How much should I pay?

[wyrmzr]

I've got a local recycling place that I just happen to have an "in" with. I called them today, to see what I could find for lead in their inventory.
The owner claims he's got a 1 gallon bucket that's full of of "pure" lead, which was separated from cast iron pipes used in old plumbing. I asked him what he'd want for it, and he told me he'd sell it for what their usual guy pays for it (apparently their usual guy is the one who picks up the scrap metal they've sorted).
I'm hoping he's not going to quote me much, but I do know that I've been quoted $.50/lb for WW lead (I have competition here in other casters, obviously).
What SHOULD I be paying for lead, and is it worth much extra for purer lead as opposed to the usual wheel weights? I know I can buy ingots for around $3/lb online, not including shipping, and I'm trying to do better than that...

[fredj338]

You can buy lead here for about $1/#, so let that be your guide.

[John Boy]

I asked him what he'd want for it, and he told me he'd sell it for what their usual guy pays for it The unknown price the usual guy pays

[el34]

I have one scrap dealer and one tire shop as my sources. Scrap yard now charges me 82c/lb for any kind of lead, the $60 bucket'o'WW from the tire shop yields me $1/lb ingots after sorting out all the steel.

[wyrmzr]

The owner of the place was checking to see what their usual guy would offer when he shows up next. I'm going to call in the morning to see what that ended up being, so I can grab it, or at least a good amount of it. I doubt it's a solid gallon of lead, so if he's wanting $1/lb I don't have the urge to make my first lead purchase wind up being $100. Then again, it would likely last a while if it's pure...

[boho]

My local scrapyard charges me $.40 for wheelweights and $.70 for pure lead.

[FLHTC]

Lead isn't so common on the commodities market so the price will fluctuate, depending on the region. Costal shipping areas will generally pay more because a freighter sitting in port, isn't making money. The buyer (China) is willing to pay more so the freighter gets loaded and sails on time.

http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/lead.html

[Beesdad]

Not sure where you are located but here in NC scrap yards pay .12/lb. for WWs and .15/lb. for clean lead..

The sell price has not change in the last year or so... .35/lb. for WWs and .50/lb. for any other clean lead they have...

[GoodOlBoy]

My scrap yard charges me .50 a lb if it's pure lead, ww, zinc crud, or anything in between. Sometimes I come out on top. Sometimes I don't :p

GoodOlBoy

[RogerDat]

The lead joints of sewer pipes was generally plain lead but pure is sort of a strong word for something that has a rim of gunk (from tarred rope packed in joint if nothing else) on one end. Have seen in scrap yards in the form of broken rings of rough lead pulled out of the pipes. Would be approx. 70 cents a lb. here.

[wyrmzr]

I did end up with just what RogerDat said; it's got plenty of garbage, rust, paint, and whatever sealant was added when it was put on the cast pipes.
I ended up with $.68/lb, and picked up 21 lbs to start. He actually had a 5 gallon bucket overfilled with the stuff. Now to get my safety gear together before I start the smelting process...

[RogerDat]

I did end up with just what RogerDat said; it's got plenty of garbage, rust, paint, and whatever sealant was added when it was put on the cast pipes.
I ended up with $.68/lb, and picked up 21 lbs to start. He actually had a 5 gallon bucket overfilled with the stuff. Now to get my safety gear together before I start the smelting process...

Best safety gear would probably be a light steady breeze that makes it easy to tell which side is upwind. :-) From what I have heard that stuff yields some nice muzzle loading ammo so is should be good for a consistent recipe for stretching WW's or making softer HP bullets too. Pretty nice score.

[jayhkr]

Not sure where you are located but here in NC scrap yards pay .12/lb. for WWs and .15/lb. for clean lead..

The sell price has not change in the last year or so... .35/lb. for WWs and .50/lb. for any other clean lead they have...
Packing my bags and moving to North Carolina.....................Or at least going to visit the fine sites at the scrap yards!

[aspangler]

I got 68 lbs ww and 13 lbs soft lead pipe yesterday. ww = .50, pipe = .65. also picked up 6 lbs 9 mm range brass for 2.95 lb. All at local scrape yard.

[fredj338]

There are sellers on this site that will ship you lead in ingot form for right @ $1/#. No driving, no smelting, no waste, not a bad deal. 100# is a nice start. Consider 29# for 1000/200gr/45, it goes a lot faster than you think.

[wyrmzr]

Yeah, the first cast I'm likely to start with will be for my 91/30. Since the barrel slugged at .314, I'm likely looking at a 200gr bullet. I'll likely buy the rest of what he had there once I get into things further, but at least now I know where I can get a fairly constant supply.

[old cobra]

I pay one 12 pack of Corona long necks per 5gal. bucket

[plmitch]

A couple dozen donuts and a box of starbucks coffee will usually get three or four, five gallon buckets of WW. Paying anything more than that is crazy.

[gotlead]

I contract demolition of abandoned boats in my area sometimes and have been lucky to get
Paid to haul away full lead keels on occasion. Lost count after 10,000 lbs. New problem is alloy.

[RogerDat]

I contract demolition of abandoned boats in my area sometimes and have been lucky to get
Paid to haul away full lead keels on occasion. Lost count after 10,000 lbs. New problem is alloy.

It is a vicious cycle, or even a financial death spiral!

I score a batch of something say 2 buckets of good WW's. That sends me looking for some plain lead to cut it with for plinking pistol ammo. I find some sweet x-ray room wall material lead blocks. Decide to pick up a few "extra" because it's a good deal on known pure lead. Now I need some tin and wouldn't you know it find a pile of body solder, can't make myself leave any of it behind. Yep I now have too much plain lead and tin so I have to go find some WW's.

The only way this drain on my finances will ever end is if I insult the mother of every source of lead in 100 miles of my home....
No wait I can order online or in S&S on this forum.

I'm probably doomed, with but little chance of salvation, at 10k lbs. of plain you might as well abandon all hope. :bigsmyl2:

[plmitch]

I contract demolition of abandoned boats in my area sometimes and have been lucky to get
Paid to haul away full lead keels on occasion. Lost count after 10,000 lbs. New problem is alloy.

This is a great way to get free lead. Ive picked up four free boats from craigslist in the last year. Good clean stuff.

[guncheese]

I pay one 12 pack of Corona long necks per 5gal. bucket


at least you dont have to pay with real beer

[mold maker]

I got stuck with a keel of........ junk. It cost me the initial boat price of $30., a saw chain, and the time and energy to cut it up, plus having to dispose of it. I have had success on two other occasions though. One was all soft and the other was almost like WW lead.

[RogerDat]

I'm telling you this made me drool! Four full pallets of x-ray wall lead at a local scrap yard. There are standards that require that to be pure lead, it doesn't get any better than this for plain and me a couple of weeks from payday. Hopefully this does not all go right back out.

111258

[jayhkr]

I would love to find a sailboat in our area on CL for $30! But I'm not a boater so I wouldn't even know where the keel is anyway. Right now I'm stuck with getting WW at $50 per 5gal bucket. At least I'm yielding 110 pounds of lead out of them .......for now at least.

[gotlead]

well 40lbs of pure tin is good start. traded a dump trk load of junk lawnmowers from another demo job. for it. it's in sheets from a soup canning co. so says the scrap man.

[wyrmzr]

I just did some additional checking, and it appears the lead I'm getting at $0.68/lb is plumber's lead, which is pure, or almost pure. This stuff would be great for my black powder rifle, but it looks like I need to add WW lead to it to get at least some tin in there. The same place sold me some WWs for $0.35/lb, but they only had 13 lbs in their inventory, a few lbs of which is, of course Zn instead of Pb. So it looks like I need to scrounge up some more WW, as I've got about double the amount of pure lead as compared to WW lead. I think I may have more connections there, but the one place may also have some employees casting their own bullets... Here's hoping.

[RogerDat]

Good luck wyrmzr. The WW's don't give you much tin maybe 0.5%, what they provide is 3% antimony. Antimony makes lead alloy harder as does tin but more so. Tin is mostly to aid the lead in flowing into the mold and filling the nooks and crannies sharply. Good fill out.

There are some black powder cartridge shooters that use lead/tin but no antimony because lead/tin is historically what would have been used in bullets for those firearms.

BTW - love the quote in your signature, that was a really good book.

[wyrmzr]

Hopefully that doesn't mean I have to add Sn or Sb to the rest of the mix.
I do have muzzle loader balls that are pure lead; Hornady makes them. No tin in them at all, but they're just a round ball made to be run with a patch.
I'll add more WWs once I get some to throw in with the pure lead, or I'll just leave the pure lead for the .54 cal muzzle loader, which it's gotten to be more of a pain to find supplies for.

[RogerDat]

50/50 plain and COWW is good mix for pistol. And there is always water dropping the 50/50 to make them harder.
That plain lead might be something you could swap or sell some here on the site to get WW's. Muzzle loaders as you noted need the plain, some of them might have some extra WW's or be willing to purchase yours so you can buy some WW lead from another member.

I recently swapped some plain for a small amount of Lino with a member.

[wyrmzr]

I'll hold onto the pure lead; right now, it seems most of the local tire shops have just gotten rid of their WWs, but I did get 10 lbs to start with. I've still got my furnace and molds on the way, and am making ingots initially.

[wyrmzr]

I did make some ingots today, for the record. First batch was the pure plumbing lead, which is obviously soft. 2nd batch was a mix of WWs and the plumbing lead, 3rd was just WWs.
The first batch of pure is obviously very soft; the second and third batches, however, are the same hardness. The 2nd batch was about 2 lbs of plumbing lead to 5 lbs of WWs, so maybe there's enough antimony in those WWs to give it some decent hardness? I'll have to see what happens once I start casting, but the BHN is coming out to about 12 for the ingots by the looks of it.