Radiopharmacies for “isotope lead”, though they’re kinda scarce, being found mainly around major urban centers with a lot of tertiary medical facilities.
Thrifts and estate sales for tin in the form of pewter.
Lead WW are scarcer than hen’s teeth here on the left coast.
I found two heaping full 5-gallon buckets of mostly lead wheel weights last week after a long dry spell. Cost was either 25 or 30 cents a pound. The scrap yard man said he also had 2 barrels of other weights in another building if I wanted to come back. You can be sure I went back expecting more than a thousand pounds of precious lead alloy but instead found nearly all of them to be steel or zinc.
I really don't need any more since I know I have over 3,000 pounds and have just recently built a dirt berm in the backyard to catch all my handgun bullets but I can't help myself when given the chance to buy scrap lead.
I think its addictive. No matter how much you have you got to have more.Originally Posted by 35 Rem
I probably have 10,000 lbs and I keep buying. It is a disease.
I’ve built up a stock of lead from range scrap. However, with the price of propane today, I’ve been wondering if I wouldn’t be better off buying clean casting pot size ingots. Besides the propane, a lot less work too. I’ll think about again if my stock gets critically low.
Greg, The problem with that thinking is that as the price of propane goes up so does the price of foundry supplied metals. Note how much Rotometals has raised their prices in the last year or so. Granted, inflation affects all consumer goods but metals are really touchy. I still watch for good deals but I will not go all that far nor pay more than half the going price for scrap anymore. I will never use what I have. If I see a good lot of pure lead I will jump on it because most of what I have is wheel weights. I am not really into the swapping and dealing thing right now since shipping prices are just outrageous and it is a real hassle to package all that stuff so the USPS can't break it.
Back when I was scrounging lead, I used to enjoy the pistol range burm.
There was always a fair amount of lead bullets, just laying on the soils surface.
Couple minutes of picking and you'd have enough to fill an extra large coffee cup.
"Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face!" - Mike Tyson
"Don't let my fears become yours." - Me, talking to my children
That look on your face, when you shift into 6th gear, but it's not there.
I keep hoping I can keep the propane for the water heater and dryer. for quite some time now, several years, I been thinking if I can ever get ahead on my cutting and splitting of firewood for the winter I want to make a lead melting furnace out of brick and rebar constructed grating and lead pot support that uses only firewood for fuel. well hopefully it won't be more years. ive finally got an estimated 3 1/2 cords in the woodshed even though at least 1/2 cord is soft maple and sassafras , plus ive got at least another 1/3 cord cut, split and dried under a tarp and about 30 dead trees piled up.
I'm hoping to find cheap materials to build a rocket stove that could be used to produce distilled water and to melt lead.
Spell check doesn't work in Chrome, so if something is spelled wrong, it's just a typo that I missed.
Local tire shops, friends, and some scrap yards over in Texas. ( last scrapyard had sorted wheel weights for.50 a pound, bought up 200 pounds,Linotype pigs for a $1 a pound, just stuff like that)I’m always scrounging everything casting, so it’s a game to me! Antique shops for pewter, once got a brick of lead just for asking. So, it’s definitely out there, like Lightman said, networking will pay off.
Good luck.
I firmly believe that you should only get treated by how you act, not by who or what you are!!
Lead tipped insulator pins from the local electric company.
Then, when I get 600 lbs. of pins stacked up after melting the lead threads off of them, I make a trip to the scrap yard and sell them as well.
I recently got 400lbs of lino melted into 25lb ingots from an estate sale for $60 total. Guess nobody there bidding casted.
Other than that, I have a deal lined up to get 6 55 gallon drums full of big rig tire weights, all lead and mostly COWW for $0.20 a pound from a trucking salvage/repair shop. It definitely helps that my son knows the owner there. The guy said they've been waiting for the price to go up enough to justify scraping them, but he'd be willing to let me get them out of his way. Ummm yeah, think I'm gonna do that one��
I look at it as a savings account.
Those are great prices! And 6 barrels of weights should put you firmly into the "lifetime supply club"!
That's what I'm thinking! My only real issue is that I'm in need of some pure for hunting boolits and just curiosity alloy blends. I figure I could easily trade someone on here when I get the deal done and get some ingots made up. I'm not in that dire need of pure, I have about 75lbs left, so that's about 3400 boolits at a 50/50 mix. Not including what I have already cast up. In reality, that's a lifetime supply for hunting, but.... well the addiction is real
6 55 gallon drums will be a lifetime supply for a half dozen full time shooters!!! I want to know how you are going to move them? I know when I got mine they were in a couple of those large contractor plastic thrash cans. The one can that was full to the top ended up weighing 1250 lbs.. I think they are 40 gallon or something like that so the 55 gallon drum will have at least 2,000 lbs. of weights plus the 25lbs. of drum. 6 tons!!!!!! I just happen to have a 12,000 lb. trailer. LOL. But getting them on there is going to require a forklift and some really strong arms to get them on the forks.
This shop is only about 15 minutes from the house. I he will have one of his guys load the drums in the back of my truck with a lift. They have the equipment to move around simi engines with ease so that end is covered. I figured I could haul the barrels over to my house in 3 trips. Unloading them will be the trick, probably 1, 5 gallon bucket at a time. Once one drum is empty we'll transfer the lead from the full drum to the empty drum.
I supply boolits for 4 shooters. We currently do not shoot cast exclusively due to my lead supply. That will most definitely change in handguns, 30-30 and 300 BO. LOL I currently burn through about 200-300 pounds a year myself. Not all exclusively in boolits, I sell bass jigs, spinnerbaits and chatterbaits on the side.
Be sure to find at least one good 16 ounce wheel weight to hang over your loading bench. Pretty sure that is the biggest they make and all the guys I know that collect weights will always save that one weight as a trophy. Given what you have there you should have quite a few of those elusive trophies!!
Last edited by Rickf1985; 07-19-2023 at 03:49 PM.
Hey! Now, I didn't think about that, I like that idea!
Makes me drool just to think about Six 55 gallon barrels of WW's! Twice I've gotten in on a barrel maybe half full but never anything like you are talking about.
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