Wheel weights - thing of the past?

[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