More lead

[Mikeinkaty]

Found another junk yard today with a barrel full of wheel weights. I pulled 56 lbs of the good stuff off the top. 40¢ per pound. Got home and it made 48 lbs of clean ingots. The guy at the yard said to come back in 6 months and he'd have another barrel full. These weights were almost all the long heavy ones.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

Two summers ago, I "Refined" about 150 pounds of wheel weights of mine and about 80 pounds for my best friend into one pound ingots. At the same time I had about 50 pounds of old lead drain lines and the best friend had about the same of used lead roof flashing. The flashing came out at almost 50 ingots, The drain lines had so much "stuff" caked inside I only got 35 ingots. All the s
"slag" and ww clips went into a 3 pound coffee can and was given to the scrap yard to send in with their lead to be recycled (that way the EPA can't say I contaminated our local land fill!)

I let the ingots cool and stamp them with "LEAD" or "WW" so I know which alloy they are. I also have used "20 over 1" and "TYPE" to keep those alloys straight also.

It used to be easy to stop at the service stations and tire stores on the way home on Tuesdays and get all the wheel weights you could want. Now you are treated like a thief in the night, or they want to charge you 50 cents a pound for mixed zinc weights with used oil poured over them so you can't tell what they are.

It is difficult to be such a good citizen, and do my part for recycling! But I try!

Ivan

 

[jake1945]

I quit casting my own lead bullets a long time ago when the supply of 'free' lead came to a halt. Wheel weights were very plentiful then and free. Also, the factory where I worked in the machine shop had big lead hammers that they were replacing with non lead hammers. Carried a lot of those buggers out.

 

[fredj338]

Good score. I would buy all I could at that price. The lead ww is going extinct.

 

[4barrel]

Mixed wheel weights are .80 cents a pound at my rip off salvage yard. I thought I didnt hear him correctly.

 

[fredj338]

Mixed wheel weights are .80 cents a pound at my rip off salvage yard. I thought I didnt hear him correctly.

I can't even buy them at a salvage yard out here, HM issue. So even at 80c per, I would be a buyer. I am reduced to scrounging berms or trading for lead when I do find a decent amount. My dentist even gave me about 30# of lead foils from his old x-ray machine.

 

[Vigo]

I shoot at a multi-sport club where we have fire arms and air gun ranges. I'm on good terms with the range officers. When they empty the back stops of lead, I buy buckets full at a discount.

Air gun pellets are sleepers. The better pellets are pretty much pure lead and the range traps hold many of them. I buy several buckets full when they empty the air gun traps. My cap and ball revolvers and my flintlocks love the pure lead.

The stuff at the firearms range back stop is harder - works for hard cast bullets in modern revolvers or for smooth bore muskets.