our lead is worth more

[Lloyd Smale]

just read an article that said theres a lead shortage right now and lead is going for 2300 bucks a ton. Good i guess if your willing to part with some. They said they expect the prices to up even higher in the near future.

[bakerjw]

I was at the range Monday afternoon and it was dry so the pickings were plenty. I can scarf up 50# without even really trying.
I really need to get some more molds.

[FISH4BUGS]

I must be the luckiest guy on the planet. I friend and fellow shooter/racquetball player sold his tire shop many years ago, called me and said "....come get as many wheel weights as you want".
2500 lbs later I think I am all set.
No lead shortage here.

[NyFirefighter357]

https://www.rotometals.com/pallet-lead-ingots-99-9-1000-pounds-freight-included/

Pallet Lead Ingots (99.9%) 1000 pounds Freight Included sale $1,849.00
— You save $150.00

[Lloyd Smale]

yup its up over a buck a lb and is expected to go higher. Im sitting on over a ton so when it his 50 bucks im selling! Anyone want to get in on something as profitable as bit coin?? Ill trade you even up lb for lb lead for silver before the price skyrockets.:coffeecom

[starnbar]

The majority of lead today is recycled LME lead prices are down 9 points as 0f7/7/21.

[richhodg66]

I wouldn't worry about it becoming cost prohibitive as much as just environmentally banned. The green types will have all forms of it unavailable.

[chuck40219]

yup its up over a buck a lb and is expected to go higher. Im sitting on over a ton so when it his 50 bucks im selling! Anyone want to get in on something as profitable as bit coin?? Ill trade you even up lb for lb lead for silver before the price skyrockets.:coffeecom

I don't know about trading pound per pound for silver. I just sold 18 lb 6 oz of 99% silver flake 2 weeks ago. They could not get me a check fast enough. I think silver is on the brink of heading up in price also. I see a new gun and lots of reloading supplies in my future.

Chuck40219

[garandsrus]

What is silver flake?

[ioon44]

A friend of mine is a commercial bullet caster and two months ago he was paying $1.65 per lb and now it has went up to $2.40 per lb for 6-2-92 alloy.
So I am sure the cost of bullets will be going up.

[rototerrier]

20lbs usually makes over 1k 9s, so that's just 50 bucks at 2.5 per. Still not bad imo. Gonna have to gho way way up before it's no longer worth casting. But then again, it'll still be cheaper to cast so I guess it's all relative.

[truckerdave397]

I just checked the scrap yard where I use to work. They are paying $.46 a pound for lead. Owner usually sells it to me for about $.70

[jim147]

I checked the one closest to me. .17 for wheel weights and .41 for clean lead. They want over a dollar if you want to buy some.

[Lloyd Smale]

What is silver flake?

i would guess its shavings left from drilling and milling silver parts. but then I dont have a clue

[Bent Ramrod]

Scrap clean lead was $1.00 a pound two months ago, but is now $1.50 a pound at my favorite junkyard. The price jump even startled the guy making up the invoice.

But I knew money was getting worthless when I went to Wal-Mart to get a can of their flat black spray paint for metal targets. It had been 96 cents a can for as long as I had been painting targets; now it was $1.23.

Money is a function of how hard and smart people work; not how fast one can run a printing press. Odd how this reality never seems to trouble the fine minds of our Best and Brightest.

[Drm50]

The Dog never catches its tail. It dies from exhaustion.

[Conditor22]

The only scrap yard near me has been charging $1.50 a pound for a long time now. (they pay 10-15¢ a pound)

Occasionally I'll buy some 50/50, roll solder, or hard lead from them and scrap metal for projects.

Many years ago I bought 3/4 ton of monotype/foundry lead for .80¢ a pound. Sold some but still have a lot of it left.

[Shuz]

Scrap clean lead was $1.00 a pound two months ago, but is now $1.50 a pound at my favorite junkyard. The price jump even startled the guy making up the invoice.

But I knew money was getting worthless when I went to Wal-Mart to get a can of their flat black spray paint for metal targets. It had been 96 cents a can for as long as I had been painting targets; now it was $1.23.

Money is a function of how hard and smart people work; not how fast one can run a printing press. Odd how this reality never seems to trouble the fine minds of our Best and Brightest.

At least you can get flat black paint ! We've not been able to get it out here for over a year now! Can't get flat white either! Our was .89/can . Our sillywet targets now shine!

[chuck40219]

What is silver flake?

It is silver reclaimed from film processing solutions. When I sold it was netting $26.55 a troy oz.

chuck40219

[BJK]

I don't care what it's selling for. Mine isn't for sale. I bought it to use when the **** the fan and that day has come since the last I checked lead bullets were hard to find. If the price of lead is going up, the price of lead bullets will stay static? I doubt it.

[nvbirdman]

No matter how high the price of lead goes the best way to get rid of it is by pulling a trigger.

[MR45]

I just sold 300 pounds of the dross off the top of the smelt for $.60 a pound at the junkies
I was happy to get rid of it

[Dieselhorses]

I must be the luckiest guy on the planet. I friend and fellow shooter/racquetball player sold his tire shop many years ago, called me and said "....come get as many wheel weights as you want".
2500 lbs later I think I am all set.
No lead shortage here.

I bet half of that was steel and zinc weights?

[Idaho45guy]

I don't cast much so I just buy a few pounds of Lyman #2 every now and then. Last time I bought some was about a year ago from Rotometals.

$25 for 5 lbs delivered to my door.

Today, it is $32 for 5 lbs. $6.40 a lb.

Ordered 14 lbs a few minutes ago from Buffalo Arms and it was $68 delivered, or $4.85 a lb.

[dverna]

Looks like I will be selling some commercial bullets/alloy. I have about 4000 lbs that I will never use up.

[BUFFALOW RED]

Salvage yard here said most there lead is from old batterys they process.
I thought that old batterys lead was a no go for boolits?

[rototerrier]

The processing of it is nasty, but other than that, battery lead is just like any other. I think it's soft and mostly pure. A very long time ago I used it for muzzle loader boolits. The deer never seemed to notice any difference.

[Graybeard96]

Up here in Canada If you live by or near the Coast you probably seen abandoned Sail Boats. Some of them have sizable amounts of Lead in there Keels free for the taking if you are willing to work for it.

Cheers

[Geezer in NH]

https://www.rotometals.com/pallet-lead-ingots-99-9-1000-pounds-freight-included/

Pallet Lead Ingots (99.9%) 1000 pounds Freight Included sale $1,849.00
— You save $150.00

However a ton is 2000 pounds making 1000 pounds cost of $869.65 plus the frieght.

[richhodg66]

I don't cast much so I just buy a few pounds of Lyman #2 every now and then. Last time I bought some was about a year ago from Rotometals.

$25 for 5 lbs delivered to my door.

Today, it is $32 for 5 lbs. $6.40 a lb.

Ordered 14 lbs a few minutes ago from Buffalo Arms and it was $68 delivered, or $4.85 a lb.

At that price for alloy, might as well just buy jacketed.

Lead is out there and can often be had free or cheap. One has to be on the lookout for it. I've accumulated enough over the years that since I'm shooting on my own place where I'll eventually recover it if I live long enough to bother with it, that I'm not worried about running out now. If I was shooting on a public range, I'd be actively looking for more.

[dverna]

At that price for alloy, might as well just buy jacketed.

Lead is out there and can often be had free or cheap. One has to be on the lookout for it. I've accumulated enough over the years that since I'm shooting on my own place where I'll eventually recover it if I live long enough to bother with it, that I'm not worried about running out now. If I was shooting on a public range, I'd be actively looking for more.

Good point...at $6/lb I will buy commercial bullets. I have never understood the attraction of Rotometals but I guess some folks just need a few pounds for whatever reason.

My last purchase was years ago....2000 lbs of 92-2-6 from Mayco. $3600 delivered IIRC.

Like you, I am now in the position that I can reclaim lead on my own range (use a sand filled trap) so I will never run out of lead. I have about 4000 lbs in ingots. I used about 800 lbs for ballast for my tractor but need to replace that with concrete. Just silly to have $1600 of lead doing the job of $50 of Quickrete.

[richhodg66]

I dumpster dove at a construction site a few years ago for 20 minutes or so and got 100 lbs of X-ray shielding for my efforts. When I was younger, went to the demolition of a big housing area on post and collected up several hundred pounds of various roofing lead, telephone cabl sheathing, and solder joints from waste water pipes. Can count the number of times I've seen a crew roofing a building and just stopped to ask if they had any flashing or roof jacks, usually they'll give them to you if you ask. Been a while, but had tire shops give me wheel weights before. Worst case, the public range I go to would net me a few 5 gallon buckets of scrap in a few minutes of work, the harder part is melting and refining it later, that gets done in Winter.

Our scrap yard in town usually has lead around he'll sell me. I bought a five gallon bucket of Lyman ingots there a while back, not sure what they are, I suspect wheel weights. I seem to recall it was about 35 cents a pound. I've found enough decent deals on linotype over the years for alloying purposes and have a pretty steady supply of tin from work free. One just has to be on the lookout.

Don, it sounds like you thought it through more than I did, there was already a high berm for the road bed to my north, I just marked 100 yards, set up an old pallet to hang targets on and started shooting. It'll probably make it a lot more difficult to sieve eventually than if I did the sand thing, but I may be taking the dirt nap before it happens anyway and it'll be the next property owner's problem. Not gonna go to that trouble while I still have lead on the shelf.

[bangerjim]

It is silver reclaimed from film processing solutions. When I sold it was netting $26.55 a troy oz.

chuck40219

What is film? HA ha!

People just do not realize all you have to do today is type your question into Google or the engine of your choice and it will answer you with tons of reading material.

[Lloyd Smale]

ill save mine other then what i return to the earth for a future investment. I we ever do see a full on shtf senerio lead in the form of cast bullets will be worth more then gold or silver. Always wondered what people though thinking Gold would be so valuable if that happened. Just cant see a bunch of people living in a cave trying to scrape by just finding food and ways to stay warm would do with gold. Sure it might be worth something again in the distant future but not to many of us will be around long enough to see it. Logic would say that other then food water and shelter, guns and ammo will be the most valuable trading pieces to have. You probably wont buy a ritz cracker for an once of gold.

[358429]

Lloyd, in post 34 my eyes see the incredible suffering of the Balkans in the 90's, and I pray it never comes to pass here.

Marksmanship may save your life or people special to you some day, that is what the lead may be worth.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

[farmbif]

as a bullet caster ive learned to never pass up an opportunity to acquire casting alloys if its free or at very reasonable cost and no matter how many buckets full of lead alloys I might have that have yet to melted into casting ingots its probably not enough. this way I can shoot whatever I want whenever I want without worrying about running out.

for any of you that buy ingots online I noticed a few days ago that midway had a bunch of different casting alloys in the clearance department

[gbrown]

I have more lead than I will ever use in my life time. I also have various solders, pewter and monotype that will never be used by me. A lot of the solder all the labels are off, so I just treat it as 50/50. My Bhn may be off by a little, but I can always test (which I do), and I can get by. I also have a bunch of boolits already cast up and stored. The various calibers I like to shoot. At some point in time, I'll have to decide what to do with it. I have more casting to do, not that I need to, but I have fun with it. Have a couple of new molds I haven't cast with, yet, and I am looking forward to doing that. I have some really nice molds--old ones--that are in top shape and they work like a charm. This hobby is addictive, as many of you have said. Right now, 92 degrees and a wet bulb of 106, just not the right time. Sell my stash? Not to some **** re-cycler! I'll find a fellow boolit caster or a fisherman, first!

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I've got way more lead/ alloy now than the primers needed to use it up. Same with powder. I will still keep an eye open for lead but I am more focused on primer availability going forward.

[richhodg66]

I've got way more lead/ alloy now than the primers needed to use it up. Same with powder. I will still keep an eye open for lead but I am more focused on primer availability going forward.

That's probably all of us at this point. Seems like we're beginning to see some progress in primer availability now, not much, but some. Hopefully back to something like normal before long.