A newbies misadventures in buying lead scrap

[psychicrhino]

I am a new member to the forum but have enjoyed reading it for a while. I am new to casting and reloading too but after years of watching friends reload I finally put an order in for a single stage Lee anniversary kit, a couple of dies and bullet molds, casting and reloading manuals dippers, thermometer, powder and primer. It is all on it's way. So after reading lots of forums and posts I first let my friends and family know I was going to start reloading and asked them to keep an eye out for brass and lead for me. Pretty quickly my wifes grand father had rounded up about 40# of lead flashing, lead pipe and a block of lead he said he used to use for pipe joints - all of it very soft so I assume nearly pure lead. Over the next couple of weeks I stopped and asked at 10 tire stores " Do you ever sell any of your old lead wheel wts". Seven told me thatt either a. We are under contract to sell it to the folks that scrap our batteries b. I save it and haul it home. C.No D. We have a guy that buys it to make bullets (THE NERVE!). E. We reuse them. F. They cost too much so we reuse them. G. We reuse all we can. Felt a bit like getting turned down by all the pretty gals for a dance. Persistance however paid off......kind of. One of the other three looked like selling the lead was a new concept but he was willing. He took the $20 offer for a heaping 2.5 gallon bucket which turned out to be #128 total with about 20% of that being non lead. Was about half coww and half stickies. Thanked and told him Id come by in a couple weeks and check him again. Seller number two was a place I was getting a tractor tube put in. He said he usually got $40 for a full 5 gallon bucket. What he though was a slightly less than half a bucket. After som neg. We agreed on $20. When I picked it up it seemed lighter than the fist bucket Id bought by quite a bit. When I got home I discovered that there was about a quarter bucket of mud under the lead. Once washed there was #48 ow ww with only #38 being lead ( this was a learning moment ). I will now and forever at the very least pick up the bucket before making an offer. Seller # 3 also looked like selling lead was a new concept as he said he usually made trotline wts with them. He too had a 2.5 gallon bucket that was a couple inches from the top.( picked it up and guessed it to be around #100 of something). I offered $ 15 and we settled on $20. This was today and Ive not yet sorted it but I did weigh it at #102. Had a big nail, lugnut, piece of plexi and a couple valve stems on top. Also tried three scrap yards. One didnt sell lead the other two sold it for.0.90 and 1.00 respectively. I bought #11 of clean roof vents ( 3 of them) just to try out the process. Lastly I called the same scrap yards back later and asked what they paid for lead. One gave 0.40/lb on ww/flashing. The other paid 0.24/lb on ww and 0.36/lb on flashing. So pretty soon Ill get my casting book in and read and will break out the coleman stove and see what kind of mess I can make. Hope somebody gets something out of this adventure/ mis adventure in lead buying. Thank you all for all of the posts youve written and allowed me to enjoy.

[psychicrhino]

6450864508

[psychicrhino]

Well after a bit of worry that Id not be smart enough to get a pic posted. It turns out I was so smart I got it done twice :)

[jmort]

Interesting, but what where are the mistakes? Even the "mud bucket" was not a bad deal. Sounds like your are doing everything right.

[dudits]

them sure are some purdy pics!!!

i showed a friend of mine a few buckets of WW and was all excited tellin him how pretty a site it was. he just didnt concur.
he actually replied "there is something wrong with you"

welcome to the addiction :)
and looks and sounds as you did quite well for yourself.
the stores always tell me no, so i have my fiance do it and she scores ALOT

[Bullshop]

Dibs on the big nail.

[psychicrhino]

@jmortimer- Thanks. I guess the mud bucket was the main "hee haw hee haw" moment. The multiple rejections in a row were also a big surprise, I guess cause twenty years ago I wasgladly given many buckets of lead qe uses for melting into old valve covers as molds then drilling and mounting them in a buddiea dirt track car.

@dudits- great Idea about using a front man....er woman!

[psychicrhino]

@bullshop- Im gonna try to catch one of these northern bound ducks and "duck tape" it to his leg and get it coming via......wait for it......."air mail". Keep an eye out. BTW- lived in Girdwood for a while once upon a time. Miss the summer not the winters.

[fish0123]

Keep it up, the more scrap wheel weights you buy the better chance you have of finding something cool. To date my best prize has been a pocket knife and a wrench in a 5 gallon bucket of wheel weights.

[psychicrhino]

Hey just sorted out todays bucket and got my first prize....some gnarly yet serviceable needle nose pliers! Total was #96 lead / @6# non-lead. 75% coww. Im about #300 into my #1000 goal.

[Hyphenated]

That's a great start and story. A buddy of mine who sells insurance and has heard the word 'no' more times than our national debt (16.7trillion) says it never hurts to ask. Nobody has ever punched him for asking. So keep up the good work.

[psychicrhino]

Yeah, you're right. Daddy used to always say " Don't cost nuthin' to ask." I work a part time one day a week in a city about an hour away today. Will likely do some stoppin and askin at some new places today.

[FLHTC]

Forget the tire shops, go to your local scrap yard.

[Taylor]

I want the piece of copper tube.

[Sasquatch-1]

I figure if you are averaging 50 to 75 cents a pound, with your time and expense you are still doing better then buying. I will also say if your goal is a thousand pounds you may want to invest in a turkey frier burner.

[spuddicus]

I bought a double propane burner from BassPro and use that for my melts. Two cast iron dutch ovens going at the same time ~100# melts
you can burn through a lot of lead in a hurry.

And in the Summer we use it to can vegetables outside to keep the house from getting hot. <-- that's how you sell the wife on it :D

[Texantothecore]

Master PO, one of my Facebook buddies, asked me to pass this on:

"You're doing well, Grasshopper."

[alamogunr]

Forget the tire shops, go to your local scrap yard.

I suppose that works if you live near a large metropolitan area. If not, you have to contend with surly, obnoxious people. I have no need to be verbally abused so I avoid scrap yards. Gives new meaning to "Junk Yard Dog".

[dakotashooter2]

Even at $1 Lb and adding in your smelting costs you are probably still under a nickle a bullet. Far cheaper than anything you can buy...............

[H.Callahan]

I suppose that works if you live near a large metropolitan area. If not, you have to contend with surly, obnoxious people. I have no need to be verbally abused so I avoid scrap yards. Gives new meaning to "Junk Yard Dog".
Amen! I live in a community that hovers around 100,000. There are a grand total of 2 junkyards. One will not sell any scrap including lead. The other will, but I get the distinct impression they feel I am, somehow, robbing their profits as I don't deal in multi-ton quantities.

You folks near real cities have it good. You have, at least, a lot of places that you can check.

[Bullet Caster]

I do not wish to offend any nationality, so please take this at face value. I went to the newest tire shop here in eastern TN, and mexicans ran the tire shop. I inquired as to selling me some wheel weights and asked about the price. He told me in broken English that he sold it for $8.00/pound. Then I asked him in Spanish 'cause I thought he didn't fully understand me. He then told me in Spanish the same thing. I retorted, "what?" He said someone comes by every week and pays the $8.00/pound for his wheel weights. I then muttered in Spanish something about torro mierda which is BS in English. So now I've got to find a scrap yard somewhere in this tourist trap town. BC

[FLHTC]

I suppose that works if you live near a large metropolitan area. If not, you have to contend with surly, obnoxious people. I have no need to be verbally abused so I avoid scrap yards. Gives new meaning to "Junk Yard Dog".
I live in a community of 15,000 according to last years census. You are stereotyping! There are two major recyclers within a short distance from me with one being less than 5 miles. I haven't bought lead in several years but its there when i want it. Range brass by the 55 gallon drum. Im hours from a big city but i live in a pro gun state with the largest amount of licensed hunters in the country.

[BubbaJon]

Man - sounds almost exactly like my experiences except my biggest haul was given free. All said and done tho I only netted about 50# as fully 2/3 of mine was iron and zinc weights. Be extra careful hand sorting so you don't get any zinc in your mix - I can attest it's a PITA to get out and you'll just waste some of that lead you worked hard for.
Good luck!

[psychicrhino]

Best I could find at the scrap yard was lead flashing for 0.90/#. After picking out the iron and zn wts and before I have smelted any and lost the wt of the clips I am at about 0.25/#.

[psychicrhino]

Sooo... I made 5 more stops today at a variety of difft sized tire shops. Here are the replys:

#1- " a friend of the boss gets them"
#2- "I melt them for fishing weights"
#3- " my dads not here to say"
#4- "que?"
#5" we reuse all of them"

I also stopped by the mud bucket place asit has been a couple weeks. He said it would take 2-3 mo to fill another bucket. Told him id check back. So lots of rejections and no new lead.

[Whiterabbit]

I do not wish to offend any nationality, so please take this at face value. I went to the newest tire shop here in eastern TN, and mexicans ran the tire shop. I inquired as to selling me some wheel weights and asked about the price. He told me in broken English that he sold it for $8.00/pound. Then I asked him in Spanish 'cause I thought he didn't fully understand me. He then told me in Spanish the same thing. I retorted, "what?" He said someone comes by every week and pays the $8.00/pound for his wheel weights. I then muttered in Spanish something about torro mierda which is BS in English. So now I've got to find a scrap yard somewhere in this tourist trap town. BC

No offense at all. But honestly, good for that guy! I wish I could find someone to pick up my empty beer bottles for 25 cents each too. That would be amazing.

[dudits]

lol, i would happily sell some WW for 8$ lb

[psychicrhino]

An update as the search continues. Well one of the members mentioned that he has better luck when his fiancee to ask the tire strores about WW. Sooo, my wife works in a differnet town than I about 40 min away and therefore passes some different places. I asked if she would stop and try at one of the stores she would be passing. I told her to offer $20 for a short 2.5 gal bucket/ up to $40 on a five gallon bucket - this is about what I've paid at the places willing to talk about selling. So she stopped (tire store #16) and asked if they had any WW she could get. She said the employee, said that "We could probably give you a couple if that would get you buy". She explained that she hoped they might have a bucket or so to buy. She reported that he said he had a bucked or two full around in the shop and took her to look. Once in the shop he looked around and asked a hispanic gentleman who worked there where the ww were to which was replied "I threw them away" :( So, she then said she decided she would try one more place (tire store #17) - (I have a very indulgent wife) and said she met with the worker and explained what she was looking for. He replied "The owner said we can't give them away any more because they are gettin so expensive that we might have to start washing and reusing them". She indicated that the employee did not appear fond of this prospect. She then explained that she was willing to pay for them" and quoted what I'd told her. He then pointed at what she described as - 10 heaping 5 gallon buckets of wheel weights in the corner. She offered to buy one or all - the employee said he would contact the owner took my wifes phone number. Now, assuming her assessment is correct, and I imagine it is - and based on the few buckets I've weighed.... I conservatively estimate that there could be 1000-2000# of lead there :) So, maybe we will get call - as that would easily surpass my goal of collecting 1000# of lead.

Oh, and I just got my notice last night that Natches has shipped my lee loader, dies, ingot mold,bullet molds, dipper, therm, lube, casting manual, loading manual and other sundries I thought I needed to get started (this is what I do when I take on a new hobby - read, and think, and read about it then jump in whole hog).

My wife's grand dad just gave me a few hundred sq ft of "take off tin" for a couple of barns he had re-roofed. I will likely build a small addition 12x32 on a shed I have on the place - away from the house and use half of the new space for reloading.

I used to pick up coleman stoves at yard sales anytime I could get them for a couple of bucks so I have a half dozen of them. I also have a couple of fish friers and have rounded up a pretty beat up 2 gallon stainless pot for smelting and have a couple of worn out skillets I thought I could use for pre-heating lead to make sure it was dry. I wonder about the pot I've got though as it is not very thick. If you press really hard you can flex the side a little. Anyway, once I give my new casting manual a good read I plan to try to smelt a small batch.

I have been trying very carefully to sort the SOWW from the COWW and the iron and zinc and trash from those. Do most people smelt the raw WW, flux multi times then make ingots of -just one kind of ww or the other? Then when they get ready to cast bullets to they mix say-- one ingot of SOWW and one ingot of COWW-- to make their bullet alloy? I guess my casting manual may answer this questions but from what I've read the 50:50 mix seems commonly used for making bullet alloy.

I plan to reload for 30-30 exclusively at first and have a set of lee carbide dies for that coming. I have also purchased a supply of Remington large rifle primers and a pound of the Leverevolution powder. The only 30 cal 2 cavity mold Natches had when I ordered was one I will plan for plinking and not hunting as it was LEE90362 MOLD D C 309-113-F. But I have mult 30 cal rifles so I figured this was a fine start. I really wanted to get a blunt nose 30 cal mold in a 150 grain that I could try out for a deer hunting bullet in the Win 94 30-30s, model 99 300 savage, 30-06 handi-rifles I have. Then later look into non-blunt nose 170-180 gr molds for the savage and handi-rifle.

Oh, lastly I wanted to mention another potential - though very minor- source of lead. My friends wanted to get together and do some shooting so I built a simply bullet trap a few weeks ago from a five gallon bucket with lid/ old inner tube/ sand (a design I probably read about on here). By shooting into the lid (I have a lot of lids) It caught a variety of rounds quite neatly (.22, .223, .38, 9mm) - and once I dried the sand out by spreading it on a tarp in the sun - it filtered very easily through an old piece of screen - voila - couple of pounds of lead - I should maybe post a pic.

Ooops, looking over my post I see that I have rambled and asked multiple questions, provided many of my unfounded assumptions (which I welcome the collective to correct) and a mass of likely unimportant information. How big of a room do you need for reloading - will 12x12 or 12x16 be adequate?

[Whiterabbit]

for reloading? I don't know what I NEED, but I USE a 2'x4' table with two shelves above and a shelf below for EVERYTHING reloading and bullet prep (including sizing, gas check seating, and lubing) minus the actual casting pot and loaded ammo storage.

[shadygrady]

send that zinc to me for lead

[runfiverun]

melt the s'o and c'o ww's separately.
if you use a pair of wire nippers on the ww's you'll recognize their hardness after a bit and can even separate out the hard stick-on's.
I usually end up with about 25% stick-on's so that's how I started mixing my alloy.

the reloading room thing.
you ain't never gonna have enough room.
I built my garage into a shop just for casting [and storage,,,siiigh] but my shotshell reloading spilled out into the same area.
I have one room in the house for metallic reloading, and another area in the basement for storing umm stuff.
I could use another 12-15 feet of bench right now just to get my unused presses mounted.
and another 4' shelf would be nice for storage.

[David2011]

Just went throught that decision making myself. I decided to build a 12x12 for casting and reloading as part of a buildout in a much larger shop. That's more than enough room for 4 permanently mounted presses and a couple of stations for whatever needs to be mounted.

Best thing I did for my reloading bench: Several years ago I made a bunch of 1/2"x6"x12" plates that all have the same mounting hole pattern and set 1/4" brass threaded inserts into the workbench top so it's easy to swap presses, powder measures, case trimmers, the pocket swager or any other reloading tool out to configure the bench to what I'm doing at the moment. A T-handled Allen wrench and socket head capscrews make fast work of the swaps. After using them for a while I decided that steel was WAY excessive for most applications. Most of the tools like trimmers, the pocket swager and powder measures can be mounted on 1/4" aircraft ply, available at craft stores and hobby shops so I replaced the steel with aircraft ply. It's a little expensive but it's still cheaper than steel, it's flat, light and easier to deal with than steel even if you have all the proper tools. I rounded all of the edges and corners and coated it all with spray can clear lacquer, sanding between coats to get them to look and feel nice to the touch. Now a case trimmer that weighs a few ounces isn't attached to a mounting plate that weighs a few pounds.

David

[Whiterabbit]

1/2" holy smokes.

[psychicrhino]

I have some steel doors with solid wood core that came out of an old state psych hospital. They are are wider than standard doors, I don't recall at the moment but I believe they are 42" but heaaaavy. Really heavier than I would want to try to hang on a wood frame for the odd shed or shop build if I could help it. I wonder if they would make reasonable reloading bench tops.

As far as never having enough room - I agree, and I live on a fair piece of acerage so I try to imagine what I need to build for a particular purpose - I then take that sq footage and mult. x 2 and build that. Now when I build that I make sure that I site in such a way that I conserve enough roof pitch and surrounding realestate that I have at least one or two directions to - build out again in the future. That is what this room would be - a build out on an existing remote (maybe 800' from the house and back in the woods) shed (I don't think my wife likes the idea of me reloading in the living room). No power at the shed but I have a couple of small gennys and I plan to insulate this addition and install a small window unit for the summer and barrel stove for the winter (I guess folks sometimes have wood burning stoves where they reload?). Which I assume is ok as long as youre not mounting your press to the top of the stove.

[psychicrhino]

Removed double post

[blackthorn]

No matter what you build it will NEVER be big enough! I insulated a 12x16 shed using a green insulation. This insulation is made from ?spun rock dust and it is absolutly fire proof and the very best insulating qualitys I have ever seen. My area sees temperaturs down to -30F (not often) and all I use to heat the shed is one of those small radiant oil filled electricly fired heaters. In summer (temps to over 100F) the shed stays cool enough to work in comfortably. I got that insulation from Home Depot.

[snuffy]

Ooops, looking over my post I see that I have rambled and asked multiple questions, provided many of my unfounded assumptions (which I welcome the collective to correct) and a mass of likely unimportant information. How big of a room do you need for reloading - will 12x12 or 12x16 be adequate?

PHEW! that was the longest paragraph I've ever seen. It's difficult to read,(at least for my aged eyes). After a complete thought, IE the end of a paragraph, hit enter twice.

It

Makes

a break in the words,

give the eyes a rest .

Most of what you're doing right now is what most of us did at one time. I started casting about 6 years after I started loading. That was 45 years ago.

The casting was to cheaply load 44 mag for practice rounds for silly-wet matches. It worked just fine for good accuracy using a Lyman 429421 Keith style semi-wadcutter.

i could have shot those in matches, but jaxketed bullets were a bit more accurate.

One tip, using a thermometer while smelting the WW, keep the lead under 750 degrees. Zinc melts @ 787 deg., that will make the zinc WW float out IF you missed some in sorting. Then simply skim them off.

[ghh3rd]

I actually found that a transmission shop next to where I work also works on tires. The owner was friendly told me to come anytime and pick up whaever WW they had. He said that they don't do too many tires, but I was collection perhaps 20 lb a month.

I just got back from there - the owner said that he just sold his shop to a tire store down the road, and now his WW are considered "hazadrous material". Bummer! He did let me take what he had, for the last time. Gotta keep looking for sources...

[psychicrhino]

PHEW! that was the longest paragraph I've ever seen. It's difficult to read,(at least for my aged eyes). After a complete thought, IE the end of a paragraph, hit enter twice.

It

Makes

a break in the words,

give the eyes a rest .

Most of what you're doing right now is what most of us did at one time. I started casting about 6 years after I started loading. That was 45 years ago.

The casting was to cheaply load 44 mag for practice rounds for silly-wet matches. It worked just fine for good accuracy using a Lyman 429421 Keith style semi-wadcutter.

i could have shot those in matches, but jaxketed bullets were a bit more accurate.

One tip, using a thermometer while smelting the WW, keep the lead under 750 degrees. Zinc melts @ 787 deg., that will make the zinc WW float out IF you missed some in sorting. Then simply skim them off.

Ouch! But point taken :) I blame it on the tiny text entry box. If there is one thing I have learnned from politicians it's to never accept responsibility for my actions and to place blame elesewhere:)

[Whiterabbit]

I prefer not to learn that lesson.

Joke not withstanding.

[Awsar]

all looks good to me good story and glad to have ya here hope the first melt goes well :)

[justing]

i have a tire place down the street that let me put a 5 gallon bucket in there shop and i gox em $5 per full bucket about 50% steel ww i then take the steels to another tire place who needs to keep track of all of there ww and i trade the steel for lead it has worked out well so far.

[psychicrhino]

i have a tire place down the street that let me put a 5 gallon bucket in there shop and i gox em $5 per full bucket about 50% steel ww i then take the steels to another tire place who needs to keep track of all of there ww and i trade the steel for lead it has worked out well so far.

That's a great idea. I can see that I am probably going to have to start thinking outside the box a little.

[TheGrimReaper]

Welcome to a new addiction friend.

[psychicrhino]

Well, no joy on the 10 - 5 gallon buckets of wheel weights. I do have plans to go dig/sift what is left of an old range berm on April 13th. I'm thinking of building a shaker/sieve with 1/2" hardware cloth but wonder if 1/4" would be better.

[psychicrhino]

65397

So now am getting lead delivered by the dump truck load :)

Stopped at tirestore #18 today and was told they just sold two buckets yesterday and were out.

Then at tire store #19 I got a nearly full five gallon bucket for $40. Weighed #141 and after sorting was #4 Zn, #35 Fe, #2 trash. Leaving #100 lead with about 3/4 coww. Took 3 hrs to sort. Keeping track so I can cal olate cost and time of generating ingots. I wonder how many folks dont sort at all.

[alha]

I tried sorting my 160# bucket I recently bought, and after about an hour, I decided instead that I was going to give it a go with the quick sort out of trash like valve stems etc, dump em in my big smelter, Closely monitor the temp to keep it around 650-675, and skim off the rest to recycle. I must not have the patience to do the sorting thing. I may do my best to pull the stick ons out before hand, as they are easy to spot, but the zinc vs lead, no thanks, I'll let the laws of physics work for me. Just need to get a decent amount of good pine sawdust!

[psychicrhino]

Yes I can see where you would quickly be running up against the law of diminishing returns with sorting the big buckets. I'm really interested in tracking the composition of the buckets I am getting from different shops to try to figure out if it is worth it. Ex. I paid $0.265 / lb on this bucket when I picked it up. After sorting the Fe,Zn, trash out then I an at $0.40/lb.A large pecentage were small/ tiny coww. So if I estimated a 20% loss of wt during smelting then that puts me at $0.50/lb. I dont know but I would think that 5 hours might be a reasonable guess for smelting 100# from set up to clean up.

If I also factor in time spent stopping and asking / haggling at 19 shops for the 3-400# of unmelted lead I have now. I am guessing that I will have around $0.50/lb and est. 9 hours of time per #100 of smelted ingots. Assuming that you could get ingots delivered for $1 / lb then your time invested would be worth appx $5.50/ hr not counting gasoline/ propane costs. So some of these numbers are based on assumptions like it may not take that long to smelt it, or buying ingots may cost a little more. But I tuing I'm in the ball park. Will update when I know. ....I feel like I just typed an ad for the lead ingot sellers though. :)

[Bad Water Bill]

A couple of suggestions.

ALWAYS remember to bring some donuts or pizza to the folks that treat you nice, Bet they will remember to treat you even better your next trip.

Before typing remember to GO ADVANCED. It gives you more room to make typo errors.:kidding:

Something that has not been mentioned so far.

NEVER NEVER NEVER put food grade stuff in a container you previously used for smelting.

CAST BOOLITS and its members do not pay for funerals. :bigsmyl2:

Once you feel comfortable with the folks at your better shops invite some of them to the range with you.

Keep us informed and remember if you tell about a mistake you made you will be putting SMILES on many of our faces as we remember when we did that same stupid mistake.

I doubt there is a mistake you can post about that many of us not made several times before.

Yes some of us are SLOOOOW learners.

[psychicrhino]

Yep donuts make anything better :)

[psychicrhino]

Well, a bit of an update. I had a friend that took me out to an old shooting range. Well, not so much a range as a rural area with a bunch of natural berms that locals had shot into for many years. Anyway, walking around you could see quite a few bullets laying on top of the soil. So, I took the 1/4" shaker screen I'd made along with a shovel and bucket. Shoveled up the dirt from several promising looking areas and sifted them out. Lots of natural rock and gravel - finger to hand size. After a couple of hours of this I had about 20# of a wild variety of bullets - mostly 22 cal. So, It was pretty fun, a bit like panning gold when I visited Alaska years ago. If it were closer I might take my boys out to do it - I think they would enjoy it. But as it is a ways a way , I just don't think it is worth the effort right now. But someday It might be.

[Baryngyl]

Maybe build a sifter that is 1/2 or 3/4 on an inch to put on top of you smaller sifter, it will sift out the bigger rocks first.


Michael Grace

[mold maker]

That's what I did, and it reduced my take home volume by 2/3. The remaining "saves" were mostly lead.

[GL49]

After reading, I started wondering what my recovery would be from my WW buckets, so I kept track of the last three:

281# COWW,s
65# SOWW's
117# steel
9# zinc

and a double handful of rubber valve stems.

[odinohi]

Mom and pop repair shops are usually down to earth people. I think your paying too much. May be that scrap price is higher in your area. Craigslist, newspaper. Some dude called me the other day saying he had 6000-7000lbs of ww ingots. He didnt answer my return call. May have been trying to set me up or screwing with me. Got something under the seat for setups though i've never had to use it thank god. Good luck on your search and be inventive

[jrayborn]

Craigs List has worked best for me. I hit the jackpot after already doing quite well and found a private tire shop that sold me 25 buckets of w/w at .40 / lb. Then because I am a sucker for punishment, I tried one more time and got an old printer that wanted his shop cleaned out. Yup, 1200 lbs of linotype for.... .40/lb. I think I am set for life.

What I did on Craigs List was just post a WTB any lead willing to pay a fair price. Its been successful for me.

Jon

[Edm]

I work with multiple trucking companies and tire dealers. I have never paid for lead. I do travel with a 5 gallon bucket in the back. When I get to a store I load it with what they have. When I get home I pour the ww into buckets in the garage until they are full. My wife recently asked me to move the buckets.......she should have said that before they were full.

[psychicrhino]

I thought about Craigslist - and saw that there were a couple of WTB ads up on there already. I guess It couldn't hurt to try.

[Baryngyl]

I tried posting a WTB on Craigslist in my area, the people around here flag it and get it deleted in just a few minutes to an hour.
I asked why on the Craigslist forum and got told "The people in my area do not like dirty low life scumbag recyclers trying to make a buck for drugs". LOL


Michael Grace

[leeggen]

PR. have your wife and you also tell the owners you are making fishing weights out of the lead. They will be more likly to sell to you. Some folks just don't like bullet casters. Never figured that one out yet!!!! You won't be lying as such those bullets do make good fishing weights out of the bad molded ones,just drill a hole.
CD

[mold maker]

Now that would have really Pized me off. How do they get drug involvement out of that?
Some folks have their nose so far in their ***, they can't recognize daylight.