collected and smelted ;)
Jon

[Beagler]

What was their address again missed it the first time! ;)
I just came back from a Lead scrounging tour.
I got lucky and got 100 lbs of WWs from one auto-recycler.
He called his metal recycler for a "buy" price...35¢
that was awesome, last time I bought from these guys,
they charged 43¢...last summer.
ANYWAY,
they had 2½ buckets (5 gal) of battery cable ends.
I passed...but am thinking of going back to get them,
SHOULD I ???
anybody have a clue about the alloy ?
Jon

PS. I stopped at cabelas for primers and powder. DANG, Powder has gone up.
I went to grafs website...them too.
At Cabelas powder prices started at $22 and went to $29 per lb.
Last fall when I was there, they had lots of stuff in that $17 - $19 range.
BTW 2400 at Cabelas $28 !!! wholy krap !!!

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

What was their address again missed it the first time! ;)

Central MN