Check lead levels this morning - now I'm really worried

[BigSlick]

I called every scrap dealer within 50 miles this morning looking for scrap wheel weights.

These guys must be smoking magic dust.

Prices for 400 lbs :

55 cents/lb
61
78
90
1.50
44
80
72
60
49

I was getting all hyped to get going with my casting. Now I'm getting a little discouraged.

I called scrap metal places, lead smelters and auto junk yards.

Any ideas ?

BigSlick
________
WEED (http://wwweed.com/)

[BABore]

The scrap guys bought or got the WW's for free from the tire dealers. You're looking at their markup. Go to the source. Call the tire shops or stop by with donuts or six packs of soda/beer. Don't forget to bring your own buckets.

I could hit a few places on the way home and score all I want. I won't pay more than $5 per 5 gallon pail. Even get some for free.

[Dale53]

Everyone of us buys tires for his car. Go to YOUR dealer, first, and remind him that you buy your tires from him. Works wonders sometimes...

Dale53

[KCSO]

I take a box of lead sinkers with me and usually trade a couple of handfulls for a 5 gal bucket of w/w's.

[buck1]

I have found the most over looked source of lead alloy in these parts.
Call the hospital and ask for nucler medicine (not Xrays).
Tell the guy in charge of the dept that you want to buy his/her empty lead containers.
These are about 23 LBS of alloy each(no clips) , add 2-3% tin and they act like wheel wts. After 2 weeks they are as hard as wheel wts.

I pay $0.10 a LB. delivered!
Clean ,no clips to mess with, and cheep too!
My 44s love them.
In fact as soon as the guy gets time to load them I have 500# on the way.
Cheers......Buck ;)

[rusty marlin]

WOW! there's a secret my cheap butt would never have let out. You're all right buck :)

[454PB]

I was recently given some isotope containers like buck1 mentions. I cast a batch of boolits from one of those containers, then weighed and hardness tested. They were exactly the same weight and hardness as my wheelweight boolits.

http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1278&stc=1&d=1144720323

[XBT]

If there are any indoor shooting ranges in your area you might try there. It’s been a while since I bought, but I only paid seven cents per pound for a large lot several years ago.

I don’t have a hardness tester, but the stuff I bought seemed to be a little softer than wheel weights, and sweetened with a bit of linotype casts and shoots fine.

[Ken O]

I don't know whats going on with WW anymore. Tire stores used to be glad to get rid of them. I gave $5 for a 5gal pail, usually 120lbs to make it worth thier time. One store said they now have about a dozen people asking for them (I used to be the only one). I upped my tip to $10.... Last week I stopped at a very large tire store and he had 8 buckets, and asked how many I wanted. Of couse I said I'll take them all, he said that will be $280! Whoe! I couldn't believe it, he said He gets $35 a bucket and has no problem selling all he gets. I ain't paying that much! I just left my number in case he gets a few buckets he cant sell, and decides to take $10 a bucket. He probably threw my number in the trash when I left.

[Bass Ackward]

You guys haven't seen anything yet. Prices for all metals is sky high and launching. Copper is at record levels which not only affects gas check prices, but jacketed bullets, and to some degree brass as well. That is why you see the competition at the tire shops, junk yards and every place else for that matter. These guys are going to play you for what you .... or the next guy will pay. And sadly, its going to get worse.

Recessions always turn the price of metals. And they will get to a point again at some point in the future. Then they will be happy to give it away. My advice is to buy only what you will use now. That amount is always less than you "think" you "need". Load up if an opportunity presents itself. And be prepared to buy / load up during the next recession.

Casting is becoming more popular again for some reason.

[buck1]

WOW! there's a secret my cheap butt would never have let out. You're all right buck :)


With this next load I will be too old to play with the TV remote much less guns, by the time I get it all shot up! But I did stock up before I said anything!!>>>>Buck

PS mine look more like a funnel than a keg, But its got to be the same stuff.

[StanDahl]

From what I've read, you can blame the Chinese for the rise in demand for all sorts of scrap metal. Their economy is booming and therefore the need for materials. Lots of our copper and lead etc. is being shipped overseas to end up in Chinese industry. It'll probably end up being shipped back to us again too. You'll find it at WalMart and Harbor Freight, etc.

[Frank46]

454PB, well guess your boolits will now be glowing in the dark. I got a couple of those canisters some years back and they made great 45/70 boolits. Frank

[BigSlick]

The isotope containers sound like a great idea. My GF is a nurse ;)

A couple of ignorancy (I know) questions:

Is there any residual glow in the dark residue to be concerned with ?

How in the world do you get that thing seperated ? It looks like the top is lead with a cannister (?) underneath.

I talked to a buddy of mine tonight in Georgia. He has been seeing the same prices everywhere in his area too.

My new furnace and molds are on the way, so I've got to figure something out quick.

I'm not sure I can handle the stress of having the gear and nothing to do with it. It's like a fat girl looking at a picture of a nice, big, warm donut. It might make me want to do something foolish, like take the wheel weights of my truck.

Thanks for the info guys,

BigSlick
________
Fat Ass (http://www.****tube.com/categories/204/ass/videos/1)

[Ranch Dog]

I think you always have to keep looking. I live in a small town and found that when I started checking, everyones scrap was already spoken for. I found that 1800# of linotype, mentioned in another thread, in the next town down the road and I guess everyone overlooked that or at least wasn't thinking about other sources of lead. My father, at the time living in Tyler, TX, was purchasing new tires and asked his dealer about wheelweights. He ended up driving off with 1500# of them in the back of his truck. I have since picked up another 500# at small towns as I travel. Haven't paid any for the wheel weights and 5 cents a pound for the linotype. Just got to keep looking. All this took place in the spring and summer of 2004.

What most of the tire dealers have told me was that the weight suppliers now exchange the scrap back, pound for pound, and that additional weights were 50 cents a pound. So that said, they wanted 50 cents a pound which I passed on.

[Leftoverdj]

Worry!

It's as much the decline in the dollar as an increase in the price of lead. The Chinese are turning worthless paper into things of real value. Gold is approaching $600 an ounce. Even the Euro is up nearly 40% against the dollar.

Despite all the glowing nonsense out of DC, we are in big trouble.

[redneckdan]

T

Is there any residual glow in the dark residue to be concerned with ?

H

lead does not absorb gama radiation and become radioactive itself. There is the possiblity of alpha and beta radiation but these have short half lives, measured in hours not years. The containers are actually used to ship alpha and beta porducing materials. If the containers are empty, they particles have been decayed for a while. Lead is actually a bi-product of radioactive decay, it is the last step in the chain of radio-decay and does not become radioactive it self, it does an excellent job of stop radiation. 10" of lead will stop a gamma ray that will take +13 feet of concrete to stop. Contraying to popular belief, most radiation sources do not emmit visible light. The pictures you see of reactors glowing is actually the water particles around the reactor get excited and emiting light, like a big molecular orgy. One of the surest ways to detect radiation short of a geiger counter is heat, but if the radiation levels are high enough that you can feel heat, you're pretty well screwed.

[shooter575]

Those guys are nuts!!! Here is the daily updated price for buying non ferrous scrap. Lead is about halfway down.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3MKT/is_14-5_113/ai_n13631488

[Bullshop]

Redneckdan
How about the cushoning in the container like cotton or styrofoam?

Rest
We are in a war remember. War consumes metal and prices go up. When we were bombing Hanoi I was working in a junk yard. That business was so vital to the war that I was exempt from the draft by my job. We were paying $1.10 for 100 pennies for the copper. Copper then was the highest I had ever seen it until now, but even now its not much higher considering the difference in $ value. I feel quite certain that when this current war becomes history the metals market will drop again. Just another history lesson. I dont think China is the problem. They would have the oposite effect on the market. They dont need ours they have thier own mines and can produce for more cheaply than we can. I do think most of the worlds antimony production comes from China.
BIC/BS

[Bucks Owin]

I just inquired this morning about a guy selling one pound ingots of plumbers lead....$2 PER INGOT! Forget that!

Try showing up at quitting time at an "out of the way" kinda tirestore with a case of Budweiser. Works wonders sometimes....

Dennis

[StarMetal]

You fellows forgot this one. China is buying all the scrap they can from us, to the degree that U.S. manufactures are finding a shortage themselves.

Joe

[carpetman]

Buckshop---exempt from draft because you worked in a junk yard? Look how much time,effort and money those fools going to Canada to avoid the draft wasted. All they needed was a junk yard job.

[StarMetal]

Bullshop,

It was on TV and they were talking to some aluminum manufacturer and he said they are having to buy more raw ore because China is buying up all the scrap that normally use to get at a fast rate. It's true. Even if they have the ore and the cheap labor it's still cheaper to buy scrap. I don't believe too many countries have the bauxite ore, that aluminum is smelted from, in the world.

Joe

[redneckdan]

Redneckdan
How about the cushoning in the container like cotton or styrofoam?




I'm not sure about the styrofoam. I know that most radio-isotopes used in medicine are alpha and beta emitters with short half lives. I would ditch any other materials (cotton or styro) asap. I imagine that the hospitals would not be allowed to give away radioative materials. The best way to find out would be to find a friend with a geiger unit. here is a link to radio medical handling procedures (http://www.uos.harvard.edu/ehs/radsafety/gui_rec.shtml) they specificaly say that radioactive packing materials are discarded as radio active waste.



Bullshop,

I don't believe too many countries have the bauxite ore, that aluminum is smelted from, in the world.

Joe
the only bauxite deposits I know of are in the mesaba range in minnesota and in the mining regions of the african continent. My material science professor said that significant ammounts of aluminum have not been made from bauxite since the 50s, we just keep recyling it.

[223tenx]

This my first post, but I've lurked here for about a year. I feel like I know most of you. Some 15-20 years ago I purchased 2300 lbs(15cents/lb) of lead buckets and test tubes from a local hospital. At the time I was a lab tech for a chemical plant and we had an emission spectrograph analytical instrument. The lead showed a couple % of Arsenic and I always melted it outside (at least for the first time) The lead had a sweet (for lack of a better description) odor and if you caught some of the fumes you got pretty light headed. Seems after it was melted once the odor was gone and didn't show any Arsenic. I just mention this as a caution. I mark the lead HPb (hospital Pb) and it is hard and casts very good bullets. I have about 400 lbs left and tried to get more but none of the local hospitals will sell any. They tell me it has to go to a licensed recycler. I'm still trying.
223tenx (Pete)

[carpetman]

There is a town of Bauxite,Arkansas thusly named for it's bauxite mine.

[Scrounger]

Doesn't Arsenic have a characteristic smell of Almonds? Could that be what you smelled?

[KTN]

Syanide tastes and smells like bitter almonds.
One of my shooting buddies worked for medical company that was making cancer drugs.Raw materials for those drugs came in lead bottles,some of them weighting 10-15 lbs.I have about 1000 lbs of those lead bottles waiting for smelting.I have cast boolits out of that lead,and it is about as hard as ww but my experience is that it is bit harder to get molds fill up properly.Raising the temperature helps.


Kaj

[Scrounger]

I knew it was one of those bad boys smelled like almonds. Good thing we don't use cyanide in bullet casting. My mother told me that copperheads (snake) smelled like apples; any truth in that?

[onceabull]

Guys, Don't leave out the Aussies as suppliers, AWAC's two bauxite mines and 3 alumina refineries alone produce 15% of the world's primary alumina... (Jamaica is also a substantial Bauxite producer.) Onceabull

[Bullshop]

Carpetman
Good thing it wasnt common knowledge or I woulda been putting up with the likes of Bill Clinton.
BIC/BS

[PatMarlin]

I hope this Aluminum levels off at some point. I manufacture a product and the alum 1" x 3/8" bolts cost me .30 each alone and I use a bunch.

One thing for you guys to think about is shooting where you can "reclaim" your lead.

I shoot into the same old stump at 50, and the same bank at 100, and 200, and my lead will always be there.. :drinks:

[buck1]

Its safe, They sell it to the scrap yards , who in turn mark it up 5 times. I offer 2 X the scrap yards offering price and save a bundle!
And no packing inside at all. >>>>Buck

[BigSlick]

Thanks for the sage info guys ;)

My GF works tonight and she is going to make a beeline for the nuclear medicine lab.

I got up this morning at 5:00 AM and hit the donut shop. I bought two tires (cause I really needed them) and hit about a dozen of the smaller tire shops around town.

ZERO wheel weights. There is a compnay that makes a machine to resize the clips and swage the weights to bring them back to spec. A local company rents/leases the machine for $30 a month to shops and takes care of any maintenance etc.

I'm getting a little bummed here.

Any other ideas ?

Thanks again ;)

BigSlick
________
Zoloft Pregnancy (http://www.classactionsettlements.org/lawsuit/zoloft/)

[buck1]

Roofing places, Wrecking yards some times let you pull the wts off the wrecked cars. If you are by a large body of water check for ballast wts(they are often made of WW), Old pluming, heavy machine places often have babbit, near by towns, But the hospital will most likely be your source. No one ever asked mine about lead before me, the guy was shocked that I wanted it.
Good luck!!...........Buck

[Ed Barrett]

About this time of year here on the Missouri River all the People that use weights for line fishing are out trying to get Wheel Weights to cast sinkers. I have enough lead til the weather gets cold and the catfish people stop.

[GregP42]

Time to let out another secret place to look [smilie=1:
Talk to the phone lineman, lead sheathing on old phone
lines that is being replaced is real nice.

I just picked up a couple hundred pounds from a friend
that was shielding on a particle accelerator. The question
of this being radioactive, well alpha particles are the only
thing that could drive the lead back up the chain into a
radioactive state, cheap easy way to find out if it is
radioactive is to buy one of those throw away cameras
take some pictures with it, then leave it laying on top
of the lead for a few days, develop the pictures and look
for the sprites on the pictures.

Oh well, back to work for me.

Greg

[Ranch Dog]

Big Slick... You sure this isn't a ruse to expose all our honey holes??? :confused:

Ok, I'm in. A little over a year ago, I hired a carpenter and started to rebuild my ranch house... inside out. There was a lot of lead in it. Window weights, flashings, and plumbing. My carpenter took a shine to me over the year and while he works other jobs plus this one, he continues to bring me the lead from other sites. This is good, straight lead (Pb) from what I can figure.

[BigSlick]

I only wish it weren't alarmingly real.

Looks like I'm ready to jump in at the worst possible time as far as prices go.

I'm off Friday morning so I am going to hit the road again with donuts and beer and see what I can find.

I just got word on the isotope carriers, no luck. The hospital has this inate fear of lawsuit due to the possibility of residual contamination if one isotope broke or leaked.

They pay pretty good bucks for a hazmat company to pick it up and sign a bunch of forms. It seems the carriers/containers are serialized and controlled pretty closely.

I know a couple of guys in the electrical business. I will see if they can help me scrounge up some cable sheath or something. Most of the carpenters around here are pretty savvy and sell the lead from a teardown or remodel. I know a couple of locals who save every bit of the old copper, lead and any aluminum they can beg, borrow or steal from a jobsite. Evidently, the construction market is getting so competitive that the recovered material and scrap costs are figured into most of the jobs.

I'm going to little mexico and a few truck stops today, if I can get a break from work duties.

Thanks for he help guys

BigSlick
________
Lrx (http://www.ford-wiki.com/wiki/Land_Rover_LRX)

[quickshot]

I feel your pain. I called around to the scrap yards today and they all quoted me .50/# on lead and WW. (renditions of "puff the magic crack pipe" started to play in my head)

Called about 20 different tire stores and they all sold to the scrappers and would not sell to me.:neutral: Finally after an hour or so on the phone I found on place that had a full 5 gal. bucket for the taking! The quest for the steady supply goes on!!!!


Quickshot

[snowtigger]

I've been lucky, so far, but it seems that a certain custom bullet maker is trying to buy the wheel weights I have been getting for free.

[azrednek]

At least in my part of town there is a wheel chaired disabled Nam Vet that sells and recycles wheel weights for the tire shops. He cleans, seperates, boxes and spray paints the reusable ones and apparently casts new weights from the scrap. I don't know what he pays per pound or what he charges for new or recycled weights but the independant tire dealers in my area wont even consider selling them to me. Best they would do is give me the wheel weights off my tires when I buy new. I tried Pep Boys and they also have an arraingment to send their scrap for recycling to their wheel weight supplier.

Just specualtion on my part but with pressure from the governemnt on all US industrys to recycle or use recycled materials. It wont be long and the days of cheap or free wheel weights will be long gone. I started hoarding about 25 years ago when they were free. I'm now down to three five gallon buckets and starting to feel the pinch.

[LET-CA]

I have found the most over looked source of lead alloy in these parts.
Call the hospital and ask for nucler medicine (not Xrays).
Tell the guy in charge of the dept that you want to buy his/her empty lead containers.
These are about 23 LBS of alloy each(no clips) , add 2-3% tin and they act like wheel wts. After 2 weeks they are as hard as wheel wts.

I pay $0.10 a LB. delivered!
Clean ,no clips to mess with, and cheep too!
My 44s love them.
In fact as soon as the guy gets time to load them I have 500# on the way.
Cheers......Buck ;)

I called the local hospital on Friday and got the supervisor in the Nuclear Medicine area. I told him I was looking for lead for bullet casting. . . he said make sure I came any time Monday thru Wednesdays and they'll give me all I want. He was delighted because he won't have to dispose of it, and I assured him that I was using it, not dumping it. Thanks for the tip!

[Finn45]

Better keep the lead levels in good condition. Fishermen are scrounging all easily available ww here around and they pay unbelievable sums even for small buckets. Expensive fishing gear has accustomed them to be cost blind I guess. I don't have so much, but with the latest batch I'm able to kill all moose needed next season and I believe that there's few pounds to shoot paper as well:

http://pyssymiehet.com/casting/wwalloy.jpg

One thing to sell to fishing magazine writers; ww has noticed to cause so called alloy slag in big fish; eyes turn white and fish suffers lack of appetite. Symptoms are extremely acute and only one small line weight made of ww in the fishing area is enough to ruin the fishing trip of the lifetime! Avoid ww, don't even look the ones installed in your car wheels and do something else, like by the fish from the mart. And if you right now have some ww in your possession, immediately alarm your local boolit caster and let him take care of that scrap piece by piece...

[rebliss]

I went to my source today--used to get them free, so I'd take them a case of cokes whenever I went to keep them appeased. Apparently, someone has recently shown up and started paying for them! So, this time a 5 gallon bucket cost me $5.00. Oh well. Wound up with about 10# of stick-ons, and the rest WW. Only about 10 plastic or Zinc weights. Not too bad, but now I've got to start scrouging for new sources again.

[jar-wv]

Reading this is making me feel better about paying $100 for 10 5 gallon pails the other day. I was kinda bummed about it for a few days. I now have about a ton of them stored.

jar

[ANeat]

Reading this is making me feel better about paying $100 for 10 5 gallon pails the other day. I was kinda bummed about it for a few days. I now have about a ton of them stored.

jar


You should feel good about that:roll: Thats about a nickel a pound right?? Thats a great deal. If you were a little closer you would be my new best friend[smilie=1:

Adam