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

[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.

[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

[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/articl...3/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