In the 80's I used to travel a few hundred miles from home for the company I worked for, in a 3/4 ton truck. Besides my tools I could carry at least 10 buckets of weights. I kept about 20 pure lead ingots in my cross box, and when the fellow told me he was saving weights for "muzzle loaders", I would bring the ingots in and tell him to give those to "muzzle loaders" and let me have the weights. Almost always the guy would give me a few buckets, and tell me to stop by next time I was in town! I started dropping off 10# every trip to a tire store on the interstate, and he usually had two or three buckets of truck weights saved for me!
I wouldn't pay much over 25 for a full bucket. Hard to know what the yield will be.
Got a bucket 3/4 full 2 wks ago yield was 7 lbs of lead 90% was Fe They were stick on weights , hardly worth the time to sort.
I see guys on fbook advertizing for bulk lead wanted ........might be the same handlers of stolen property who offer $200 each for cat convs on fbook.
Many think primers are going back to $30 too. A 5gal bucket of good clip ww is worth an easy $50. Though I still have a couple to melt down, I dont even try anymore, too much zinc & steel. I used to pay $25 for a bucket, then it went to $30 & the yield went down to 50%. That was when I quit ww from the tire shops here.
EVERY GOOD SHOOTER NEEDS TO BE A HANDLOADER.
NRA Cert. Inst. Met. Reloading & Basic Pistol
It all depends on how hard up for lead a person is.
That is the driving force.
Interesting discussion.
I've gotten out of casting and have a few buckets of old WW that I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with.
Probably going to the local scrapyard.
Cliff
FPD, NRA Lifer, USN retired
30 years ago I could buy 2 packs of Marlboros and 2 bottles of mt dew for $5. And get change back. I bought my first oz of gold then for $385.
Those prices are LONG gone and so is $.10/lb for lead wheel weights.
I bought 30 6 gallon full buckets for $50 each and 99% of them were lead. I’ve sold many buckets for $100 each. I sell ingots for $1.25/lb locally and have more people asking for lead than I can keep up with. Most claim to be dirt track drivers looking for counterweights for their race cars. It’s a shame they buy good clean lead for that, but the cash still spends. Only have a couple guys say they are casting bullets.
When I was racing in the 60's and 70's we would get all the racers together and buy a boat keel, Back then a keel was almost free for the taking but you had to have someone with a large truck or trailer to haul it. The keel would go to a guys shop that had a lot of space then then we would have cutting party one weekend in the winter, spread out huge tarps and cut the keel into blocks of 10 lb. increments. 10, 20 ,30 40, 50. Then that would be split between all the guys and the chips from the chainsawing of the lead was also split amongst all the guys that reloaded. Back in those days it was just about all of us. But there would be several hundred lbs. of chips to dole out. I miss those days, except when it was my turn on the saw. That will tear up pants real fast!!! I learned to have a set of welding chaps available for those meets.
Scrapyard is the easy way but you will get 4 times as much on here and that will still be a good deal for the buyer. In your location I would guees you could find a buyer that will pick them up. Saves the hassle of shipping.
I started casting in the late 1970's and have never gotten any free lead. On the flip side, my cost has hardly risen for locally purchased WW's. 1970's it was about 25 cents/lb. The past 15 plus years it has been 30 to 35 cents/lb. I've purchased a fair amount here for ingots that come up to $1.25 to about $1.50lb delivered.
elmacgyver0 hit the nail on the head. Price depends a lot on how much somebody needs lead. If you have several tons and don't shoot a whole lot, you can be real finicky and only jump on the real bargains. If you are just starting out, are 25 years old and love to shoot, you need some lead right now and might be willing to pay $2/lb or more just to get started.
It's still out there to be scrounged if ya look for it and get the word out.
I used to get Lead roof flashings that go over roof vent stacks that kids had smashed from Home depot.
It was easy to make a deal with the dept. manager to 'help' with their clean ups.
As refugees come here from coastal places, you can sometimes find big fishing weights they use for
salmon and fishing from the beach. Same at garage/estate sales, I've gotten all I could carry for $5.oo.
Or partial rolls of 95/5 solder for a dollar.
In school: We learn lessons, and are given tests.
In life: We are given tests, and learn lessons.
OK People. Enough of this idle chit-chat.
This ain't your Grandma's sewing circle.
EVERYONE!
Back to your oars. The Captain wants to waterski.
Anyone have soft lead they want to swap with some 70/30 solder?
For 50%+ loss I don't pay more than $20/bucket. If I saw that it was full of truck weights or it was old stuff that was little FE or ZN sure I would pay more. If you can find some sucker that wants to pay $1/lb then more power too you. I won't. To easy to buy clean ingots here and they arrive at the door.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |