Boolit alloy price

[lancem]

I've come across alloy I believe to be ready to cast at $1.68 a pound. Is that a good price or the usual?

[huntinlever]

I've come across alloy I believe to be ready to cast at $1.68 a pound. Is that a good price or the usual?

I can only tell you what I use which is Rotometals, which by way of comparison comes in at $3.80 a pound for No. 2 ($19.00/5 lbs), so...I'd say that sounds like a heck of a deal! Are you sure of the alloy? If so, I'd pounce, personally. But then I'm not the most knowledgeable guy. Looking forward to what others say.

[MUSTANG]

I would buy it at $1.68 pound if it is in ingots and no shipping.

[lancem]

Got all they had $1.68 shipped, wish they had more. Was boolits not ingots, so I'll keep watching for more.

[jdgabbard]

I would be a buyer at that price. I won't buy Rotometals, or anyone else charging $2.50-3/lb, when the spot on lead is around $1/lb. Lead would need to get VERY scarce for me to pay that. Lead is currently at $2226/ton, so that's about $1.11/lb. You figure there is a little bit of a premium on any metal, and $1.68 is a decent deal. Not great, but decent.

[huntinlever]

I would be a buyer at that price. I won't buy Rotometals, or anyone else charging $2.50-3/lb, when the spot on lead is around $1/lb. Lead would need to get VERY scarce for me to pay that. Lead is currently at $2226/ton, so that's about $1.11/lb. You figure there is a little bit of a premium on any metal, and $1.68 is a decent deal. Not great, but decent.

I was ignorant of that, before this thread. I appreciate Rotometals for the purity of their alloys and given 60 lbs gets me 1000 bullets, which comes out to $0.14 per bullet, seemed reasonable. Yikes.

[243winxb]

When things are too good to be true.................... scam? Hope not.

And with shipping included.

[lancem]

When things are too good to be true.................... scam? Hope not.

And with shipping included.

Good place that I have bought from many times, so safe no scam!

[jdgabbard]

I was ignorant of that, before this thread. I appreciate Rotometals for the purity of their alloys and given 60 lbs gets me 1000 bullets, which comes out to $0.14 per bullet, seemed reasonable. Yikes.

I mean if it's all you can get it's all you can get you make due with what you have. But the way I see it is that most lead being sold today is basically like eBay pricing. Just some arbitrary numbers that get used because that is what people THINK the market is. The actual spot price (what lead is selling for in the market) is about $1.11/lb. And sure, purity is nice, but how pure is it really, and how pure does it really need to be? I've shot everything from boat anchors to wheel weights without any issue. And we can make educated guesses as to the possible composition of a given alloy based on how well it performs in various states. I mean how many of us mix scrap pewter or tin rich alloys into our stock to enrich it without knowing the exact composition of what we're melting into it??? I know I do... But at the end of the day, I'd rather shoot some alloy of questionable purity than pay $3/lb for essentially the same thing. That could change in the future. But lead isn't as scarce as people make it out to be. You just don't see as much of it on a consumer level - such as wheel weights. But that doesn't mean it's worth $3/lb either...

Edit: Actually, I totally forgot until I posted this, the Alloy's sub-forum actually has the Kitco Lead Spot price at the top of it. Spot as of writing this is literally $0.9710/lb. So it apparently tanked a bit since my previous post.

[Winger Ed.]

If I needed some, I'd grab it.

If you can't scrounge any-- additives included, and you don't have to drive all over to get it, then melt & clean it, etc.
Yeah, I 'd buy at least some and make my best deal on shipping.

It's not some sort of double brother in law price, with a preacher's discount-- but it's more than fair.

[lancem]

If I needed some, I'd grab it.

If you can't scrounge any-- additives included, and you don't have to drive all over to get it, then melt & clean it, etc.
Yeah, I 'd buy at least some and make my best deal on shipping.

It's not some sort of double brother in law price, with a preacher's discount-- but it's more than fair.

Yeah for me it's a deal enough. I don't really need it but as I retire more and more I'm casting more and more and there just isn't anywhere for me to scrounge. The closest scrap yard is over 4 hours away and no tire places any closer. The joys of living in the middle of no where.

[Rockindaddy]

A good boolit caster has to be a scrounger!!!! Besides feeding several subguns, I feed a pair of Gatlings! One a ten barrel 1878 and the other Colt is a 5 barrel Bulldog. They eat alot of lead! Was able to buy dug up lead pipe from a contractor for .50 a pound and I get 5 gallon buckets of wheel weights for free from a couple of tire shops I patronize. The lead pipe is usually pure soft lead. The joints are tin. If you melt everything and ingot it; I take a sample to my local scrap yard. The owner has a hand held atomic scanner that will tell what the ingot consists of. Sometimes have to remelt and alloy with tin and antimony. Its easy to shoot up 2000~3000 rds in an afternoon with a Gatling! Shooting my Thompson loaded with 230gr round nose does use up alot of boolit lead. Yeah the lead pipe is dirty. Melting out the dirt and crud is messy. Its a back yard, outside project. Really have to be careful throwing lead pipe with water trapped inside into the hot lead tub can be exciting and dangerous. You have to have a big pot and a nice wood fire to melt lead pipe that is stored outside. The water cooks out slow as the pot come up to temperature. No danger of a water/ hot lead explosion when heated slowly.

[dtknowles]

I've come across alloy I believe to be ready to cast at $1.68 a pound. Is that a good price or the usual?

Alloy ready to cast, could be soft but clean. Not a good or usual price but not a rip off. I often see better deals here in S&S. Ready to cast for what application. It would be a good price for 30 to 1 or coww or #2 but not so good if it is just clean range scrap.

[farmbif]

$1.68 for clean ingots is very good. I found a scrap yard that will sell me a 55 gallon barrel of lead, there is all kinds of stuff in it, probably a bunch of zinc and steel wheel weights mixed in. I didn't negotiate a final cost but will probably be 50-80 cents a pound plus a about 80 dollars in gas to get there and back. even if after melting down whats in the barrel if I get 50 percent of the weight back as ingots that is $1-$1.60 a pound plus the time, and propane used to melt it all down.
so in my opinion $1.68/lb for clean ingots is a very good price

[Winger Ed.]

The joys of living in the middle of no where.

Look on the bright side-
You probably don't get too many door-to-door salesmen or those Jehovah's Witness types.

[jdgabbard]

Look on the bright side-
You probably don't get too many door-to-door salesmen or those Jehovah's Witness types.

I usually run those types off by pointing to the sign the city put up that states my neighborhood is a no-solicitation zone, and informing them that I'll be calling the police now. That usually gets them in their cars pretty fast.

[fredj338]

A fair price for ingots ready to go. If I had to pay much more than that, I would likely not cast my own practice bullets, just doesn't pencil out. I scrounge most of my alloy.

[huntinlever]

I feel a bit like a

[Winger Ed.]

Yeah for me it's a deal enough.

The older I get, the less penny pinching I do.

I don't pay $1.49 for a 12 ounce bottle of water, $7. for a cup of coffee, vacation at Disney Land, or throw away money on the lottery, etc.
An extra buck or so for doing something I really enjoy or want--- ahh,,, no big deal..

[gloob]

MBC bullets:

200 grain 45 ACP bullets at $48.50 per 500. That's 14.3 lbs of lead at $3.40 per lb, prior to tax and shipping. Already sized and lubed and ready to load.

I scrounge lead where I can. But a lot of my lead is in the form of bullet-shaped ingots from MBC.