First time buying scrap lead, what to look for

[bob15]

Hi, I stopped at a local scrap yard yesterday and inquired about buy lead off him. Said to come back back next week as he just sent a load out the day before. He is getting 69 cents a pound.

Now for my question: what should I be looking for? Anything in-particular? Pipe, sheets, bars, etc; how do I really know if it is pure lead or what is mixed into it and at what percentage?

My knowledge of buying casting lead is getting it from rotometals or buffalo arms for BPCR. The lead I would like to buy would be for BPCR, but mainly for smokeless gas-check rifle rounds (at least for now).

thanks......

[NY_Treeguy]

Where in CT is this place? My local scrap yard, about an hour away, wants $1.00-$1.25/lb for scrap.

Pipe and flashing are a pretty safe bet for being near pure lead, really soft stuff. You can add tin as needed. Machinery counter weights may be any alloy. I usually look for the cleanest stuff I can find. When you pay by the pound why pay for dirt/tar/garbage.

[RogerDat]

Scrap lead is sort of a roll of the dice. Pipe, sheet, and liner for x-ray rooms and machines are "generally" plain soft lead. Lead COWW's (Clip On Wheel Weights) are a semi-known alloy. They vary a bit in actual composition but will also "generally" be a known alloy. You do have to sort or skim the zinc and steel weights to remove them in order to just have the lead. And SOWW's (Stick On Wheel Weights) will be almost plain soft lead.

Any lead used in printing Linotype, mono or foundry type, Linotype pigs. All premium alloy, lot of antimony and tin. Pewter or solder in bars or rolls of solder wire are good for the tin content. I seem to recall BPCR shooting lead/tin alloy was all you could use if so solder would be most useful.

Hex or round ingots of about 5# each will often be plumbers lead which is soft lead.

Wheel weights are sort of the bread and butter of scrap lead for cast bullets. Used for most common smokeless cast boolits. Cut 50/50 with plain with 1% added tin is good revolver or 45 ACP. Straight COWW's should work for harder hitting magnums or rifle up to a point where you have to water drop them from the mold, the rapid quench yields greater hardness. Suitable for some of the more powerful rifle rounds. So the lowly clip on wheel weight is worth getting IF the ratio of lead ones to zinc and steel is decent.

At $0.69 you might also consider the swapping and selling forum here. At least for wheel weights. You will pay about $1 per pound but they will already be in nice clean ingots, saving you the sorting and smelting into usable ingots. $0.69 for solder or nice clean lead in ingots, bars or sheet form is a good deal. Wheel weights at that price start making the ones already process and sold by members here look like a better deal.

[Mitch]

welcome to cast boolits Bob15
I am sure others will chime in soon to.But here is what I find.At the local scrap yards I get mostly sheet and pipe this is mostly pure or close enough.Every now and then I get some bar or roll solder.I have never found any type lead at the scrap yards.Go and take a look you will learn what you are looking at.as for price it depnds where you go.some are cheeper than others.It is between 65 cents to a buck a lb here.
there is a lot of info here including a free lead calculator.Read the stickies!I read here for a long time befor joining.
the Rotometals site I a good place to look and see what alloys are and the hardness.The formula give on the bullet metal page works great.use the 8.6 number for pure lead not 5.
If you are shooting BPCR you my want pure lead and some solder to make 1 in 20 or 1 in 30 alloy.
you will want to read about sorting wheel weights to keep zinc out of your lead stash.
I am become less of a fan of ww I still get a few for free but there is less and less leadin the buckets all the time.It has become more work than it is worth to sort and melt.I guess a lot of it depends on how much timw you have and want to spend on it.Some have given up totally on them ad buy alloys rady to go.Again it all depends on price and if there are any ww in your state.

[RogerDat]

I will add that some yards have an XRF gun that can detect the percentages of alloys. About the size of a large cordless drill. Really expensive. Like $60,000 expensive. But some yards will break it out to test what you want to buy. This is the only way to know exactly what the unknown scrap is. If they have an XRF gun and you are looking at a possible purchase of 100# worth of unknown counter weights asking them to gun them for you is not unreasonable. For a 5# chunk they have to like you or be really bored. Be aware of how busy they are, asking when things are slow makes it more likely they will say yes. Say yes once and if you don't abuse it they will probably say yes again. Not all yards have the guns but many will.

Donuts are a great way of saying thank you. Or pizza or some other treat that lets them know you appreciate their help. They see the lead come in and it don't hurt to be on good terms with those guys. They are running a business, you want to be a valued customer. Even if you don't buy semi-truck loads from them.

Oh and big batches of scrap melted are your friend. Better to figure out how best to use 150# batch of ingredients than 10# of this and 5# of that. So shoot for making big batches when dealing with assorted lead or wheel weights. Solder, Pewter or Printing lead keep separate but the other "unknown" lead melting bigger pots yield more consistent ingots. Even if you have to buy something to "sweeten" the stuff from the big batch to get the hardness needed you will be working with a consistent lead supply.

Last thing I can think of soft lead goes "thunk" when dropped on concrete or struck, while harder lead has more of a ring. And while knowing the alloy is great, for many general uses all one really needs to know is how hard it is, if the bullets are too soft add some printers lead, if too hard add some plain. Once it makes a good shooting non-leading bullet mix up a big batch and call it good. After all if it works in your 45 ACP and you make 50# of it that will cover your next 1500 bullets.

[GhostHawk]

Whatever you can find that you can mark with a thumbnail.

I've shot a fair amount of pipe and with 1-2% tin added it shoots pretty good. Especially in lower pressure loads.

[scottfire1957]

As another advocated: Have it analyzed at the yard before you buy. Know what you want or know how to mix it in the pot.

[BCOWANWHEELS]

I just bought 600 lbs of indoor range bullits for .40 cents per lb cash

[ioon44]

I like to buy lead that is still in the original shape this gives me a better idea of what it is, lead that is poured into coffee cans cooking pans could have zinc or just about any thing else mixed in.

The XRF gun is a great help if the scrap yard has one.

[RogerDat]

I like to buy lead that is still in the original shape this gives me a better idea of what it is, lead that is poured into coffee cans cooking pans could have zinc or just about any thing else mixed in.

The XRF gun is a great help if the scrap yard has one.

Bullet casters will work really hard to avoid zinc since it makes lead hard to cast into bullets, people that cast big coffee can anchors, big down rigger weights or tractor weights may not care about zinc. If they crank the heat up high enough they can live with the zinc in the coffee can, rough bullets are more of a problem.

On the other hand have seen a stack of square bread pan ingots that gunned out as linotype, I was thinking they might be good casting material because it came in with some cast bullets, and Lyman ingots etc. that looked like caster supplies. Shiny, smooth, and scratch with finger nail but rang when dropped. They gunned one and I bought em all :-)

[bob15]

I picked up 77 pound of lead pipe and a little sheeting and one ingot for $53.00. Will be stopping by the scrap yard again next week.

thanks for all the input!!!

[Mitch]

good deal Bob15.It all seems daunting at first.the only way to lean is get your feet wet.you will learn as you go.seems like a fair price to.be shure and keep a lookout for the solder bars and rolls.one scrap yard I got to keeps everything in the same bin solder and all for the same price.another thing you may want to do it get on the rotometals email list.they will email you when they have a sale