55 cents per lb. wheel weights too high?

[Arceagle]

Found a local source today that sells clip on wheel weights for 55 cents per lb, is that too high? I'm going to go ahead and get a couple of hundred lbs from him tomorrow and see what kind of yield I get but it would have to be pretty good to be cheaper than buying from other members on this forum. I would have the fun of spending hours sorting and smelting them myself however.

My lead stash since I started last December is about 100 lbs of recycled range lead purchased from members, 100 lbs of coww from my father in law who had a station in the early 80's and about 60 lbs of pure lead from various sources. I also have about 40 lbs of melted cast bullets from various commercial casters accumulated from 30+ years of reloading. I also bought 100 lbs. of chilled magnum hard birdshot.

I have all but given up on buying any coww directly from tire shops. Any way back to my reason for the question about price. This source has a 55 gallon steel drum full of coww he is selling what I don't buy now to someone else by the end of the week. Is it worth a gamble without knowing the yeild to buy all I can get before these are gone. He said that this is over 2 years accumulation of him buying this lead for resale.

I have a copy of this question in the cast boolit section too, just trying to get some answers quickly before they are gone.

[bumpo628]

It's not a bad price and the best thing is that it is local.
Since they have been collected over 2 years, you'll probably only have about 15% waste (iron & zinc). The deeper you go into the barrel, the more lead there will likely be.

[eldoradolee]

:lol:
It's not a bad price and the best thing is that it is local.
Since they have been collected over 2 years, you'll probably only have about 15% waste (iron & zinc). The deeper you go into the barrel, the more lead there will likely be.If you are happy with the price,does it matter? Lee

[handyman25]

At the salvage yard they want $1 per pound for scrap lead. I checked it and it was soft. So your price to me is good.

[Roundnoser]

It all comes down to what YOU think is a good price, but there is always more than one way to skin a cat!

Check with your scrap dealers about the price of scrap steel. In my area, they are buying it for $11 per each 100 pounds. When you smelt your WWs, save the steel clips, steel WWs, lug nuts, etc until you have a few hundred pounds. That will help off-set the price you pay for the WWs. In this game, every little bit counts...its part of the fun.

[badgeredd]

I am fortunate to be able to get WW a bit cheaper BUT I don't feel $.55/pound is outrageous in todays market. Since one is going to see less salvaged lead WW in the the not to distant future, I'd suggest you buy as much as you can afford now. The days of free WW are all but gone for most of us with scrap yards taking an advantage of the dwindling WW supply. Reminds me I need to check my source soon also.

Edd

[dRok]

If they are decent sized WW's and not much junk thats not horrible. The most I have paid recently is .40/lb. Local recycle place dropped what they are paying recently from .30 to .15/lb so Im going to lower what I offer people also. I save all my FE and ZN's and haul them to the scrap place to recoup some of my costs. I hauled in a bucket the other day that hand 130lbs of zn and steel in it and got a check for $20.

[Arceagle]

I got to the shop this morning at 0900 and his buyer was there loading everything up with a forklift. I panicked and bought 3 buckets full that totaled just shy of 450 lb. I also bought 100 lb of pure lead he had in plates and cable sheathing. in the 100 lbs stack he also had some very soft lead wire (about 10 lbs) looked like good stuff.

What they were loading on the truck was enough to make you cry. It wasn't just 1 full drum it was 4 - 30 gallon drums and a whole pallet stacked with 5 gal buckets all WWs and about 8 pallets of various types of pure lead. Some of the lead plates were from a nearby hospital that got hit by a tornado a few years back. I don't know what all had already been put in the truck but they were shoveling WWs off the ground into a 55 gal drum from another drum that had fallen thru a pallet while trying to load it.

No telling where all this good lead is going to eventually end up.

[Suo Gan]

The poem of the new lead horder:

Sweet is the hunting! The shooting man says in his soul, "I must have more lead!" Forever I will mine berms, forever I will lug filthy buckets into my truck, I live for a wheel weight and await its putrid smoke like a junkie waits for a fix. I have a muffin pan with the charred remains of cornbread ready to go, my wife will not miss this pot, I hope. I melt it and it is silver, and floats steel! But what is this? What is this foam? I must have zinc! But wait, I have been using Marvalux, that is not the stuff, saw dust, yes! I know now when the first ingot leaves my cupcake mold I am more resilient that a dandelion, a thousand angry bureaucrats cannot keep me down! I have a stack of lead ingots, I put inside a milk crate, ugh! Too heavy, a coffee can! Can you imagine a liberals face when they see my coffee! Ha! Jacketed bullet shooters fear me! Little girls cry when I walk by for fear of lead poisoning. I have 389 pounds of lead and have a goal. I will not rest, for I am a hunter of lead!

In five years:

"What in the hell am I going to do with all this lead?"

[dRok]

So was the guy buying all of this lead also paying .55/lb? Wouldnt be much profit in it for him if he was taking it to recycle. I wonder where it is headed.

[bumpo628]

The poem of the new lead horder:

Sweet is the hunting! The shooting man says in his soul, "I must have more lead!" Forever I will mine berms, forever I will lug filthy buckets into my truck, I live for a wheel weight and await its putrid smoke like a junkie waits for a fix. I have a muffin pan with the charred remains of cornbread ready to go, my wife will not miss this pot, I hope. I melt it and it is silver, and floats steel! But what is this? What is this foam? I must have zinc! But wait, I have been using Marvalux, that is not the stuff, saw dust, yes! I know now when the first ingot leaves my cupcake mold I am more resilient that a dandelion, a thousand angry bureaucrats cannot keep me down! I have a stack of lead ingots, I put inside a milk crate, ugh! Too heavy, a coffee can! Can you imagine a liberals face when they see my coffee! Ha! Jacketed bullet shooters fear me! Little girls cry when I walk by for fear of lead poisoning. I have 389 pounds of lead and have a goal. I will not rest, for I am a hunter of lead!

In five years:

"What in the hell am I going to do with all this lead?"


The man is a Shakespeare!

[rayv]

The poem of the new lead horder:

Sweet is the hunting! The shooting man says in his soul, "I must have more lead!"
....snip .....
I have 389 pounds of lead and have a goal. I will not rest, for I am a hunter of lead!

In five years:

"What in the hell am I going to do with all this lead?"

Suo Gan, I laughed until my sides hurt.
And, unfortunately, as a beginner, I can identify with this. So .... at least I'll know what to say in 4 years, 11 months. :-)

[Arceagle]

So was the guy buying all of this lead also paying .55/lb? Wouldnt be much profit in it for him if he was taking it to recycle. I wonder where it is headed.

Wondered that myself. I doubt he was paying as much as I was, but I'm going to keep checking with this guy from time to time. Looked like he was cleaning house, everything had been wrapped for shipping except for the pallets where he was getting the lead that I bought. With all the different types of lead he was selling he must have been accumulating this stuff for awhile and from a lot of different sources.