Finally ran out of wheel weights

[Handgun Hunter]

After casting bullets since the early 70s, I've finally ran out of wheel weights and even pure lead to mix with them. I still have a little 50/50 solder my father bought just after WWII when he was a young plumber to mix with the lead and wheel weights. (Yeah, I inherited this buying in large lots stuff for the future from him.) Since lead is no longer used for wheel weights and I cannot seem to find anyone who wants to sell me any, I checked the supply houses for bullet lead and with those prices and the cost of postage it doesn't seem to be worth the trouble to cast my own anymore. My luber/sizer finally wore out with the last batch, but why buy another or send it to Lyman for a rebuild when 20 cent a pound wheel weights are a thing of the past? Most of the lead I've been using for decades I bought in the 70s or was given to me by people in the tire business. I did buy some range lead back then, too, about 100 pounds for $20. Guess I should have bought or begged a few hundred pounds more wheel weights because I'm not going to cast bullets to save a penny or two a round and I'm hoping to have another ten years of shooting and living left.

What are bullet casters doing nowadays for lead? When the lead was almost free it was worth the time to cast. But it seems those days are over.

 

[growr]

My local salvage yard get the medical isotope balls from the local hospitals/medical centers. They are about 35 lbs of the nicest lead I have EVER worked with and NO scrap to deal with! Kind of big though...had to get a bigger pan to melt it into ingots.

They also seem to get a lot of lead water pipe from demolition sights as well....it all melts down into great projectiles for me.....pricing is at .75/lb

Perhaps a local yard might have some of that for you like I found.....

Randy

PS. I gave up on wheel weights as there is so much unuseable. A 5 gallon bucket was only yielding about a dozen pounds of lead ingots and so much junk.

 

[fredj338]

Unfortunately, cheap/free lead for bullets is getting scarce. You can buy it from scroungers on sites like cast booklet forum. It often ships to you for a bit over $1/#, already to cast. $1.50 per is about my limit if buying. That yields 1000/200/45 fifth about $45. Not bad, maybe worth your time if you enjoy casting.
I still scrounge range lead. I belong to two private clubs & shoot at another. Lead bullets for the taking at the berm at the end of the day. You can scrounge 20# in about 15m. I also trade guys for alloy. Bullets for alloy, 1# for 3# alloy. I'm casting anyway & I enjoy casting more than reloading in general.
Lead is where you find it. Hook up with a plumber, radiator shop, roofing contractor, stain glass classes or shops, X-ray lab even your dentist. Mine gave me a 30# box of lead foils he had just sitting around since he went digital.

 

[Forrest r]

I've been shooting/using/casting with free range berm lead since the 80's. I will also buy lead from a local scrap yard for $.35 a # when I didn't have enough time to pick up berm lead/enough berm lead. I typically go thru around #300 of cast bullets a year. I know #300 sounds like allot but if the average bullet weighs 170gr (30cal's/38spl/357's/44spl's/44mags/45acp's), that 12,350 bullets a year.

When I smelt the berm lead a bi-product is copper, copper jackets to be more precise. The local scrap yards buy the copper (#2 copper).



I also scrap allot of the brass I find, this is what I took in last year.




I was a little light on picking up lead last year so I bought this off of them with the $$$$.



The #10 pigs (long bars) were babbitt and I sold them for $3 a # and the pure lead (pipe) I sold to the bp shooters at a local club for $1 a #. I kept the solder and the bucket of ww's and ingots.

If your local scrap yard doesn't sell lead try putting an ad on craigslist. I buy allot of mono-type off of craigslist cheap. Cheap ='s $1 a # or less. Then I'll trade it 1 to 3 (1# of type for 3# of lead) for cleaned ingots of lead/ww's/mystery alloy.

As far as the lyman goes. Now would be the perfect time to switch over to coating your own bullets. Coated bullets are allot cleaner to use/shoot. No more smoke, build-up in reloading dies, no more burnt oil/wax/grease residue on everything.

700 rounds ran down the tube of 125gr cast/coated bullets being pushed with 5.5gr of longshot in a 1911 chambered in 9mm.



The dirty bbl.



That same bbl after 1 wet patch (hoppe's #9) and 1 dry patch to clean it. No brush, no elbow grease, just less than 2 minutes with a wet patch then a dry patch.



Took the 686 to the range and shot 200 rounds of cast coated 158gr hp's and 3.5gr of international clays in 38spl cases (plinking ammo).



Anyway, leads out there and coated bullets are the cat's meow. I haven't lubed a cast bullet for any of the pistols in 3+ years now and I'm slowly working on the 30cal rifle bullets and pc.

 

[Vulcan Bob]

Even if I have to buy my lead from lets say "Rotometals" I will be able to cast the bullets I want with the alloy I want, the size I want and the lube I want. This alone would make it very worthwhile. Don't get rid of your casting equipment you never know when a big lead score may happen!

 

[fredj338]

Even if I have to buy my lead from lets say "Rotometals" I will be able to cast the bullets I want with the alloy I want, the size I want and the lube I want. This alone would make it very worthwhile. Don't get rid of your casting equipment you never know when a big lead score may happen!

If I had to pay Rotometal prices for alloy, I would still cast, but only specialty bullets. At $2/# +, just not worth my time when companies like Bayou or Missouri make good plinking products. My 200gr 45s would cost me $60/k or I could have them shipped to me for $90. Saving $30 & spending 3hrs to make 1000 bullets probably not gonna happen. Specialty bullets though, like my 44mag or 45-70 hunting bullets, yes.

 

[AlHunt]

I feel your pain. I recently found 300 pounds of wheel weights a guy had been sitting on for decades. I ended up at about .37/pound and seem to be losing about 20% to clips, etc. I had a classified online for more than 6 months. Roofers, also, could be a good source. Lead flashing scraps are pure lead.

 

[Mike SC Hunter]

I have about a ton of WW's/linotype and bricks of lead on hand. I also mine the berm on my personal range........Heck!.....Some of that lead has been down the barrel 2/3 times!.

 

[Iggy]

What does anyone know about fish net weights? My BIL came up with a bucket of them out in Washington state.

I've been hesitant to try them until I could find out more about them.

 

[Handgun Hunter]

What does anyone know about fish net weights? My BIL came up with a bucket of them out in Washington state.

I've been hesitant to try them until I could find out more about them.

If they're not years old they might be zinc or anything but lead. Lead is being phased out and banned by the federal government. Lead wheel weights is one of the first casualties. Lead solder seems to be about gone, but I still have a little from many decades back. I can get pure lead, but you must mix tin and antimony before casting. Wheel weights, especially those from the 70s, were perfect for casting and had arsenic, which allowed you to heat treat them and make them a lot harder. Linotype from printers has been gone a long time.

 

[fredj338]

What does anyone know about fish net weights? My BIL came up with a bucket of them out in Washington state.

I've been hesitant to try them until I could find out more about them.

They could be anything from pure lead to zinc. I use a hammer to test suspect alloy. If it dents easily, it is castable alloy.
You can still find things like linotype, montype, both good to alloy pure lead. You can eve use pure lead for low pressure/vel loads like 38sp.

 

[AlHunt]

What does anyone know about fish net weights? My BIL came up with a bucket of them out in Washington state.

I've been hesitant to try them until I could find out more about them.

I know nothing about net weights, but I know pure lead melts at 621F and zinc melts around 692F. I'd try slowly melting some in a small pot and see if I could get a puddle of something liquid around 625F.

 

[Wee Hooker]

I recently worked out a deal with a local indoor range to buy their lead when they clean out their indoor bullet trap. Costs less than going to the scrap yard and once cleaned of jacket scraps, should give me just the right mix. I like the idea of supporting the club as well.

 

[5-Shot]

My indoor range sells me buckets of range scrap. After melting and separating, it yields about 65 percent good usable bullet alloy of BHN 9.

Ed

 

[shoot back]

Saving your lead

A bullit trap is the way to save all your lead. i have been shooting the same lead for about three years.