Poll: What do you pay for your lead?

[Beagle333]

A buck to a buck-twenty, depending on the seller. No WW to anybody but recyclers and NO SALES TO THE PUBLIC at all the scrapyards around here. I'm not unhappy paying that for lead. I'm pretty happy just to be getting some!

[roarindan]

3-4 yrs ago, I bought 5 gal. buckets of ww at a tire store for $20/pail, bought quite a few. then last spring I traded a single shot 22 for a bunch of pulled lead with a guy that worked for the phone company. This week, a guy at the Ford dealer bought a 223 and was talking about the lack of bullets when I mentioned I cast and reload my own. He offered the 2 pails of ww. so we smelted the first bucket Tues. He tapped on his smart phone for a few seconds and figgured he had 3,600 bullets awating casting.

[John Boy]

I bought most of my lead in '09. Figure about $.60/lb or so average cost.

Same for me in 2009. Grade A sheet lead at the recycler - 280 lbs
Over the course of prior years, all WW's were free and amassed over a 1000 lbs of ingots - now have about 200 lbs

Then last year, a friend called and said bring your truck, it's yours. Hard ball strips @ Bhn 19.5 - 375 lbs

Plus mixed Bhn alloy ingots amassed from various sources over the years - have about 6-700lbs left

[tinsnips]

I get soft lead better than free I get paid to remove lead pipe and cast iron pipe joints in the plumbing. So far I get WW for free also as my friend owns a tire shop but more an more WW are steel or zinc.

[Lefty SRH]

Not sure how you would rate what I pay for my lead. My supplier and I have an agreement/trade. I pick up 1-2 buckets of weights per month and he gets 500-600 cast boolits of his choice IF I have a mold he can utilize.
Not sure how to vote on the poll.

[btroj]

Got about 250 pounds of clean, pure lead today in exchange for 2000 cast bullets. Those were bullets I already had cast, just finished sizing the last of them.
Lead is where you find it.

[wrench man]

Lead is free, I operate this at work (see the pic) there are three buckets and one box to the left of the balancer,one is for "ZN" and "FE", the second is for lead "TRUCK" weights and the third bucket is for "CAR" weights, the box is for me, funny how the "TRUCK" bucket never seems to accumulate anything? especially since about 99% of our tire work is trucks and coaches, nothing but lead comes home.

[fishnhunt]

alha,
With that many ww, you need to invest in a thermocouple thermometer (reads temp almost immediately) - and you can buy one on eBay for around $20. I just looked and there's one for $20.99 with free shipping!! Go ahead and order a few extra probes while you're at it. Pour the ww's out on a flat surface - I use the utility trailer, and sort out the valve stems, screwdrivers, cig butts and other **** you find that you don't want to burn in the mix. Be careful, those mechanics are bad to put their old razor blades in that scrap bucket! Get your self a large smelting pot (I use a large cast aluminum pot that will hold 200 pounds of melt) - but wide and shallow may be the best way to go. The first few melts go with just a few inches of ww's, reason being the ones on the bottom will melt and be over 700 degrees before the top weights melt. Go slow at first and then add to it as you go - don't dip out until you have a pot full. Be certain that your turkey frying stand - or whatever your pot is resting on - will take the weight!! Also - be certain that the ww's are DRY when you introduce them into the pot of molten lead. I like to use a large plastic refrigerator drawer - you can use it as a "shield" as you pour the weights in. The emphasis here is to keep the mix below 725 degrees, and that is pretty easy if you take it slow with the propane and test temps OFTEN!! After a while you will be able to look at/stir the mix and tell about what the temp is. Dip off the clips each time. Dip them into another pot (I use an old pressure cooker aluminum pot), and when it's half full pour those clips on a steel sheet (I use an old 3 foot removable shelf) to cool. When the clips cool - pour them up into a 5 gallon bucket ready for the scrapyard. The steel and zinc ww's will be with the clips. After a few times doing this you will get into a rhythm. Just be careful and use common sense. Sorting that many ww's by hand is nigh impossible, and after many years off messing with these things - this is the best method so far for me. You may want to consider a bottom pour rig so you won't have to dip. As you develop your system, if you use a bottom pour rig, you'll want to figure a way to slide/roll the molds under the spigot so you won't have to lift and carry each mold full of hot melt. If you can slide it down the table/conveyor till it cools - that's MUCH safer. That's my next improvement. Dipping 400 pounds a dipper at a time is tuff. Go to the welding supply store and get a couple pair of welders gloves ($6 a pair) and use them all the time around the pot (safety glasses too!). All the pots, molds, dippers, skimmers, stirring spoons, etc. I get from Goodwill or Habitat. Good Luck with your new hobby - go slow, and safety first.

[bobthenailer]

Just picked up 2, 6 gallon buckets overflowing with old pre Zinc/steel WW about 350 + lbs for $120.00 , or 34.2 cents a pound but no junk except for the clips.

[fryboy]

a buck five is too much for raw ww's - even if no zinc nor steel or the aluminum one i found there's still 20-30% clips in the mix , the current market price for lead ( note not scrap lead but ingots ) is in that box on the top of this page - right around $1.09 per pound
i dont find many ww's , pretty sure a bunch of old retired guys with longer known contacts and 10,000 #'s sitting at home have all the local possibilities sewn up ( it's what i repeatedly hear when asking anyways ) i've seen bidding wars for them on the local CL
the worse part ? i recall when it was $.02 a pound ....

[nwellons]

I pay .50 to local tire shops but my son also scrounges for me and get his for free from about 5 friends who have automotive/tire related jobs. Even though I clicked .50-.75 since that includes what I pay, I guess I average .35 overall for wheel weights. I picked up about 150 lbs. last week and have 2 or 3 more shops to check.

[duck hollow pete]

Free at work soft sleeves from elec.joints, scrap solder 40%tin and wheel wts car and truck from the garage. I still have babbit from the steel mill and power plants, never had to pay for it and hope
I never have too !

[slim1836]

Just remember that what you pay for them is not what they buy them for. If you give .75 a pound, they may buy back zinc and steel weights for .25 a pound.

Slim

[gutthooked]

I just got 625lb of wheel weights over the weekend for $100 bucks.

[wv109323]

I found a honey hole. I bought 200 pounds of COWW for .35 cents a pound. I also accepted quite a bit of plumbers lead pipe so I could have some soft lead. There were very few steel weights involved as I picked them out as they weighed out the lead.

[alha]

fishnhunt, All very good advice, thanks for taking the time to lay it all out there. I really couldn't do it any other way in a practical sense, with that many weights. I am designing my pot to actually be controlled by a furnace valve, with thermocouples inserted in the pot in a couple places. It will have a jet burner setup, and an auto-igniting pilot setup. It's coming together pretty well, my biggest issue is the thermocouples, but I think I have that one licked as well. This is getting to be fun, can't wait till it's all together, and spring. Then the fun will begin!

Slim, you're right, I will have to be Very Specific when I make the arrangements to purchase. Especially if the % of non-lead weights is potentially fairly high, as I've been reading about around here now a days. Thanks for the reminder.

gutthooked, nice score at a Nice Price!

[Trapaddict]

Well, The actual out of pocket expense for my lead is zero. The time is another issue all together. I manufacture lead shot and have an arrangement from people that if they send/bring me clean useable lead, I will turn it into shot. My cut is 50% if the lead comes in the form of wheel weights etc and I have to smelt it and 40% if it comes ready to run. I have not bought a bag of shot in years and I go through A LOT with 5 trap shooters in the house. Once all the lead is ready to run and the planets and stars align, I have produced 1000 pounds of ready to load shot in one day. That was one reeeally long day and I will never do that much again. Anything I don't turn into shot is set aside for rifle and pistol boolits.


Jeff

[alha]

Well, an unfortunate turn of events has me in search of (another) new source of lead. Yesterday I was passing by the place I had spoken to before, and as the mgr was out for the afternoon, I asked her to call me in the morning. They didn't have nearly as much as the 1st time I was in there, but thought I could get what they had to start the process going. I got a call early this morning, and was told that since I was there last time, they had decided that they weren't going to be selling any lead to the 'public', even though I was purchasing it thru my business. So much for visons of piles of lead dancing thru my head, back to scraping and scrounging... *sigh*

[gutthooked]

alha

The guy told me there was 400lb in 4 buckets, when I went to get them it was 4 heaping buckets. When I got home I weighed them with my scale 625lb 99.9% older coww. You'll find another source.

Trapaddict I would like to hear more about your setup for shot. I just got into the trap game last year and am wanting to make my own shot.

[fishnhunt]

alha,
I'd really like pics and details once you get it together! I've found that you need to go slow at first when starting a batch - and only melt a couple inches of ww's at a time. Otherwise you'll get the bottom too hot and melt zinc before the top starts to melt. I ruined a big pot full a few months ago (and I've been doing this for years). After you've got 4 or 5 inches of melt in the pot it goes a little quicker - but don't leave it, and keep a sharp eye on the temps. Let us know how it comes out!