Well, I paid for some wheel weights yesterday.

A local tire/repair store has been saving them for me for a year or so. 2 5 gallon buckets full. In better economic times, they sell a bunch more tires!

The buckets seemed to be a bit heavier than usual. Full to the brim. I think the last ones I got were right at 120# each. These seemed to be at least that! (Must be getting old!) It took all I had to throw them into the back of my F250 work van! Got r did though!

At any rate, cost me $60 for both buckets. If they weigh 120# each, that is 240# for $60. Or to put it into better perspective, 25¢ a pound.

Granted the yield will be about 95% of usable alloy, the cost does go up a bit per pound but still, the math comes out pretty good for cost per bullet. 7000gr @ 25¢ means 230gr bullets cost me .8¢ each. 160gr ones are right at .5¢ each.

I can live with that. To put that cost in perspective, 500 230gr bullets cost me $4! Sure, there is time and lube that will go on top of that cost, but still!

At that kind of savings, you don't have to cast too much to save some serious money. What would ROI (Return On Investment) be for a $200 capital expenditure? It depends on how much you shoot and your available time.

With a Lee 6 cavity mould, I can easily get 150 200gr 45 caliber in an hour, easily. In another hour or less now with the Star, they will be lubed and ready to shoot.

Do you shoot more than 150 rounds in a week? Do you have 2 hours of usable time (Time not spent in front of the boob tube) that could be spent productively? Just wondering.

Saving money and shooting more is a good thing, a win/win in my book!

On another forum, they were lamenting the recent bullet shortage. You know what my come back was: "What bullet shortage!"

Think about it!

We went to an absolute auction last year, guy had a huge machine shop, every imaginable thing under the sun there.

Stuff went for dirt. My neighbor bought a stack of lead bars, all of them exactly alike, like bricks. Anywho, he paid $5 for it. When he got it home he weighed it, came in at 632 lbs of lead. He's got enough to last his lifetime lol.

I wish I would have had more money to blow there as it was definitely a once in a lifetime event.

I use wheel weights only for rifle and high velocity revolver bullets. The last large batch I found was discarded in an alley. I think some chop shop just wanted to get rid of them. So now I have a bunch of lead for bullets AND I helped save the environment.

I recently figured out my cost for loaded .45-70 ammo, using my free lead. One loaded round costs me 19 cents; not bad considering factory loaded high performance .45-70 costs about $3 per round.

Grab them while you can. Whatever it is that wheel weights are made of today is not suitable for bullet casting.

Dave Sinko

Sounds like the prices are about the same on both coasts. I stopped by the tire shop I use yesterday and picked up a 5 gal bucket of w.w. The charge me $30 also....always have. You folks that get them free, count your lucky blessings, not all of us do.

Skip, If it will make you feel any better, the cost of a 230 gr bullet would be 8/10 of a cent per round, not 8 cents.

That decimal point is a bit hard for some folks to see. I had to look again to see if it was there. I used the lower part of my glasses, the part below the second line, and I can see it just fine!

It says eight tenths of a cent.

Have a good day!