Price of Pb

[Rockindaddy]

Lead seems to be around .40~.50 cents per pound at current scrap prices. 5-7-2024 Ran into a fellow selling his house. He apparently had a boat that listed to starboard. 150 lbs of lead ingots was added to balance the boat. He said he did a little remodeling and moved a refrigerator to the port side. That balanced the boat. No more list. I bought the 150 lbs of lead that was removed from the boat for $.50 cents a pound. I have found that salvage yards scrapping sailboats always have the lead keels that are cast lead. They can be bought for scrap. You just need a way to saw up the lead ballast keels into a 50 pound manageable chunk. Have a Milwaukee portable bandsaw that works. Ya just need an extension cord, a long one. Good Pb hunting!

[Budzilla 19]

It, PB, is still out there,but ya gotta scrounge for it! That 150 pounds of lead will make 4,565 230 grain .45 slugs! Unless you are a competitor in pistol matches, or own a SMG, you should be good for a minute!
Score!

[jdgabbard]

Unfortunately, not all scrap yards sell to individuals. I'm no longer aware of any locally... There used to be a place out in Claremore, Oklahoma that Randall here on CB turned me onto a little more than a decade ago. But even they have since stopped selling to the public. I can buy online or here, but you're doing it at 2-3x the spot price. And don't anyone give me that crap about the spot isn't the value - it is. It is for gold, it is for silver, it is for steel, it is for lead... Obviously with a "premium" attached, which is normal. Lead is the only metal out there that somehow magically becomes worth more than it's spot price - outside of specialty alloys which are admittedly quite expensive.

These days, I just order from Kathie for the most part (The Captain over in Vendor Sales). She does me right and ships straight to my door in clean ingot form. No more messing with a 150+ lb cast iron pot with a turkey fryer... I still have about 200lbs of stick-ons to smelt down. I'll get around to it eventually. But I'm in no rush.... Right now I have close to 500lbs of lead in one alloy or another. And I buy another 100lb or so a year to keep my stock up. By the time they make it so I can't cast I'll be too old to hold my rifle, and it'll be up to the boy to worry about what to do.

[dtknowles]

Lead seems to be around .40~.50 cents per pound at current scrap prices. 5-7-2024 Ran into a fellow selling his house. He apparently had a boat that listed to starboard. 150 lbs of lead ingots was added to balance the boat. He said he did a little remodeling and moved a refrigerator to the port side. That balanced the boat. No more list. I bought the 150 lbs of lead that was removed from the boat for $.50 cents a pound. I have found that salvage yards scrapping sailboats always have the lead keels that are cast lead. They can be bought for scrap. You just need a way to saw up the lead ballast keels into a 50 pound manageable chunk. Have a Milwaukee portable bandsaw that works. Ya just need an extension cord, a long one. Good Pb hunting!

At $0.50 a pound, he sold it for what a scrap yard would pay if you brought it to them. You both got a deal, you got a good price and he did not have to move it. I have to pay twice that at my scrap yard and they will buy from me for $0.50 a pound. I would not pay $0.50 for lead that I have to put that much work into when I can buy lead that will just drop into my casting pot for a $1.00 a pound. I don't mind cutting sheet lead to fit the pot but cutting big chunks with a saw down to pieces that will fit in my casting pot is more trouble than I am going to bother with.
Tim

[dtknowles]

It, PB, is still out there,but ya gotta scrounge for it! That 150 pounds of lead will make 4,565 230 grain .45 slugs! Unless you are a competitor in pistol matches, or own a SMG, you should be good for a minute!
Score!

You talking the time it takes to cast them or the time it takes to shoot them......:kidding:

[Rockindaddy]

Two Gatlings in 45-70 and an M1A1 Thompson shooting cast boolits. My Master Caster machine gets a work out. It keeps saying: Feed Me, Feed Me! Thanks Bud for the count calculations. How many 385gr 45-70 boolits is that????

[Pereira]

Two Gatlings in 45-70 and an M1A1 Thompson shooting cast boolits. My Master Caster machine gets a work out. It keeps saying: Feed Me, Feed Me! Thanks Bud for the count calculations. How many 385gr 45-70 boolits is that????

Somewhere around 2,727...:smile:

RP

[MrWolf]

Unfortunately, not all scrap yards sell to individuals. I'm no longer aware of any locally... There used to be a place out in Claremore, Oklahoma that Randall here on CB turned me onto a little more than a decade ago. But even they have since stopped selling to the public. I can buy online or here, but you're doing it at 2-3x the spot price. And don't anyone give me that crap about the spot isn't the value - it is. It is for gold, it is for silver, it is for steel, it is for lead... Obviously with a "premium" attached, which is normal. Lead is the only metal out there that somehow magically becomes worth more than it's spot price - outside of specialty alloys which are admittedly quite expensive.

These days, I just order from Kathie for the most part (The Captain over in Vendor Sales). She does me right and ships straight to my door in clean ingot form. No more messing with a 150+ lb cast iron pot with a turkey fryer... I still have about 200lbs of stick-ons to smelt down. I'll get around to it eventually. But I'm in no rush.... Right now I have close to 500lbs of lead in one alloy or another. And I buy another 100lb or so a year to keep my stock up. By the time they make it so I can't cast I'll be too old to hold my rifle, and it'll be up to the boy to worry about what to do.

Yup same here. No selling to the public. I even had one place I was going to sell my crushed aluminum cans to during covid claim they would not buy any as they may get covid from them. I said they are crushed cans, are you trying to drink from them? Idiots. Think they hung up at that point.

[Outer Rondacker]

My local scrap yard is paying .38 cents a pound for lead and selling it for 2.25 a pound. Needless to say they have plenty and I feel its going to stay that way.

[jdgabbard]

Yup same here. No selling to the public. I even had one place I was going to sell my crushed aluminum cans to during covid claim they would not buy any as they may get covid from them. I said they are crushed cans, are you trying to drink from them? Idiots. Think they hung up at that point.

Yeah, scrap yards can definitely be weird places to do business with.

I need to hit up my local indoor range to see about buy some range scrap when they clean out their traps. My buddy is the former co-owner, and his old partner still has it. I bet I could get him to make a call for me... But at what price would be my question....If I could get it for under $1/lb I'd be game, but anything over that I might as well buy from Kathie.

[35 Rem]

I bought a couple buckets of wheel weights in 2022 at my local scrap yard and they were either 30 or 35 cents/lb - same as they have been for many years. The only thing is that there are more and more steel weights mixed in over time. I have turned down their lead in recent years for that reason but this batch had way more old lead weights than I've seen in a good while.

[kevin c]

The hassle factor of scrounging, transporting and then processing scrap lead is high. That creates a market for selling the product ready to go. Of course you’ll pay more, so it’s a back and forth issue between disposable income vs time, effort, and sometimes literal pain in various body parts.

[jdgabbard]

The hassle factor of scrounging, transporting and then processing scrap lead is high. That creates a market for selling the product ready to go. Of course you’ll pay more, so it’s a back and forth issue between disposable income vs time, effort, and sometimes literal pain in various body parts.

That's why I've been buying from Kathie. If I can't buy it for $0.50-0.75/lb then there is no upside to buying it. I can buy lead from Kathie for $1.55/lb shipped to my door. Unless I can get scrap for under $0.75/lb I lose money in time, labor, and materials smelting it down into clean ingots. Back when you could get wheel weights for $20-30/bucket there was an incentive to buy. When the buckets were $100/bucket but still 95%+ lead there was still an incentive to buy. But now, not so much. Especially with PC techniques having been ironed out, it doesn't really matter too much what alloy you're shooting. So that range scrap with a little tin to help fill-out is all you need to get great shooting bullets.

[rcslotcar]

I'm lucky my local reloading shop sell lead ingots for $1 dollar a pound. He some times gets in large ingots (20-30#). I like to buy the large ingots and cast some bullets to test hardness. i recently bought 10 25# ingots that tested (Saeco) at 10 bh. I can the alloy to my desired needs from there. My lead stash has increased over the last few years as buy a lot more lead than I can cast.

[elmacgyver0]

Two Gatlings in 45-70 and an M1A1 Thompson shooting cast boolits. My Master Caster machine gets a work out. It keeps saying: Feed Me, Feed Me! Thanks Bud for the count calculations. How many 385gr 45-70 boolits is that????

You're just trying to make the rest of us jealous.



It's working.

[Rickf1985]

At that price I would go broke buying lead. Yea, I am one of THOSE guys. You know the ones, they have more than they will ever need but simply cannot resist a good deal. I have a ton of wheel weights, Literally a ton. Probably 400 lbs. of what I believe to be either pure tin or very close to it, I need to get samples to BNE for analysis. I am working on building up my pure lead now, I am a bit weak on that with only about 800 lbs.
Yup, one of THOSE guys.

[Budzilla 19]

Rickf1985, you must be my brother from another mother! Lol, 1k pounds of ww ingots, same of pure, 400-500 of range scrap,( melting 600 more today), 100 plus pounds of tin, 150-200 of linotype and foundry type, but I can’t pass up another good deal! Probably three more years, I’m going to have a hell of a sale on alloy!

One more thing, get to know your local police departments and ask them to let you mine their range! Only thing they can do is say No!
Good luck.

[Rickf1985]

I live right on the ranges of Joint Base MDL! No way in hell can you get out there even though they pay companies hundreds of millions of dollars to do just that. And that is where the cops shoot.

[farmbif]

I found one scrap yard that has lead and will sell to me anything I want to buy. it's a couple mountains away and about 100 dollars in gas for my truck to get there and back.
ive got a line on another one thats close by. im hoping to put together a load of scrap stuff to bring in there before asking about buying anything and searching the place for lead, l tin and wheel weights.
probably a year or so ago when I found the place over the mountains I did some back of the envelope figuring on cost per pound if I bought a 55 gallon drum of mixed lead stuff from them and not knowing exactly whats in the barrel, and figuring it probably weighs at least 800lbs, I conservatively figured it would be $1.00/lb or more after paying for everything including gas for the truck and propane to melt it all down into ingots

[ebb]

My guy asks me if I need any lead, I usually tell him no and he hands me some any way. He had a bunch that was in 2 or 3 lb ingot form and I got maybe 7 or 8 before he told me to drive around and get it all. They mostly just scrap cars and they are careful with the aluminum wheels, but not so much with other metals. He never charges me for any of the lead.

[MrWolf]

I live right on the ranges of Joint Base MDL! No way in hell can you get out there even though they pay companies hundreds of millions of dollars to do just that. And that is where the cops shoot.

Out by the Medford area there was a scrap place that would sell to folks and was very reasonable. Can't remember the name, it has been at least 15 years. There are bus companies around that may let you get some of their huge (call em cigars) ww lead. I just realized how long ago it was since I had to deal with the scrounging out there. Muchbeasier to move to a free state like I did:bigsmyl2:

[rockrat]

Our local scrap yard, IIRC, pays 10 cents/lb and charges $1/lb. They usually have lots. One time I went in and they had bundles of lead sheeting, about 4ft x 4 ft x 2ft , sitting on pallets, ready to ship. They would have been glad to sell to me instead!!

[Rickf1985]

Out by the Medford area there was a scrap place that would sell to folks and was very reasonable. Can't remember the name, it has been at least 15 years. There are bus companies around that may let you get some of their huge (call em cigars) ww lead. I just realized how long ago it was since I had to deal with the scrounging out there. Muchbeasier to move to a free state like I did:bigsmyl2:

Are you thinking of Red Lion metals? On Rt. 70 just west of the Red lion circle.

[dtknowles]

That's why I've been buying from Kathie. If I can't buy it for $0.50-0.75/lb then there is no upside to buying it. I can buy lead from Kathie for $1.55/lb shipped to my door. Unless I can get scrap for under $0.75/lb I lose money in time, labor, and materials smelting it down into clean ingots. Back when you could get wheel weights for $20-30/bucket there was an incentive to buy. When the buckets were $100/bucket but still 95%+ lead there was still an incentive to buy. But now, not so much. Especially with PC techniques having been ironed out, it doesn't really matter too much what alloy you're shooting. So that range scrap with a little tin to help fill-out is all you need to get great shooting bullets.

I would not pay $1.50 for lead unless it had a few percent of tin in it. Not saying it is a bad deal but my local scrap yard is cheaper. I only trade with them for clean lead, mostly sheet, flashing and roof vents. I do not melt it into ingots, I just cut it into squares that I can stack neatly. Takes almost no effort. I do cut out the solder seams and segregate them. Sometimes at the scrap yard there are somethings that are special. I got a lot of solder and Babbitt for the price of lead. I snag the big lead wheel weights if they are on the top of the pile. I say trade with them because I bring them my scrap brass, aluminum, zinc and steel but usually I find enough I want to bring home that I have to give them some cash too.

Tim

[jdgabbard]

I would not pay $1.50 for lead unless it had a few percent of tin in it. Not saying it is a bad deal but my local scrap yard is cheaper. I only trade with them for clean lead, mostly sheet, flashing and roof vents. I do not melt it into ingots, I just cut it into squares that I can stack neatly. Takes almost no effort. I do cut out the solder seams and segregate them. Sometimes at the scrap yard there are somethings that are special. I got a lot of solder and Babbitt for the price of lead. I snag the big lead wheel weights if they are on the top of the pile. I say trade with them because I bring them my scrap brass, aluminum, zinc and steel but usually I find enough I want to bring home that I have to give them some cash too.

Tim

It's got a bit of Antimony in it. But no tin. I add about 2% myself... That said, she advertises it as 12 BHN, but I haven't tested it - I don't have a way to. That said, based on her analysis of the lead, it should be around 9.8bhn. Which is fine for my applications. With 2% Tin, it should sit right around 10bhn, which is good enough for everything I do. I imagine even HPs would expand at that hardness...

[MrWolf]

Are you thinking of Red Lion metals? On Rt. 70 just west of the Red lion circle.

Yup think you are right. They were reasonable back then. Think there was a bus yard on 130 in Cinnaminson but no idea what is going on now out there.

[jim 44-40]

Back in the day, I had told a guy If you run into any lead in your travels let me know.Came home from work one day and there was a 3 ft×3ft about 5inch thick slab of lead in my driveway.Guess it was a counter weight for something.Cost me 25.00 bucks in the 1980's

[Rickf1985]

And how did you deal with that chunk of lead that probably weighed just over a ton?

[jdgabbard]

Back in the day, I had told a guy If you run into any lead in your travels let me know.Came home from work one day and there was a 3 ft×3ft about 5inch thick slab of lead in my driveway.Guess it was a counter weight for something.Cost me 25.00 bucks in the 1980's

I wish I had friends like that...

[Sam Sackett]

And how did you deal with that chunk of lead that probably weighed just over a ton?

Chain saw.
Sam Sackett

[Rickf1985]

Chain saw definitely but how did he pick it up and hold it to cut it? Huge flat plate of lead laying on the driveway will be a bear to get off the ground.

[jdgabbard]

Chain saw definitely but how did he pick it up and hold it to cut it? Huge flat plate of lead laying on the driveway will be a bear to get off the ground.

Well, that part requires you to have a little lead in your pencil...

:lol:

[jsizemore]

Chain saw definitely but how did he pick it up and hold it to cut it? Huge flat plate of lead laying on the driveway will be a bear to get off the ground.

You only need to be 10% smarter than the tools and material.

[Jellyroll]

Chain saw for big lead chunks works pretty well...