Wheel weights? Not worth the trouble now....

[dikman]

For some time now I've been gathering range scrap and haven't bothered with WW. Yesterday, my wife came home and said the car had a flat tyre. Yup, nice little split in the sidewall, don't know how far she'd driven with it flat but the sidewalls were looking a bit thin! So, today I took my spare tyre down to the tyre shop to have them replace it on the rim. While waiting I got talking to the manager and asked about their used WW. He said they just get a guy from the scrap yard to drop by every so often and he takes them. Hmm, I said I might be interested in buying them. Anyhow, he gave me some in a small bucket so I was feeling pretty pleased.

Got home and started sorting them, about 70% stick-ons and the rest clip-ons. Looking good, I thought. Started checking the SOWWs and found a few zinc, then noticed a couple labelled Fe (iron). Got out a big magnet and was appalled at how many were Fe!! About half!! Started sorting the remainder and about 80% were zinc!!!! I probably ended up with about 10% lead. The coww were a bit better, with only a small percentage Fe and Zn.

I figure it originally weighed about 20-odd lbs, and out of that I got 6 lbs of lead. He said I can drop in and grab more, but I think I'll stick to range scrap where the return is something like 95% (rest is dirt).

[Lead Fred]

We only buy the clip on ww from the local scrap man. They retain 80% of the gross weight.

[GSM]

Probably a good plan - at least you know the scrap will be either lead, copper, or dirt. Didn't realize the greens had put such a dent in the Oz.


Tyre? Did you get the spare from the boot? ;-)

So many different folks on this site. It's interesting. World keeps getting smaller and smaller.

[RogerDat]

Depends so much on the shop and the area. I have seen everything from better than 50% scrap from a shop that tends to do more newer cars to less than 2 coffee cans of scrap out of a full bucket. I avoid the first shop and take donuts to the second.

[dikman]

You got it, GSM :smile:. As for the Greens (we have a party called the Greens) they are a dirty word amongst firearm owners. Their stated aim is no guns in private ownership and a complete ban on handguns (including the police, they seem to think that this will stop the bad guys from having guns too:rolleyes:. No-one else can understand this brilliant piece of reasoning either). Fortunately, they are a minor party but are proving to be a real pain in the butt with their idiotic ideas.

As for the tyre shop, it's part of a large chain and does a lot of business, including work for a prestige car dealership up the road. This could be the source of such a high number of non-lead weights, I suspect.

The good thing about the pistol range that I get the scrap from is they only shoot non-jacketed projectiles, so except for the dirt it's all lead.

[jonp]

That sucks. Place I go lately is $.65/lb COWW/lead but I get to pick myself so they are near 100% usable.

[jsizemore]

I sort before I buy. Last time I went, the scrapyard only had 11lbs of Pb WW but I got a New inline exhaust fan from a Jenn air gas cooktop that had a cracked glass. There hasn't been a scrap of lead leave the yard without being in my truck for the past 6 years, so the manager gave me the lead and fan. I told him we'd straighten up next time.

[trapper9260]

When I go to the scrape yard, I only get soft lead, because of the WW you will have too much waste.

[detox]

New 25lb bag of Lawrence birdshot cost about $40.00.......... that's about $1.60 per pound. This guarantees pure good casting lead that has antimony and "arsenic" added. Chilled shot has less antimony than Magnum shot, but both have more arsenic added than Wheel Weights. The arsenic will make bullets harder when water quenching.

Lots of thick graphite will surface to the top when smelting graphite coated birdshot. This must be skimmed off after fluxing (I use pine sawdust). Then pour into ingots. I add about .01-.02 percent tin for better fillout of mold.

[konsole]

To get an idea for metal content, always ask to take a peak at whats in the bucket before buying, and ask them how much trash like tire stickers, valve stems and razor blades are in it. The steel COWW and SOWW on top should be easy to notice, same with zinc SOWW's. Zinc COWW's are harder to notice so you will have to shuffle around the top of the bucket a little bit to look for "Zn". One bucket I bought about a week ago was about 1/2 full, but I could see that there was an unusually high amount of steel. So I told the guy that I wanted to give him $10 for the 1/2 bucket, but because of the high amount of steel I could see I thought $5 was better. He agreed that $5 was fine. I find that unusually high amounts of zinc and steel in a bucket will "brighten" the bucket, if that makes sense, since the darker color of non-painted lead is replaced with the brighter color of painted/plated steel and light grey zinc stick-ons. When you see a bucket that is dark and dirty, thats a good bucket. Also, if you have a good judgement of weight or a scale, a full bucket with mostly lead should be 125-150 pounds, whereas higher zinc and steel amounts will drop the bucket to 100-125.

[MrWolf]

I have a truck place that I give the guy $20 for a full five gallon bucket and he puts it in the car for me. Almost all lead and some of those weights are the size of a hot dog! From other places I do get the zinc and iron, but getting a lot harder to find them anymore. Seems someone there decided to start smelting or they have already been sold.

[Hardcast416taylor]

My friend that is the service manager at a car dealership gives me the scrap weights every time I stop by. Right now I have about 700 - 8-- lbs. of unsorted weights out in my casting barn that are not sorted due to my illnesses this last year. I`m going there Tues. for warranty work, been about 7 months since the last stop so should be about a 3/4 full 5 gal. pail. Being retired I have the time and patience to hand sort the emptied out pail on a sorting table I made for this purpose. I sort with a 1" round by 7" long magnet first to remove alot of non lead weights, then the nipper testing sort starts. I`ve got about 200 lbs. of Fe and Zn weights along with the steel clips from smelted weights ready to take to the scrap yard to swap for lead they may have.Robert

[bangerjim]

I quit on the WW gathering/re-melting dance almost 2 years ago. Very high % Zn and Fe results all the time. Not worth the car fuel/my time/melting fuel.

I now buy my clean alloys (pure/Sn/Sb/solder/pewter/hardball) at my local scrap yards and mix what I need. I never did use just COWW's anyway! Always made up different alloys, so might as well do it right. And forget scrounging for dirty old COWW's.

Even free is not FREE anymore!

bangerjim

[dikman]

I don't believe that we have the legislative requirements to reduce using lead in WW (yet!) but I suspect that because these requirements are in place overseas a lot of the WW used by companies here are now being sourced from the same places as those o/s. Which means reduced lead availability.

[RogerDat]

I don't believe that we have the legislative requirements to reduce using lead in WW (yet!) but I suspect that because these requirements are in place overseas a lot of the WW used by companies here are now being sourced from the same places as those o/s. Which means reduced lead availability.

I tend to agree. The auto industry is a world wide industry with a world wide supply chain, going all zinc is just simpler. That dovetails with the "cycle" I think I see represented in the tire store buckets. Newer cars come in and their zinc/steel WW's go in the bucket, being replaced with a lead one from the shop. It is only when that second set of tires is replaced that there will be a lead WW going into the bucket. Hence shops that do more older cars have a better yield of lead WW's. Because more after market replacement tires come in to be replaced for a 2nd or 3rd time and they have tire store weights not factory.

This area is more rural than industrial so the lead supply at local scrap yards seldom consists of large quantities of scrap alloy lead. Mostly old lead pipe, flashing, and pipe joints, some x-ray wall lead. In short plain lead. WW's are a better source of lead alloys at least around here. Dealing with them is a bit of work, certainly a dirty job but then so are a lot of jobs I have done over the years. Doesn't bother me to get paid in "lead stash" at an affordable price for my work. :razz: Have worked harder for less at least a few times in my life.

[lightman]

So far, the lead yield from WW is still holding up around here. Like others have said, it really depends on the area, size of the shop and their customer base. I recently finished sorting over 1200# of WW and had about a 5 gallon bucket of soww, Fe, Zinc, plastic and trash. Since the sow are also usable, I was happy.

Yeah, they are everything that everyone says about them! All kinds of dirt, grease, paint, that causes all kinds of smoke and stink when smelting. And while sorting is easy enough, its a pita. This batch was unusually clean of stems, tire stickers, ect,ect.

I smelted about 1/4 of them last Sunday. My first and only pot produced right at 300 1# ingots. My goal was to do 1/2 of them but I forgot that WW talk longer than other lead. I filled the pot heaping full and waited for the melt and added weights to the top of the pile (not into the melted lead) as they settled. It took a while to skim the clips!

Anyway, even though I probably don't need anymore, I'll probably collect them until the lead yield really falls off. I'm still working on an indoor range clean-out, but the range scrap that I've smelted is nasty too! It's addictive!!!

[fredj338]

It depends on location, but I don't seek out ww anymore, just not worth the effort out here. If they are free, I don't mind picking thru to get 10%.

[Airman Basic]

Just checked my WW stash, 9 five gallon buckets left collected in the late 70s, early 80s. For the life of me, can't remember where I got 'em, though.

[dragon813gt]

I still get them for free from one shop. They deal w/ a lot of large trucks so most of the weights are still lead. Honestly, even w/ them being free it's not worth it. To much time involved to sort and then clean up. My time is more valuable than a free bucket of lead.

[bangerjim]

DEPENDS ON YOUR LOCATION.

Fun for you...........not fun for me.

banger

[RogerDat]

Every WW I rescue is a good thing. I'm not a bullet caster or lead scrounger I'm a ......

Highly specialized metallurgical environmental reclamation and reuse technician. Yes it is a dirty job but someone has to save the planet.:bigsmyl2:

[Menner]

I am working on a deal with a local tire shop that has been in business for a long time he gives me WW when I stop by (I buy my tires there) he told me that he has 4 55 gal. drums in the basement of the shop and they have been there 10 to 15 yrs so they should be all lead. If I can get my hands on them that would be what I would consider a Life Time supply if you average out at 135 lbs a 5 gal bucket looking at between 5 1/2 and 6 K lbs
Tony

[dragon813gt]

Not worth it????

You mean I could avoid all this fun if I just bought half a dozen boxes of jacketed! Sacrilege!!!!

I never said buy jacketed. There are other sources of lead that are cleaner. Buying certified alloys from Rotometals is still better than buying jacketed ;)

[lightman]

Wow Menner, If you score all of those you might have to have a pizza party for the local football team. I'd hate to have to move all of those out of a basement, but I would!

[bangerjim]

I tend to agree. The auto industry is a world wide industry with a world wide supply chain, going all zinc is just simpler. That dovetails with the "cycle" I think I see represented in the tire store buckets. Newer cars come in and their zinc/steel WW's go in the bucket, being replaced with a lead one from the shop. It is only when that second set of tires is replaced that there will be a lead WW going into the bucket. Hence shops that do more older cars have a better yield of lead WW's. Because more after market replacement tires come in to be replaced for a 2nd or 3rd time and they have tire store weights not factory.

This area is more rural than industrial so the lead supply at local scrap yards seldom consists of large quantities of scrap alloy lead. Mostly old lead pipe, flashing, and pipe joints, some x-ray wall lead. In short plain lead. WW's are a better source of lead alloys at least around here. Dealing with them is a bit of work, certainly a dirty job but then so are a lot of jobs I have done over the years. Doesn't bother me to get paid in "lead stash" at an affordable price for my work. :razz: Have worked harder for less at least a few times in my life.

Yes, it depends on your location as to what your yards will have.....AND.....if they will even sell to the general public! Many places they won't. That blows!

Living in/near a large industrial/mechanized/hi-tech metro area with all kinds of industries, I find all kinds of alloys, not just wall sheet lead and pipe. In fact, I cannot remember the last time I saw any lead sewer pipe! Since the area is fairly new and lead was never used like it was back east in the olden golden daze.

Lots of neat CLEAN industrial alloys though! High Sn wave soldering bars are very big. High Sn and high Sb alloys used in the aerospace industries.

Ya' gotta get what 'ya can when avialaible!

Good Pb hunting.

bange

[dikman]

Goodsteel, for you it looks like it's definitely worth it! If I thought I could get a higher percentage return I'd still do it, but as it stands the range scrap is infinitely more productive for the effort involved.

[MBTcustom]

No, actually I'm with you. That was a 55 gallon drum containing 800 pounds of wheel weights. I dug through all that garbage, and pretty much got my fill of it. I smelted all of it into ingots, and I believe I'm done.
It used to be, I get my wheel weights for free, and they were 100% lead. All I had to deal with was smelting them into ingots which was a nasty chore, but worth it for the cheap shooting.
Now, I pay $.40 per pound for zinc steel, stick on, and it seems there's more trash in there than ever. When it was all said and done, I'm looking at the yield and figuring I could have paid $2.50 per pound for certified alloy and saved myself all that horrible work.
Let's just say the alternative is becoming more and more attractive by the year.

[dikman]

Went to the pistol range today to try out my new (to me) Uberti 1875 revolver. Took 50 rounds, and even benchresting I'm still a lousy shot!!! Nothing new there, but it's a fun gun to shoot, there's just an indefinable something about loading/unloading a single action revolver :bigsmyl2:.

Anyhow, I also took along a shovel, buckets and sieve, and after shooting I spent 1/2 hour and came away with 97 lbs. of scrap (should yield about 90 lbs. when I've washed off the remaining dirt). I could have got more, but it was starting to get warm and I figured it will still be there for later. Minimal sorting (picking out the odd stone), no steel and no zinc :D.

[cstrickland]

New 25lb bag of Lawrence birdshot cost about $40.00.......... that's about $1.60 per pound. This guarantees pure good casting lead that has antimony and "arsenic" added. Chilled shot has less antimony than Magnum shot, but both have more arsenic added than Wheel Weights. The arsenic will make bullets harder when water quenching.

Lots of thick graphite will surface to the top when smelting graphite coated birdshot. This must be skimmed off after fluxing (I use pine sawdust). Then pour into ingots. I add about .01-.02 percent tin for better fillout of mold.

i have been thinking abot this more and more. I am used to paying about 75 cent to a dollar a pound for WW,but then I have to clean and smelt, bird shot would reduce the labor To just fluxing in the pot,and he bags stack nicely.

[kryogen]

30-50% of the weight of the scrap I get is not lead. That's the way it is.

[kryogen]

i have been thinking abot this more and more. I am used to paying about 75 cent to a dollar a pound for WW,but then I have to clean and smelt, bird shot would reduce the labor To just fluxing in the pot,and he bags stack nicely.

not worth it at 75 cents. I pay 15 cents a pound for scrap. I get approx 60% in lead, so it ends up at 25 cents a pound. Then add propane I guess, didnt count it. I wouldnt pay more than that, it's a lot of work and trouble. Still has to be worth it.

[gwpercle]

The tyre, the black part that goes on the rym.....I got it!

[Hardcast416taylor]

The 3/4 full 5 gal. pail I got for free from my friend in a car dealership required a 2 handed effort to get it out of my Traverse! Today, it is in the upper 20`s temp. wise so I grabbed a double handful from the top of the pail just to see what`s there. Of the 27 weights I grabbed 20 of them were lead, 1 was a 4 square strip of pure lead stick on weights with the remainder being Fe weights and 2 papers from tire patches. I just might have a fair percentage of lead in this for free pail.Robert

[1911KY]

I am starting to think buying processed lead on here is a better use of my time & money after you consider, sorting time, gas, propane, melting time, wear and tear on my back....the $0.01 or $0.02 per bullet that I save isn't really worth it and probably isn't really a savings at all, after you monetize everything I listed.

[RogerDat]

I am starting to think buying processed lead on here is a better use of my time & money after you consider, sorting time, gas, propane, melting time, wear and tear on my back....the $0.01 or $0.02 per bullet that I save isn't really worth it and probably isn't really a savings at all, after you monetize everything I listed.

The prices for WW lead in swapping & selling are pretty competitive with doing it yourself. Generally around $1 a pound. It does not take much increase in price for WW's or decrease in lead yield to start making that a good deal. Depending somewhat on you have more cash vs. more time. And the quantity you plan on having on hand.

Think of it this way if you pay 75 cents a pound and only get 75% lead weight you would be paying $47 plus your time and expenses for $50 worth of ingots or maybe $60 with shipping. If on the other hand you still see mostly lead WW's at 35 cents and are working on building up the mythical life time supply.... then buying WW's provides more raw material for the money, and since I'll store those buckets for when I need them or get around to smelting I'm tying up less cash if I buy WW's raw. About $420 tied up in a 1000# of lead inventory.

Really have to consider a lot of factors to determine if WW's are worth the effort. Does get to be an easier calculation the lower the percentage of lead gets. A free 100# bucket that only has 15# of lead is a lot of sorting time for that 15# yield.

[1911KY]

I like getting cheap buckets, but they are getting to be hard to come by, got nothing in 3 stops today on my lunch break and after work. The places that I have picked up buckets from just aren't producing them at a decent pace. That and I get real tired of be looked at like I am asking for a bucket full of gold!!

I need to go check out the scrap yard and see what they have to offer.

[kryogen]

my tire shop provides me with like 5 pails per year..... 20$ per 5 gallon. OooooOoooooo ;)
I cant stop picking it up, even if I dont need it, it's like an addiction. I go there on my day off and just pick up all the lead that I can, pay 100$ and drive away as fast as possible, yay, 700 pounds of lead :P Needing it isnt really what it's about. I cant stop :P

[jednorris]

I bought pure lead sheeting from the metal junk yard for $1.00 per pound. I then bought two #1 sticks of tin from "Buffalo Arms" for $16.50 per pound. . I melted up #25 of lead and added one #1 stick of tin for a reproducable known bullet mixture. I spent over $1,000.00 on my rifle, why would I skimp on the most importent part, a $.07 projectile.

[Gastero]

The tire place that I go to does a lot of used tire sale. About two weeks ago I traded .380 reloads to the manager and got about a 3/4 5 gal bucket. After sorting I got about 40% CCWW, 40% SOWW and rest FE and steel. Not a good find. In the past (about a year ago I was doing a lot better with this store).

[bangerjim]

I like getting cheap buckets, but they are getting to be hard to come by, got nothing in 3 stops today on my lunch break and after work. The places that I have picked up buckets from just aren't producing them at a decent pace. That and I get real tired of be looked at like I am asking for a bucket full of gold!!

I need to go check out the scrap yard and see what they have to offer.

Don't forget to ask them to have a look at where the store ALL their lead stuff. I walk by 55 gallon barrels of COWW's aand range scrap to go for clean Pb and alloys at the yards!

bangerj

[RogerDat]

Don't forget to ask them to have a look at where the store ALL their lead stuff. I walk by 55 gallon barrels of COWW's aand range scrap to go for clean Pb and alloys at the yards!

bangerj

+1 on asking at the scrap yard. I commented that there was not much in the bin was there anything else and was taken to three large full bins locked in a semi trailer set on the ground. Yards accumulate metals and try to sell whole batch when price is high. Problem I'm having now is the recent spike in lead prices caused them to ship pretty much everything they had on hand. I can see the bottom of the 4x4 pallet box, and have for the last several weeks :-(

Wonder what it is with SOWW's? I see very few lead SOWW's. Most of my stick on are Fe. I might have 3 gallons of SOWW from 1000# WW's sorted. I'm buying plain lead at the scrap yard because I see so little plain lead SOWW's. Gastero still got 80% lead, so maybe 60 or 65 lbs. smelted from a 3/4 full bucket? Not sure of the value of his .380 trade but 80% is not bad for a lot of the country.

Kyrogen - it is a compulsion but hey, best case you have enough to shoot as much as you like for the rest of your life, better case you have enough to shoot for the rest of your life AND sell some to folks that are having a hard time getting lead. Go buy a mold or some powder with the proceeds, win - win - win. Third win is for the business you buy casting or reloading supplies from :razz:

[khmer6]

Still worth it here. 8 bucks for 250#

[RogerDat]

Still worth it here. 8 bucks for 250#

But there is no here to your here? General as state or even general metropolitan area of the state would help. Lansing Area or S.E Ohio or.... At those prices I might want to retire there where your here is. :-)

[khmer6]

But there is no here to your here? General as state or even general metropolitan area of the state would help. Lansing Area or S.E Ohio or.... At those prices I might want to retire there where your here is. :-)
In Arizona. Interesting since California is so close and we have lots of those people moving here the lead ratio is still good. Over 80% are lead last week. 2 years same yield