What is the outlook

[white eagle]

for casting?
I have seen places that will no longer use lead wheel weights on their tires as a matter of store policy
and some sites can not ship lead ww to some states already
man did I wait to long to get into casting boolits :holysheep
the push for non lead bullets is already starting don't look to promising [smilie=f:

[RKJ]

I just started casting recently myself and I was worried about the availability of lead too. I live 25 miles from the lead belt so I believe it will be available for some time. I think that some of your smaller shops will still have lead WW's and there are still a bunch of old cars with lead WW's on them out there. There are a bunch of suppliers here also, they aren't as inexpensive as Wheel Weights but they are available.

[82nd airborne]

go to a car junkyard and offer the guy behind the counder 5 beers to pick wheel weights off of the wrecked tires. drink the 6th one while you're rummaging. ww's arnt the only source of lead, maybe the best, but not the only.

[MT Gianni]

I think the days of free lead are going fast. I believe that even if we have to buy premixed alloys @ $1.00 a lb we are better off than buying premade bullets or boolits.

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

Yep MT Gianni, you are correct.

I have been thinking that finding casting metal might really put a crimp in the shoot'in if I needed to pay the going price for alloy, but ---------------------------

Just for example, say I pay $5.00 per pound (7000gr) for metal and my boolits are 350gr (wt of my new LBT 45/70 mold), that is 20 boolits per lb. at a cost of .25 each for the alloy.

Doesn't sound so bad that way, especially since the price of alloy has a ways to go before it reaches that level.

Look'in at it from that direction, guess it will be awhile before I hang up my molds and ladle. :cbpour:

Keep em coming!

Crusty Deary Ol"Coot

[9.3X62AL]

Very good point, Coot.

I was a fairly active WW scrounger in years past, and have berm-mined my share of alloy as well. A while back, I came to the conclusion that the time I spent scrounging for metal was time I could have been shooting--casting--reloading--fishing--hunting (for deer/varmints/birds) instead of running down boolit materials.

One's hobby time is limited, even in retirement. And, though this isn't the biggest priority for me--my time has value, too. It's worth something. In my view, the time required to search for--haul around--smelt--and worry about zinc, the smells of smelting that Marie dislikes, and having to store tons of metal just isn't as efficient as being able to order and have delivered boolit metal of a guaranteed assay.

Do I LIKE paying $2.00+ a pound for casting metal? Not at all. But there was a lot of "COST" hidden or stretched out by scrounging--both in time and in money. And--frankly--I got VERY tired of hearing the same bullsquat story from tire dealers about how it was "illegal" for them to sell WWs to anyone but metals brokers, especially after buying tires from a couple of them for several years. KISS MAH GRITS!

If your sitch enables you to scrounge WWs or other casting metals successfully--and you enjoy the chase and catch--by all means continue to do so. The totality of circumstances for me here in the Left Coast Condor Sanctuary makes the scrounging effort upside-down any more.

[462]

I'm fortunate in that there are two very faithful sources of wheel weights within 3-miles of my house. I factor in a few hours of chore time, per month, for smelting. The only problem is that there are more steel and zinc weights showing up, but we all knew that was going to happen. Too soon, we will reach the point where buying alloy is the only option, and the enviro-whackos will have to find another inane cause to manipulate our lives.

[lwknight]

Very few people are lucky enough to actually get free lead. Even without cash out of pocket , there are costs. Its still cheap compared to buying 10 to 12 cent bullets in bulk to get the good price. And its 20-25 cents for good bullets even by the truckload.

Even at a cost of $2.00 per pound is still about four cents per average 150-160 grain boolit.
We don't really save any money for common boolits by casting our own if your time is worth anything. EG: 158 gr 38 cal SWC hardcast boolits are only $60.00 per 1000 so we cast for about $0.02 per boolit.

During the winter when the weather is terrible my time is totally worthless so , I might as well be doing something that I enjoy. Casting in the summer is definately a back burner activity and if I wanted to load up say 1000 38s and had no cast boolits , I would just buy commercially cast boolits.

Fortunately I have enough of everything to make it to the next winter.