Lost one soucre of WW, now will probably have to pay for them :(

[21Glock]

I had a service station about 3 miles from my home that was giving me free wws for the last 3-4 months. Went by last week and now they are having a hard time getting wws and said they are going to have to keep them and resuse them and not give them to me anymore. :(
A tire place where I do business from time to time, a little closer has them in greater volume, but I'm probably going to have paying for them by the 5 gal. bucket.

What is the best place to see what the current price per lb. on lead would be?

Call a recyle center?


I still may try to find a place that will give them to me free, but it will be harder to find now, I know.

[rmatchell]

I would find a local scrap yard and see if you can work out a deal. I found one near me that always has lead on hand and have been kissing *** to get a deal. One of the workers wants to get into casting and i said i would teach him what little i know so he pulls everything good to the side for me.

[21Glock]

Good idea. I'll check out some local scrap yards as well. I'm so busy with my businessduring the day and it's hunting season on the weekends now, don't have much time to go lead scavenging for more sources of free WWs.

[runfiverun]

i remember the first time i paid for a bucket of ww's [5 bucks]
now 20-40 seems to be the going rate if you can find any whatsoever.
i had a deal going with a local scrapper for 40 cents a lb if i bought a ton. [ww's or scrap lead if he had it]

[21Glock]

I got my first bucket free from a Goodyear Service dealer about 3-4 years ago. This last batch will probably be the last free ones I'll be able to find.
The place that I will go to now had 6 5 gal buckets of wws that they just taken to the recycler right before I got there last week. I'll go by there in mid Nov. and see what I get a bucket or two from them for. I'll probably have to pay somewhere in the $20-40 price range. Oh well, better that buying factory bullets, that's for sure.

[Gtek]

I wish I could get for 20-40. Those days are long gone here in Floridafornia. I was hooked in on several close sources, but has been declared Haz-Mat by the frog lickers once removed. I think I have enough till somebody throws dirt in my face. It is hard to quit hunting once bitten by the bug though. Gtek

[I'll Make Mine]

I paid $35 a couple weeks ago for an overflowing bucket (well over 100 lbs) that, based on about 1/3 sorted, is about 85% lead (alloy) by weight (remainder mostly steel with a little zinc); the lead is about 80% clip on, remainder the dead soft stick-on weights (I plan to further separate the stick-ons, so as to have soft and hard lead ingots). Looks like I'll be able to buy at that price as long as I can slip in between recycler visits (or until the recycler starts paying more); a few buckets a year, and I'll have half a ton of ingots before I know it... :)

[bumpo628]

See if they'll save the stick on weights for you. They can't reuse those.

[bslim]

I usually get a 5 gal. pail from a tire shop about once a month. I agreed to pay $.30/ lb. and have had this deal for the past year. After getting to know the people there, I explained to them that the percentage of zinc was getting higher and therefore a pail wasn't worth as much as in the past. The staff agreed and still does throw all of the zinc weights into a seperate pail. After sorting, they still miss some zinc and steel, I get a little over 100 lbs. per pail. After smelting, I'm around 85 lbs. / 5 gal pail for which I pay $30. There are so many guys with deals on WW's that I'm happy to have this source and at 85 lbs. / month I have a good back up supply.

[WILCO]

What is the best place to see what the current price per lb. on lead would be?

Just scroll up to the top of this page and look at the 24hr lead ticker.
Right now it's $0.9138 a lb. :coffee:

[21Glock]

Duh, if it had been a lead snake, it would have bit me. LOL. Thanks for pointing it out.

WOW! It has increased in value in the last few years.

[tbj555]

The price keeps going up and up .

[I'll Make Mine]

The price keeps going up and up .

Everything does, but lead is headed for where mercury has gone -- it's being phased out of everything where anything else will do the job. Solder -- Europe has completely banned lead for both electronic and plumbing solder, and plumbing solder is required to be lead free in the USA. Pipes, long, long gone. Roofing the same; I don't think anyone is putting lead on roofs any more (aluminum flashing is lots cheaper). Wheel weights -- same as solder, Europe has been off lead for years, and America is headed there (likely to steel, cheaper than zinc and similar density -- I've got much more steel than zinc in the bucket of weights I'm currently sorting). Bullets are about the only place lead can't be completely replaced, and many military rounds have been steel core with a thin lead sheath to take rifling, inside a steel jacket, for fifty years and more.

What happened to mercury? The price went down for a while, there was far more recycled mercury around than anyone had a need for -- but after a while, the price went back up, far beyond levels prior to phase-out, high enough to support a few mining operations at the low volume that matched the demand. Lead will be a little different, because it's produced as a by-product of silver mining -- but until recently, it was more a case of silver being the by-product, with most mines making much more on the lead than on the silver. I predict that within ten years, someone will find a way to refine silver and leave the lead in the slag -- and our lead prices will skyrocket. Scrap submarine ballast will only last so long, and the medical system doesn't really care what their isotope and x-ray lead costs, because they pass those costs to patients (hence to insurers) -- and they'll start recycling that "medical waste" when someone is willing to pay enough for it.

Fortunately, natural galena is common enough that reloading/casting suppliers can probably mine and refine directly -- but we'll be paying a lot more than a dollar a pound by that point...

[21Glock]

So whatever I can get, I should get when and where I find it. The next 6( or least several) 5gal. buckets at the tire place I talked with last week will be mine if I can swing a good deal with them later next month.