I have a 5' 1"x12" piece of pine with my pile count on it standing in front of pile marked with PL, COWW, SO, LIN, etc. with count. I affectionately call it my tally board and it is north of 3K. I am proud of my cleaned, melted, some mixed, ready to go glorious sorted and stacked piles of ingots and blocks. Many a safari and every trip not a guaranteed success but it was the hunt and all very enjoyable. Only above knows if I will need more, but I think I do!
I would think you would have too much if it tumbled over on top of you and you died because of it.
Stack it low to the ground.
Political correctness is a national suicide pact.
I am a sovereign individual, accountable
only to God and my own conscience.
Originally Posted by Hickory
Think of my back!
Can we compromise on at least three feet up?
Its none of my business but I'm just curious, if your deal for trading XFR analysis for lead is working out ok for you? I certainly hope so as you provide a very valuable service to the members here. And we appreciate it!
How much weight in ingots does a 5 gallon bucket hold?
I don't feel like I am stocked up enought. I can see that lead has gotten harder to get just in the last three years I have been casting. I also realized I need certain types of lead. Taking up muzzle loading places a premium on really soft stuff, which I am short on. Fortunately the amount you shootin a session of smokepole is a lot less, so a couple boxes of ingots will make me well supplied.
When you care enough to send the very best, send an ounce of lead.
Its just a guess but a bucket of ingots is heavier than a bucket of weights. My guess is between 150-200#.
That weight per cubic foot sounds like a useful bit to remember. One thing I think I will like about the Group Buy ingot molds is having them be a consistent weight will make turning a count of ingots into a weight easier.
I have a #3 Rowell bottom pour ordered that should arrive soon. That will pour 4 lbs at a time. Already have a #5 which pours 9 lbs but can't really scoop from the bottom of the pot so once I have both I am planning to get all my lead smelted into nice clean and uniform ingots. As either ingredients or finished alloy. Which I will hopefully weigh and inventory.
I like putting all the ingredients into the alloy calculator to see how close I am to 3/3/94 alloy if it was all combined. That is sort of a target for what my supply needs to yield. If alloy calculator shows richer alloy then I can pickup more soft, less rich then more hard alloy or tin is called for. Revolver alloy is softer, some rifle is Lyman #2 which is richer but if overall I can make a ton or two of 3/3/94 then I figure I am in pretty good shape.
Then after all the ingots are smelted, stacked and inventoried I shall sit in the garage and enjoy a warm adult beverage (Bailey's and coffee comes to mind) while I admire the hoard. Be a nice but short rest before going out after more.
Scrap.... because all the really pithy and emphatic four letter words were taken and we had to describe this source of casting material somehow so we added an "S" to what non casters and wives call what we collect.
Kind of hard to claim to love America while one is hating half the Americans that disagree with you. One nation indivisible requires work.
Feedback page http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...light=RogerDat
None, filled with ingots the darn thing splits open.
I think it depends on ingot shape and if stacked in the bucket or dumped in. A full 5 gallon bucket of WW's is about 110# it has some steal clips taking up space and also air space between the weights. I would guess ingots could go higher or lower mostly depending on how they are loaded into the bucket.
Someone posted a picture of puck ingots stacked in buckets. That would probably be typical. One can stack angle iron ingots on end and fill the space pretty tightly, and do more than one layer. While tossing in bar shaped or puck ingots would probably yield a lot of lost space lost due to air space around ingots.
If the bucket is just a wrapper around a stack i think it works OK. If one dumps a bunch of loose ingots in one and then comes back to try and move it after a while the bucket will probably be deformed and can split rather than move. Live and learn as they say.
Scrap.... because all the really pithy and emphatic four letter words were taken and we had to describe this source of casting material somehow so we added an "S" to what non casters and wives call what we collect.
Kind of hard to claim to love America while one is hating half the Americans that disagree with you. One nation indivisible requires work.
Feedback page http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...light=RogerDat
The buckets don't move. They sit in the corner of the garage 2/3 or 3/4 full of ingots.
When you care enough to send the very best, send an ounce of lead.
I have a 5 gallon bucket full of COWW muffin tin ingots, ingots are stacked in the bucket with a lot of air space left and I have about 225 pounds in there.
I unlike some of you have to know what I have whether its brass, bullets or lead so the scale accompany's me outside when smelting and every ingot gets weight after its cooled and before it gets put in a bucket. My lead stash is kind of sad but I'm bringing anything home I find.
I look at it this way:
* If one has in inventory 5000 plus total cast bullets for all my calibers
* If one has in iventory over 3500 reloads for all my calibers
If one has for example 2100 lbs sorted by alloy ... it's just 'Money in the Bank'
Regards
John
I PC as well to preserve them for the future.
[/QUOTE]
I need some white powdercoating like that ! I was just looking at my bullets and i dont have a white coating
How fortunate for you, here in the Wisconsin/Illinois area lead is a Hazardous Material and the crap yards/recyclers will NOT sell it to the public. If they did I would have much more than I have now.
I probably have 400 lbs or so. Anytime I need, I can mine the local berm. All I can carry away. My fear is having to move. The 50+ guns, 500 lbs of ammo, truckload or misc. gear. Last thing I need is to have move a metric ton of ingots.
That's rough! I would expect that in California, but not there. My yard sells for $.40-$.50 lb. Last year I bought around 45 lbs of 50/50 solder drippings for $.50 a lb. Talk about a score!
I called the local scrap yard 3 days ago. They are PAYING $.52/lb for 'soft lead'.
Last time I bought there (traded, actually) I paid right at $1/lb. By the time I add time, travel, and propane, it's cheaper to purchase from the forum.
Around here one has to search for yards or tire stores that will sell. A privately owned yard was recently purchased by a big recycling company. No more digging in the bin there.
The reason given for not allowing sales to the public does make at least some sense. If the public gets injured or killed while searching through the yard or bins there is a good chance the business would end up getting sued. Public hazard and all that. It is a working yard, forklifts and trucks going though all the time. I worked around that stuff for years so comfortable with avoiding it.
Some people would I'm sure be out there in the yard with ear buds in and music cranking or talking on the phone oblivious to what was going on around them. Made a lot more sense than "lead is hazardous" or "if you spill molten lead on yourself you will sue us". The first makes little sense as they allow me to bring it in, and provide no special hazardous environment gear for employees, the second might happen but won't be a successful at getting money. More likely to be tossed out of court.
One local tire shop, part of a chain said a shop was selling them to a guy who was dumping them in a pile to get to later, apparently the pile was large and the rain runoff was contaminated with all the crud you would expect from WW's as well as lead. Some got into the ground water... company was accused of being negligent in disposing of the "dangerous" scrap and so now all WW's go out via a licensed recycle operation. Probably makes the bean counters happier to have receipts for pickups against payment made also. Shop employees I think might have sold some for beer money from time to time.
I also think that buying at $1 a pound from the S&S forum makes a lot of sense. Buying the lead even for scrap prices, travel gas, propane and your time spent to cast clean lead vs. a buck a pound for already cast ingots sounds pretty good. Not uncommon for a scrap yard to want $1 a pound as it is. Only makes sense if the lead is better than "plain". Sometimes can get it cheaper than a buck from the yards but at a dollar a pound for scrap it isn't really a better deal than S&S. Even buckets of WW's after sorting are often only 50% lead which means whatever you paid per pound times 2 is you lead price.
Last edited by RogerDat; 11-11-2019 at 06:32 PM.
Scrap.... because all the really pithy and emphatic four letter words were taken and we had to describe this source of casting material somehow so we added an "S" to what non casters and wives call what we collect.
Kind of hard to claim to love America while one is hating half the Americans that disagree with you. One nation indivisible requires work.
Feedback page http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...light=RogerDat
Mostly has nothing to do with the yard, though many no longer allow Pick and Take because of Liability reasons, it is all about the State EPA listing it as a Hazardous material which puts it on a restricted list. So which of the 50 states have this I don't know but I do know that Wisconsin. Minn., and Illinois do.
Plenty+More=Enough.
Basic principle that has served me well. Get it where, when and how you can.
With consumables is there ever a point of enough?
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