Wheel weights - thing of the past?

[huntinlever]

I did search but with such a general term, didn't find the question exactly.

I use to use 50:50 Pb:COWW + added 95:5 solder to bring tin to 2%. WQ'ed.

Now, I have been using Rotometal Pb:No. 2 at 2:1, again WQ'ed.

I appreciate the Rotometal alloys. At the same time, I miss the ability to buy WW to make my own alloy. Not really a big deal to me to sort and smelt the dirty COWW.

It's been since about 2015. Are COWW's quickly becoming a thing of the past? For you guys who have traditionally used them, are you still sourcing them? If not, what are you subbing in for your alloy?

[Kraschenbirn]

Dunno where you're located but I'm in Illinois where Pb-alloy wheelweights have been illegal for over ten years. Could occasionally find some up 'til, maybe, 4 years ago but not any longer. Local recyclers won't even sell scrap roofing or plumbing lead...claim it's 'illegal' to sell to anyone without a hazmat license (It isn't but this is a dark blue university town and they're afraid of losing business if the local eco-idiots were to find out!).

Bill

[huntinlever]

Dunno where you're located but I'm in Illinois where Pb-alloy wheelweights have been illegal for over ten years. Could occasionally find some up 'til, maybe, 4 years ago but not any longer. Local recyclers won't even sell scrap roofing or plumbing lead...claim it's 'illegal' to sell to anyone without a hazmat license (It isn't but this is a dark blue university town and they're afraid of losing business if the local eco-idiots were to find out!).

Bill

OK, thanks Bill. I do like knowing the purity of the stuff (as with Rotometals) and thought the W's were either heading that way (it was getting tough for me even then - WI) or out. So I'm guessing most guys have moved on to other alloys then.

[oley55]

scroll down to page 3 and about a quarter down for wheel weight score, they are still out there.

[GlocksareGood]

I have picked up 1000lbs in the last three months. You can still find them. I am finding that now they are running 50% junk. Lots of steel, composite tape weights and some zinc. I am only paying $20 a bucket though so I am still buying. Got 5 buckets of cowws ready to melt and 1 bucket of sowws. Also got about 500lbs of soft lead to put into ingots.

I just packaged up 511lbs of linotype and 302lbs of monotype/stereotype. Had been sitting in buckets for 3-4 years.

[Winger Ed.]

Are COWW's quickly becoming a thing of the past?

Yep. There's also ranges that won't let you shoot Lead anymore too.
Lead wheel weights are on the way out, and so is Lead in other things too.

It'll be awhile before we're all forced into it, but some folks are getting in on it now.
There's a few threads here, and several videos on youtube about casting with the Zinc wheel weights.

One of the advantages to them is they're about 60% as heavy as Lead for the same boolit, but you may not have to lube them,
and you can push them on up to jacketed speeds. They would be a decent substitute for Barnes solids.

[lightman]

It depends on where you are located. I can still find them here in Arkansas. I scored a bucket last week and a bucket before Christmas. The useable lead yield is down to 55-60%. I am seeing more steel weights, more stick-on weights and fewer Zinc weights.

[Cast10]

Local shops have them……I’ve been using more SOWWs and hold my COWWs in reserve. I like it when you find some of the ‘big truck’ weights!

[ioon44]

Wheel weights - thing of the past?
No but they are getting harder to find. I am using bullet traps and range scrap more than WW now days.

[huntinlever]

OK thanks guys. Even back then I couldn't find anyplace anywhere locally, but I did have a guy about 15 miles out of town. Worth checking in with him again and otherwise digging "while supplies last."

[lightman]

Local shops have them……I’ve been using more SOWWs and hold my COWWs in reserve. I like it when you find some of the ‘big truck’ weights!

The last bucket that I sorted got rained on before I got it unloaded and moved into the garage. About 1/3rd of the way down I encountered this pesky wet piece of cardboard that turned out to be a box of new unused 8oz truck weights. This shop will sell and mount truck tires but doesn't have a way to balance them. Thats pretty common with farm trucks and log trucks that are in a lot of mud.

[dverna]

Wheel weights - thing of the past?
No but they are getting harder to find. I am using bullet traps and range scrap more than WW now days.

Range scrap will be the easiest source IF you can find a range that will allow you to mine. Not worth the bother to try to find tire shops anymore IMO.

[sailcaptain]

I’ve tried asking at the local tire shops and mostly received very odd looks. But never a single weight. I do pick up the occasional street found weight, usually right near the potholes. That may yield a boolit or two. Everything gets thrown in a bucket for a later day of melting.
The local scrap yards here don't have a problem selling lead as of now.
So thats my source and store bought ingots like Rotometals and plumbing supply shops.
My purity is good and I’m having great results from what I cast.

[405grain]

I'd had a random thought about wheel weights a couple of years ago, but never followed up on it because I have lots of casting alloy on hand. People will "mine the berm" at shooting ranges to recover spent bullets for smelting, and that's productive. Back when lead alloy wheel weights were common, anytime that I'd walk a mile or two along city streets I'd find wheel weights laying on the shoulder or at intersections. Some days I might pick up half a dozen on a walk downtown. Over time this would build up to an amount that I could melt down and cast a batch of bullets.

The thought that I had was about street-sweepers. The city/county/state all have street sweepers that go basically everywhere collecting anything that ends up on the road shoulder. These things have been doing this for decades, and must have picked up a lot of wheelweights every day. Where do they dump the stuff that they pick up? If it gets trucked off to a landfill then it's basically gone. But if it gets dumped into a pile at some city/county yard, then this is probably a mound of high grade wheelweight ore. I think that the only downside to "mining" that trash dirt for the alloy is that it might also contain asbestos dust from back in the day when they made brake pads from that stuff. This is just something that tumbled over in my mind, but no body cared about it back when tireweights were plentiful.

[lightman]

If I didn't have a tire shop that saved them for me I would ask at some wrecking yards. If that worked out you would benefit in investing in a good set of wheelweight pliers.

Its kind of become a game between a buddy and me but we watch at intersections and exit ramps and manage to pick up quite a few. When his boys were farming we made parts runs for them and managed to see a lot of intersections and exit ramps. We would pick up about a bucket a year! I even had a magnet on a stick and could catch them on the move!

[Shanghai Jack]

Yeah - and read the latest news about the UK getting ready to ban airgun pellets and lead shot. Lead might be the next gold.

[El Bibliotecario]

Range scrap will be the easiest source IF you can find a range that will allow you to mine. Not worth the bother to try to find tire shops anymore IMO.

Recently while having some work done on my vehicle, I idly asked what they did with their old wheelweights--and ended up with an estimated 160# for the cost of a dozen doughnuts. So it may depend on the geographic area or the individual shop.

[JoeJames]

It depends on where you are located. I can still find them here in Arkansas. I scored a bucket last week and a bucket before Christmas. The useable lead yield is down to 55-60%. I am seeing more steel weights, more stick-on weights and fewer Zinc weights.Same here in my part of the Arkansas Delta. As a cousin said: "Need to find a farm tire shop at least a quarter mile down a dirt road and out of town". So it must be a location thing.

[oley55]

It depends on where you are located. I can still find them here in Arkansas. I scored a bucket last week and a bucket before Christmas. The useable lead yield is down to 55-60%. I am seeing more steel weights, more stick-on weights and fewer Zinc weights.

Bolded text pretty much mirrors my recent yields.

[Chaparral66]

My local tire shop has been nice enough to give me their "waste weight" buckets. I usually stop i around the first of each month and swap my scrap buckets for "new" buckets, so they end up getting rid of the zinc, steel and composite junk. January was awesome as the shop had been doing winter tire installations for a month so my haul was double of what I normally get. Even with the lower percentage of usable weights from each batch I have way more alloy that I can shoot.

[dondiego]

My local tire shop has been nice enough to give me their "waste weight" buckets. I usually stop i around the first of each month and swap my scrap buckets for "new" buckets, so they end up getting rid of the zinc, steel and composite junk. January was awesome as the shop had been doing winter tire installations for a month so my haul was double of what I normally get. Even with the lower percentage of usable weights from each batch I have way more alloy that I can shoot.

You have a great situation similar to what I used to have at some places. Keep a good relation with them as long as you can. My options always dried up.

[fortrenokid]

Howdy Pards

Call me old … I am … but for many decades I relied heavily on scrap wheel weights from service stations and tire shops. They were happy to give away the used ones.

Nowadays? One would think you were asking them to donate a kidney. They all seem to know recyclers.

I now rely on an abundant supply of range lead. At the outdoor range I use, the backstops are tall, dirt berms … maybe 20’ high. The berms are high enough that the shooting clubs have their target sheds behind them.

While getting targets on one occasion I wondered why there were brown and black rocks and gravel on the ground. Wasn’t rocks or gravel. Spent bullets. My thot is that the bullets hit the ground and skipped or slid over the berm. Anyway there’s plenty of ‘em.

Recently I set my watch timer for 20 minutes … about all my back would take. My back generously granted me another 10 minutes. I mainly picked lead bullets but didn’t ignore 9mm and 45 FMJ’s. The haul? Melted down to a total of 19+ one lb ingots.

I label them as range lead. Good for casting bullets as is but I typically mix in a little linotype or monotype to add some hardness but also to improve casting flow.

Even tho I participate in various matches, cast bullet supply is not an issue as long as there is an abundant (inexhaustible?) supply of range lead.

Keep on the sunny side!

Adios

Fort Reno Kid

[fredj338]

^^this^^^

[Gobeyond]

[QUOTE=Kraschenbirn;5513287]Dunno where you're located but I'm in Illinois where Pb-alloy wheelweights have been illegal for over ten years. Could occasionally find some up 'til, maybe, 4 years ago but not any longer. Local recyclers won't even sell scrap roofing or plumbing lead...claim it's 'illegal' to sell to anyone without a hazmat license (It isn't but this is a dark blue university town and they're afraid of losing business if the local eco-idiots were to find out!).

Yah in kalifornica, by the time I started looking for WW I was ten years late. Now we all have floppy tires. I can get lead out of state as does rotometals. But they have laws for everything which harms new entrepreneurs and makes no sense. I used to be into eco but the nuts and bolts is just nuts. I don’t think it’s going to work.

[William Yanda]

I have a bid in on a couple of buckets that look to be 2/3-3/4 full of old wheel weights in a nearby online aucion. Wish me luck

[Cosmic_Charlie]

A while back I got a bucket of lead odds and ends from a scrapyard off U.S. Hwy #2 just West of Grand Rapids MN. Had some stick on ww, battery terminals and a mix of regular ww. Probably about half steel and zinc. But there were some large ones for semi trucks and they were lead. Hitting up some semi truck tire outfits might be a good way to score some.

[JSnover]

Wheel weights are still around, it's just that the majority of them have been recycled into anything else made of lead. It's such an easy metal to recycle, there isn't much call for lead mines or lead smelting operations.
I have a fairly decent stash of WW and I'll miss them when they're gone but holding them now or buying clean WW alloy will eventually be the only way to get them.

[MUSTANG]

Investment Opportunity!! Save those wheel weights as "Memorabilia" to be sold at auction.

Seriously; it is getting more difficult to find good sources of lead. Have not had to try to buy Wheel Weights for 5 years. It's been 40 years since I scrounged the lead sheathing from Telephone cable for cast boolits and Dive Weights. Some Day; I may have to actually buy from a Metal Vendor; but I'm good for now.

I still think about trying the Zinker Casting from todays wheel weights; but given costs of molds - I am just shy of stepping into that realm Of course; 10 years ago most of us were Shy in stepping into the Powder Coated Boolit realm also.

[Bigslug]

I had a couple good scores early in the casting career maybe 10-12 years ago; in both cases, probably sitting forgotten for 20 years before I came along.

I regard them as a practically extinct source. At the point of tracking down a tire shop willing to part, and then sorting out the zinc and steel, you'd probably be using your time more efficiently to pick your range berm, hit up the local trap range for reclaimed shot, and tactically invest in Rotometals Superhard, Lyman #2, and tin nuggets.

Been thinking we need to re-work the lyrics of the Gatlin Brothers' All the Gold In California. . .

[Sudsy]

My son is a mechanic, been with Ford and Audi - and I've never seen more than a handful of WW's from him.
He says they just don't use em anymore, it's all the zinc stick on ones.

One of the guys he works with was a truck mechanic. He says they still use the old style WW's, the stick on ones aren't big or heavy enough.

[41jfischer]

I have found that about 35-40 % of my buckets are now comming up zinc