COWW questions

[sapper_eng]

Hey all.

I've found a large supply of coww with a local company that takes care of our fleet vehicles. They gave me around 100 pounds last week and said I can come back any time for as much as I'm able to carry. They usually sell them to a scrap yard (none of the scrap yards around here are willing to sell for one reason or another) at $0.50 per pound. I've got a few questions as I'm new to smelting / casting.

1) Is $0.50 a pound a good deal? I'm not sure what the going price is.
2) I plan on casting these weights into two different types of ammo. 185 Gr 0.311 for my Lee Enfield (need to get the barrel slugged to confirm) and Lead Shot for busting clay's. Do COWW make good lead shot?
3) I've got around 10 lbs of the stick on wheel weights. What should I do with these? If I smelt down 30 lbs at a time, would it be safe to toss in half a pound or a pound to extend the life of the coww?
4) I went through all of the weights, one by one, removing all of the zinc, steel and plastic weights. I noticed a few of the lead coww were quote a bit harder than others. Is this normal?

[62chevy]

Price depends on location here in West Virginia you will pay over a dollar a pound up 1.75 a #. Some report paying .35 cents a pound so you see it just depends on where you live. 50 cents a # would be a blessing to me and you say no one will sell lead in your area so yes 50 cents would be a good deal for you.

Some like to mix their lead 50/50 Wheel Weights/soft lead.

[Defcon-One]

1) Is $0.50 a pound a good deal? That is an OK deal. $0.10 - $0.30 a pound is a good deal where I am. I can get a 5 gal bucket of well over 100 pounds for $10.00 each at one shop. The guy up the street wants $30.00 for the same sized bucket. After sorting and smelting, it is always just over 100 lbs. of total lead.

2) Do COWW make good lead shot? I have heard that they do, but I have no experience making shot.

3) I've got around 10 lbs of the stick on wheel weights. What should I do with these? Keep them separated and make them into ingots. You'll need them later for mixing alloys for hollow points, etc. Or, you can sell them on this site for cash to buy other gear.

4) I went through all of the weights, one by one, removing all of the zinc, steel and plastic weights. I noticed a few of the lead coww were quote a bit harder than others. Is this normal? Depends on how hard! If you can cut them, then they are most likely lead. Might be just more Antimony in them. If they are too hard to cut then they could be Zinc.

You'll notice some SOWWs that are harder, too. I throw them in with the COWWs. Testing has shown that they are pretty close to the same. The Tape-A-Weights are soft Lead with a tiny bit of Tin.

[500MAG]

That is a good price for wheel weights as long as most of them are still lead. Buying bulk wheel weights is progressively producing less percentage of lead ones as time goes on and lead ww's are being phased out. To check to make sure those "harder" ones are lead you should try to crimp them with a pair of wire cutters. If you can cut into them they are lead. There is a guy on the forum named shady Grady that will trade you the zinc ones for lead pound for pound. I usually separate the stick on ones, they are close to pure lead used for casting different boolits. As far as Shot goes, check out this link: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forumdisplay.php?36-Casting-for-Shotguns. It's not That easy but many enjoy doing it.

[sapper_eng]

Awesome. Thanks for the feedback.

They place I'm getting the weights from allows me to go through them, removing all the non lead weights which is a bonus, but time consuming (took around 2 hours to find the 100lbs of lead, still ended up with around a pound of Zinc and steel).

The harder coww are easily cut. But like I mentioned, it lakes double the pressure.

Lead hasn't begun being phased out yet in Canada. The majority of the weights in there 55 gal oil drums were lead. I would say less than 10% were of another alloy.

[jayhkr]

.50 per pound is what I get typically after I've sorted a 5 gallon bucket and smelted everything down. Here in Kansas City, I have only been able to find one tire shop willing to sell me WW. At $50 per 5gal bucket I'm still able to get between 110-120 pounds of usable lead, with 10 or so pounds of soft, "pure" lead in addition. I usually buy 2 buckets at a time and at the moment only use them to make (and sell) fishing sinkers. But I'm saving the soft lead so when I DO start casting my own boolits I'll have a head start on the soft stuff. My scrap yard sells me lead pipe for $1 per pound. I don't plan on ever buying from the scrap yard but at least if I ever get desperate I'll have another source to go to.

[sapper_eng]

I'm still on the search for a scrap yard around town that will sell. I'd like to stockpile 500 pounds or so for the winter. It would be nice to be able to cast a few here and there in te garage when the weather climbs above -30 or so. That said I should have more than enough for the summer. We'll see how things go.

[mikeym1a]

If you have any concern about any of your weights, make sure you have a lead thermometer, and keep your smelting temps in the 600degree range. All of the lead alloys will melt at that temp, and any zinc will simply float to the top. Zinc melts at 780degrees. Good going on finding a steady source. it is truly drying up.

[Bad Water Bill]

My local junk yard paid .09 per pound IF the tire shop delivered the buckets to the yard.

At that time they sold WW for .65 per pound.

They have convinced most tire shops that they are the only place the tire shops can safely dispose of their "TOXIC WASTE". [smilie=b:

[500MAG]

I had a scrap guy I was buying ww's from for $.45 a pound. I had to finally throw in the towel when it got to be only around 25-30% lead per bucket.

[40-82 hiker]

1) Is $0.50 a pound a good deal? I'm not sure what the going price is.


50 cents per pound is a good deal when you consider what you are getting:

You will lose anywhere between 11% and 14% to the clips and weights, so your ingot price will be 57 cents per pound for example. You'll have to add 2% tin, so your pound of alloy now costs you 81 cents (assuming tin around 11 dollars or so on this site). Your are molding 185 grain boolits, which will then cost you 2.1 cents each. As you can see the concern for how much COWWs cost to a point is moot. Whether you are paying 1.5 cents for each boolit, or even 3 cents for each boolit at 185gr., in the long run the difference is not worth worrying about in MHO. Where else can you get boolits to shoot for 42 cents per box of 20? Of course, that does not include the cost of equipment that you will eventually pay for if you shoot enough. I am just trying to put into perspective how little the cost of COWWs actually makes within certain parameters.

Good luck.

[sapper_eng]

Thanks 40-82.

I ran the numbers through a reloading calculator and even at $2 a pound its still cheaper in the long run. I agree completely with what you say. At $2 a lound thats 0.05 a bullet, $5.28 for a box of $100. Sure beats $32 from the store for that box of 100.

[williamwaco]

I think that is a great price.

In my experience, if they are VERY clean, you will have 15% waste.

If they re relatively dirty, it will be around 18% waste.

[osteodoc08]

$0.50/pound, I'd buy as much as I was allowed too (with fun money) and then some. Lead will be harder and harder to find. May as well get it while you can.

[KYShooter73]

My last bucket was $40, I estimate 100lb, worst bucket I've had, probably 30% zinc and steel. If it was pre sorted, I would pay .50 a lb.

[sapper_eng]

I had to pre sort it myself. Took just over 2 hours to do. I still found around a pound of Zinc and Steel weights in the mix. I picked them out on a second pass through when I got them home.

[40-82 hiker]

I think that is a great price.

In my experience, if they are VERY clean, you will have 15% waste.

If they re relatively dirty, it will be around 18% waste.

Just goes to show how different we experience this hobby. I usually get a very large percentage of large COWWs when I mine buckets since I am paying per pound so much of the time. I don't get the small weights most of the time. The most I have ever lost was 14%, and last batch that I smelted I lost 11%.

Thanks for your input, as you are the only person I have ever compered these numbers with.