The price of lead did I do ok?

[Kasilofchrisn]

So I recently bought a bunch of lead off of a Craigslist add.

With the weight of the 8 buckets it was in included it was 751.4# on my scale.

I paid $700 for all of it.

I estimated I paid ~.95¢ per pound after taking off the weight of the buckets.

He originally wanted $1.50 per pound.

The lead is almost all in  clean 1# ingots except one bucket had a coffee can of cast bullets and some large pure lead factory ingots in it.

Most of them tested out as wheel weight hardness on my tester but there were a few that were marked "lots of tin" or "plumbers lead" in sharpie.

My local scrapyard sells me raw scrap for $1 a pound if they have any. This then has to be melted, fluxed, cleaned and ingotized. So I always lose some to the dross and it's more work.

What are you guys paying for lead these days?

I know what Rotometals charges but I'm wondering about local sales, private or scrap yards?

[Judgie]

I'm still old school, I get mine free from tire stores . All wheel weights half or no good ,but I get 50 lbs from 100 lbs of wheel weights.

I would rather buy lead but can't find ant around here Ontario Canada.

You did very well at a buck a lb.

Edited October 12, 2020 by Judgie

[Apdriver]

Sounds like you did well with that purchase. I haven’t bought any lead lately but we can’t get any “free” lead anywhere. Even the tire shops have guys coming around paying for their scrap so they save it for that. I wait until I need a new set of tires and then negotiate five gallons of wheel weights if I buy a grand worth of tires from them. They usually let 5 gallons go but like Judgie said, a lot of it you can’t use. So for good clean lead, you did well.

[Kasilofchrisn]

Yeah wheel weights are hard to get here as well.

They either sell them for way to much $$ or have a buddy they give it to.

One shop allows you to leave a bucket with a name and phone number. But there's always six guys ahead of you and they don't fill a bucket but every month or two so I've never bothered.

I've got some bullet casting projects coming up as well as my jig projects so this will definitely come in handy.

[Jig Man]

I have heard that modern wheel weights can contain zinc and damage your melting pot.  I have a friend who remodels hospitals.  Ha has given me a lifetime supply of Xray room lead.  It is a pain to clean but free.

[Kasilofchrisn]

8 hours ago, Jig Man said:

I have heard that modern wheel weights can contain zinc and damage your melting pot.  I have a friend who remodels hospitals.  Ha has given me a lifetime supply of Xray room lead.  It is a pain to clean but free.

There are lead, zinc, steel, and plastic wheel weights out there.

When you get them you simply sort out the lead ones and use them. It's not that hard to tell them apart 

If you did melt some zinc ones it will not ruin your pot.

It will contaminate and can ruin the batch of lead in the pot, but, not the pot itself.

[smalljaw]

7 hours ago, Kasilofchrisn said:

There are lead, zinc, steel, and plastic wheel weights out there.

When you get them you simply sort out the lead ones and use them. It's not that hard to tell them apart 

If you did melt some zinc ones it will not ruin your pot.

It will contaminate and can ruin the batch of lead in the pot, but, not the pot itself.

Tell that to my 2nd LEE pot that was ruined due to wheel weights with high zinc content...LOL!!!! I have a couple LEE production pots as back up and they won't get wheel weight lead if I have to put them back in service. The RCBS pro melt furnace I use now will never see a wheel weight, it may cost me a bit more for lead but I know what I'm melting and it is worry free. 

[Apdriver]

This thread has diverged from Chris’s purchase but thought this may be a decent place to share this. Somebody spent some time to do it and anybody that uses wheel weights should review it. Chris is spot on about the sorting. 
 

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?139839-Guide-to-Hand-Sorting-Wheel-Weights

[Kasilofchrisn]

Wow Smalljaw this is the first I've heard of zinc destroying a pot.

Bullet casters have been using wheel weight lead for years and I've not heard mention of this.

I've even seen videos of people casting zinc bullets from pure zinc and they didn't have pot issues.

Was this ingots or scrap? If it was scrap it could have been other contaminates.

I only use wheel weight lead if it's free.

Especially because of the extra work involved.

And I never melt scrap in my bottom pour pots.

I always make ingots outside on a turkey fryer type burner using a cast iron dutch oven.

Mine holds ~192# iirc of lead.

I triple flux then make ingots.

Not only does this help keep my pots clean but it also keeps the fumes, dust, etc. outside.

I don't have close neighbors so no fume issues for them either.

Only clean dry ingots go into my shop and my bottom pour pots.

I think most people's issues with the lee pots comes from melting scrap in their bottom pour pots.

Clean lead keeps the pot cleaner and it drips less.

 

[Kasilofchrisn]

6 hours ago, Apdriver said:

This thread has diverged from Chris’s purchase but thought this may be a decent place to share this. Somebody spent some time to do it and anybody that uses wheel weights should review it. Chris is spot on about the sorting. 
 

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?139839-Guide-to-Hand-Sorting-Wheel-Weights

That's a good forum Apdriver.

And some good advice in that thread on handling wheel weights.

 

[Apdriver]

Last time I worked a bucket of wheel weights, it was just to make some decoy weights for Texas rigging them and none of the lead saw my pot. I do as you do and work it outside into ingots. I saw all the stuff in the article but had not read this article until yesterday. My sorting would have gone smoother and probably faster if I had. It probably needs to be linked in the Lead Safety thread and I started to put it there but this thread morphed into a discussion of wheel weights. Oil your boots up, winter soon for you.