Pure lead to useable alloy

[shamgar]

It seems it is not cost efficient to use pure lead. To purchase the tin,pewter,30%antimony,or linotype to make it usable costs more than just buying lyman #2. Is there some way or where to purchase the necessary tin,pewter,30%antimony,or linotype that doesn't cost an arm and leg?

[dragon813gt]

Yard sales and farmer's markets. You have to search but you can pick up solder and pewter cheap.

[flyer1]

Maybe you could trade your pure lead for ww lead. i would trade with you.

[JSnover]

It's not exactly unusable, just more versatile with another element or two added. What do you shoot?

[sqlbullet]

Trades work well. Early on in my casting experiences I traded lead for tin, lead for linotype, etc.

Track down the muzzle loader guys in your area. They are often very interested in pure lead and willing to make favorable trades or buy at favorable rates since they want it for their guns.

[RogerDat]

Swapping and selling section of the forum, post in wanted to buy section. Or browse through the back pages of the selling part to find members that have long running threads selling WW's and lead reclaimed from berms at gun ranges. Or pewter or printers lead. Right now there is a member selling isotope containers.

You might try hitting the tire stores and seeing if you can get the scrap wheel weights that come off when they change a tire. That lead is hard enough that it will work for rifle and can be cut with plain lead for pistol or used as is. Tiny bit of tin with that and you are all set.

It is nice to be able to cast with Lyman #2 or Hardball or mix alloys out of some sweet printers lead but it is by no means required. Some WW lead, a little tin, maybe some plain lead and you are good to go. These ingredients should not run you an arm and a leg. The first two about a buck a pound in swapping and selling, the pewter maybe 10 bucks for one pound which is enough to do about 90 pounds of bullets. Maybe $75 for 60 lbs. of the WW and $10 for plenty of pewter (tin) and you are all set to get started.

[RogerDat]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?277901-Range-Lead-Tin-(-Pewter)-and-soft-lead-for-sale Here you go can buy as little as $20 worth of range lead, or 5$ worth of pewter. These are very good prices and on smaller than usual quantities. Wouldn't hurt to send a prayer for the person selling along with the order. Tough break, tough time, praying for a little extra support during his troubles seems appropriate.

[BenW]

I cut my ww with pure. Either 2-1 or 1-1 ww-pure with about 1-2% Sn depending on the mold.

[fredj338]

You don't need nor really want to buy all that to alloy pure lead. Get some linotype, mix it 3-1 lead-lino, even 4-1, you are gtg for most applications. You can water drop that if you need harder alloy.

[LAGS]

I am buying pure Tin and raw Antimony for around $16.00 a pound.
I usually get lead for free of the conctruction or demo sites I work on. ( Lead roof flashings and X-Ray room Sheilding )
So, I smelt it into Lino mix or 84-4-12 and keep it around to resmelt with other lead I get in the future at a ratio that is determined by what I am casting the boolits for.
But even smelting a 16 to 1 ratio, ( 94 % to 6% ) of Lead to Tin works in most handguns with a BHN of 11
and it works in rifles up to about 1800 FPS
It is far cheaper than the old stand by of 10-1 ( 91% to 9% ) Lead to Tin that only comes out to a BHN of 11.5

[GoodOlBoy]

I agree, pure lead you should trade for WW or what you want. shotgunners, and muzzleloaders need pure lead.

GoodOlBoy

[MOA]

I was lucky last year to help a relative redo the roof on their home, and noticed that all of the roof jacks were made of pure lead, which the roofer was just going to throw away at the dump, and I thought wow, what a waste of good lead, so I told him I would pay him thirty cents a pound for every roof jack he saved for me from his roofing jobs. I must have melted down 2 to 300 lbs of this lead now over the last two years. So I got some of my WW's which are in 5 lb ingots along with some super hard from roto and melted them all together to get a nice alloy of about 18-20 after about a week. If you can get a cheap supply of pure lead than the rest is easy with help from Roto Metals.

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http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/ab136/nitroexpress450400/Mobile%20Uploads/20150323_180305_zps2ryvp29f.jpg (http://s857.photobucket.com/user/nitroexpress450400/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20150323_180305_zps2ryvp29f.jpg.html)

http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/ab136/nitroexpress450400/Mobile%20Uploads/20150125_114402_zpseixzjqf9.jpg (http://s857.photobucket.com/user/nitroexpress450400/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20150125_114402_zpseixzjqf9.jpg.html)

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[shamgar]

While not available at every tire store several around here sell 5gal buckets of wheel weights for 30 bucks. I get about sixty lbs of coww from each bucket after I sort out the fe and zink sometimes more none less than sixty lbs yet and about 25lbs of stickon ww. As I am casting for my pistols only(45acp, .40 S&W, .357/38spl) the cowws have worked fine brn 12-14. I am running out of room for all the soft lead that I not using, My hope is to alloy it to a BRN of 18+ to use in my rifles, buying the bars of 30% antimony, 5 lbs each 1.5 lbs of Antimony so for 10/1 I could only add 10 lbs of pure lead giving a yield of 15 lbs. for $20 , seems steep cost wise as I have 200lbs. I have accumulated 800lbs coww cast in to ingots should I make them harder? Again a lot of tin/antimony.

[LAGS]

For 200lb of pure lead or SOWW you will only need 4 lb of Tin and 12 lb of Antimony to make a 92-6-2 blend with a BHN of around 18.
Read my post on the cost of smelting your own from Raw materials

For the COWW just add 2% Tin and it will bump it up to a 12 BHN or 16 BHN water dropped
So for 800lb of COWW you just add 16 LB of Tin

COWW are only a BHN of 9 unless you are water dropping them.
Then they come up to around a 12 or 14.

[Echo]

I have a supply of monotype and foundry type that will probably last me as long as I need it. I mix the mono- with ww's 1/7, and add another 1% Sn. So 35 lbs ww ingots, 5 lbs mono, 6.4 oz (or thereabouts!) Sn, yields 40 lbs of 2+%Sn, 5+% Sb, remainder Pb, for rifle boolits. Cut 50/50 w/Pb and add another 1% Sn for pistol boolits. Sometime I substitute range lead for the WW's, with little change in the resulting alloy, a little less Sb, but hardly noticeable. The foundry type is used 1/10, otherwise the same.
And the Sn usually is in the form of solder ingots purchased on eBay, where I also got the type metal.