Do You Have a Lifetime Supply?

[wksimple]

I’m seeing about an 80% recovery. So far have only used it at 15 yards so I’m not missing much��. And it’s 1/4 inch steel. Seems to be holding up well.

[Charlie Horse]

I turned 71 in February.

It's gonna be close (if I have enough or not.) I woulda say yes, because I keep adding to it.

[lightman]

Its good to see this thread being revived! Sadly so many of the earlier posters have left us. But yes, I think I have been in the lifetime supply club for a number of years. I'm even selling off some of my personal stash.

[Digital Dan]

Yes, I have enough. The days of casting 300-550 grain bullets are behind me. Biggest bullet I cast these days is a 311041 Lyman. Couple of more petit boolits and that covers it. Have enough that my younger family lads won’t have a clue when they inherit the leftovers.

[walnut1704]

No. I'm afraid I'll have to move it.

[hemmjo]

I always keep my eyes open for more.

I do some work for a excavation contractor that has a small pallet of old lead sheathed phone wire. Have done some research on it. One source, which I cannot find right now, calls it "corroding lead" suggests this lead may contain arsenic. Yet another source says if does not contain arsenic.

I did bring a piece home, it is not too difficult to melt the lead away from the copper wires, as long as there is a fresh breeze to clear the fumes. I hesitate to get the whole pallet, maybe 200-300 pounds not separated, if it is not any good. It would about double my current stash.

Has anyone used this as a source?

[curiousgeorge]

I have around 1800 lbs at this time. I'm still working on shooting up bullets I molded 25 years ago. I went on a casting frenzy at that time and made thousands and thousands of bullets.

I have cast some off and on since then but nothing like that. I continued to collect lead wheel weights for several years and made a deal with a friend with a shot maker to make ingots. I would take him 3 buckets of wheel weights and he would make 2 buckets of ingots for me and keep one for himself.

At that time I had approximately 2500 lbs of lead total which included lynotype, monotype, pure lead, and 50/50 bar solder, but way too much in raw wheel weights. Now everything in ingots or some form of cleaned lead. No more messing with smelting.

[35 Rem]

I always keep my eyes open for more.

I do some work for a excavation contractor that has a small pallet of old lead sheathed phone wire. Have done some research on it. One source, which I cannot find right now, calls it "corroding lead" suggests this lead may contain arsenic. Yet another source says if does not contain arsenic.

I did bring a piece home, it is not too difficult to melt the lead away from the copper wires, as long as there is a fresh breeze to clear the fumes. I hesitate to get the whole pallet, maybe 200-300 pounds not separated, if it is not any good. It would about double my current stash.

Has anyone used this as a source?

If I understand what you are describing, I have used some of that before. What I had was a thick cable maybe about 2 inches in diameter with a lead outer sheath, then some sort of paper sheath and maybe 50 small insulated copper wires inside. There was a layer of black tar like substance between the lead and inner layers too that clunge to the lead when I cut it off using various tools. That tar was the mess to deal with when making ingots. But I ran pot after pot of the stuff through my Lee 20lb pot with no negative aftereffects. No matter how messy you get it, just empty the pot and clean it up - or that's always been my method. I had no idea what the cable was when I was working with it because it was before I found this forum. As far as how I've used it, I consider the lead to be pure and have used it very successfully to mix with CoWW's for hunting bullets in rifles for deer. Arsenic or not, I have no idea.

[Tracy]

I have around 1800 lbs at this time. I'm still working on shooting up bullets I molded 25 years ago. I went on a casting frenzy at that time and made thousands and thousands of bullets.

I have cast some off and on since then but nothing like that. I continued to collect lead wheel weights for several years and made a deal with a friend with a shot maker to make ingots. I would take him 3 buckets of wheel weights and he would make 2 buckets of ingots for me and keep one for himself.

At that time I had approximately 2500 lbs of lead total which included lynotype, monotype, pure lead, and 50/50 bar solder, but way too much in raw wheel weights. Now everything in ingots or some form of cleaned lead. No more messing with smelting.

That reminds me of a time when I was planning a big camping trip to Terlingua, TX and wanted to take plenty of ammo for my Super Blackhawk. I cast somewhere around 1000 .44 Keith bullets in one night, in preparation for the trip.

[CScott]

That reminds me of a time when I was planning a big camping trip to Terlingua, TX and wanted to take plenty of ammo for my Super Blackhawk. I cast somewhere around 1000 .44 Keith bullets in one night, in preparation for the trip.

Sounds like a fun camping trip. I've used more .44 Keiths than everything else combined.

[Butcherbill]

Pretty sure I do but it doesn’t stop me from bringing more pails home, four more pails and some pewter followed me home today.

[johnho]

I have more than enough lead. Also more than enough powder, cases and primers. Did I mention I'll be 81 next month. ��

[JFoster48386]

We never have enough lead. My wife isn't a big shooter but our adult children and their better halves are. I can't tell you the number of times I've gone to grab ammo so I can head out to the range only to find empty shelves. One of our daughters, before she even got married, could stay at the range until they kicked her out at the end of the day or she ran out of "my" ammo to shoot. I need to find as much lead as possible on a regular basis.

Jon.

[imashooter2]

I have more than enough lead. Also more than enough powder, cases and primers. Did I mention I'll be 81 next month. ��

Not a bad run. Hope you can keep the streak going!

[SiliconeSword]

I should hopefully be good for a bit, I cast 585 pounds of ingots since April from mining the range I go to. Jackets are a nice byproduct that made me $490 on top of the "free" ingots

[35 Rem]

I'm in the process of building a house on the farm so will be moving there soon. Have a lot of other buildings there so have been moving my lead little by little. So far have most of it up there. About 20 5 gallon buckets of WW's ingots, scrap roofing, stained glass window lead, etc. Then about 25 of the USPS boxes full stacked up in several piles. And a fair quantity of linotype and monotype along with tin rich ingots. Sure am glad I didn't wait to do that all at one time! I have maybe a couple 5 gallon buckets left to move and my 25lbs of tin from RotoMetal that I guard like it was gold. I got it some time back though as my average price was $17.50/lb. I need to build up my berm a bit more and should be set for life by recycling lead from there.

[fredj338]

I'm in the process of building a house on the farm so will be moving there soon. Have a lot of other buildings there so have been moving my lead little by little. So far have most of it up there. About 20 5 gallon buckets of WW's ingots, scrap roofing, stained glass window lead, etc. Then about 25 of the USPS boxes full stacked up in several piles. And a fair quantity of linotype and monotype along with tin rich ingots. Sure am glad I didn't wait to do that all at one time! I have maybe a couple 5 gallon buckets left to move and my 25lbs of tin from RotoMetal that I guard like it was gold. I got it some time back though as my average price was $17.50/lb. I need to build up my berm a bit more and should be set for life by recycling lead from there.

Lol, my dream retirement location.

[schutzen-jager]

80 years old - triple by pass 3 months ago, currently awaiting cataraact surgeries. + prostrate cancer proton trearment - definitely have enough if i remember where i stashed them -

[GhostHawk]

73, have not been to the range or shot a powder burner in 2 years. Stash intact, 29 lbs of Red Dot and Promo on hand. Over 20k primers of all types including shotgun.

I have lead stashed, lino on hand, also a fair amount of melted down pewter, mostly in coin type ingots.

I have no intention of going anywhere with any of it.

I'm going to sit on my stash like a big old he coon and glare at anything that comes too close.
Yeah I'm happy.

[RetiredMSG]

I just scraped together 400 pounds or so. I bought 60 lbs of linotype, somewhat expensive but worth it I think. I had a guy I did business with before for primers and projectiles, he sold me 100 lbs of wheel weight ingots and 25 lbs of soft lead, plus he threw in a couple of bars of 50-50 solder all for a very reasonable price. Lead WW are extinct here in NY, so I went around to local scrap yards getting denied, none would sell to the public, it was frustrating but I finally found a smaller more rural yard that was happy to sell me a couple hundred pounds of scrap, which I smelted into ingots and got 196 total clean lead out of it