Sawbuck Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 I want to start making bullets. Where do I get the lead? I talked to the local recycle guy today. He needs a dollar a pound. Is that a good price? Also he said that wheel weight is a good lead to use for bullets. Its not as soft as some other kinds of lead. One more thing. I have three dead car batteries in my garage. Is that a good lead to use for bullets? Thanks for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pitmaster, SASS #78461 Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 WW's are great to use. Forget the batteries and never think of them again. You might ask around at independent tire and automotive places asking to buy their WW and get a better price. Sometimes a box of donuts or a six pack can work wonders. I have plenty of lead but the shop that does all my auto maintenance has saved them for me. I would get them for free but I've been a customer for 17 years. You can buy smelted WWs for less than that. I would give it a pass. There are several guys on eBay who sell and ship lead ingots for bullet casting in large flat rate boxes at much better prices. eBay lead ingot search Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tequila Jim #14501 Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 Please stay away from the lead in batteries, too many nasties there, lead wheel weights are becoming a thing of the past. Zinc & steel are now being used for wheel weights. Scrap lead is being bought up by the battery manufactures. Best source for quality lead is Roto Metals. Regards, TJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Three Foot Johnson Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 I talked to the local recycle guy today. He needs a dollar a pound. Is that a good price? No. There is a big difference in price between scrap lead and finish lead, but everybody with lead for sale looks up the price on the metals market and then thinks their old roof flashing contaminated with tar and their old wheel weights contaminated with steel and paint are worth finish lead spot prices. He's quoting you almost spot value for finish lead. Most of these places pay 30-40 cents for scrap lead. Call him up and say you have 45 pounds of old dirty scrap lead to sell and see what the price is then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Boy Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 Sawbuck: * WW's for CAS cast bullets, perfect. Hardness will be with Bhn 13.5 or 15.4. Nothing else to add to the alloy - straight weights * $1.00 a pound - going rate now * Car Battery Lead - AN ABSOLUTE NO NO! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mustang Gregg Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 +1 on the NO battery metal----BAD JUJU!!! +2 on the tire balanicing weights! Csting bullets is a blast, but many cautions must be taken. Ventillation, face/skin protection, no water, stable table, etc. Buy the Lyman Bullet casting Book. GC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bodine Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 The last time I bought lead from the local recylcer it wa .24 cents a pound. I traded my little bit of aluminum and copper for over 200 pounds of pure lead sheeting from an X-ray room of a medical clinic being renovated. It needed cleaning and re-casting into ingots which I do myself. Yard sales yeild lots of fishing tackle around here and I've brought home as much as thirty pounds of sinkers for less than five dollars in the past, just for walking through a few yard/garage sales. I save the pure lead for my muzzle-loaders for actual hunting bullets, but the wheel-weights and sinkers go to kids when I set up to do frontier skills demos. I do flint and steel fire-starting and cast .58 (.570) bullets using my little bag ladle and brass single cavity mold at these living history demos. Then I give them to kids as souveniers with parents permission. I leave the sprue attached sometimes and tie a jute string on for them that wants to wear it as a necklace. Sorry, got a bit off-topic. Bodine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrison Joe, SASS #60708 Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 One of our good SASS pards, Muddy Creek Sam, has a sideline of recycling lead from medical shielding. Find him here: http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=86491 Wonderfully clean lead, and, no, it doesn't have radiation left in it. Runs about $1 a pound, shipped to your door. Much better price than RotoMetals or other commercial suppliers. Good luck, GJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Come On Christmas Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 I buy tires from a Good Ole Boy tire shop. I ask him for some lead when I am there. I have also bought some off Gunbroker. Shameless Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bramble Mountain Buzzard Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 Call your local metal recycler and get the current price that they pay. Next go to the tire shops in your town and offer to pay Metal Man price for their WW's. Most will probably tell you that they have a contract with their battery supplier to return WW's to them. Those that offer to sell, buy from. You should bring a scale and empty 5 gallon buckets to replace theirs with. A 2 wheel hand truck REALLY saves on the lifting. Oh, break up the bucket contents to about 1/2 full (about 75 lbs.) because a heaping full 5 gallon bucket can weigh around 175 lbs. Don't be afraid to bring donuts along the next time you stop. Also after the first time or two, put your name and telephone number on the buckets and ask that they call when full. Always, always, always say "Thank you" when you visit. They may not remember that you say it, but they will notice when you don't. Buzzard (who doesn't want any competition from where he gets WW's) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrison Joe, SASS #60708 Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 There are several guys on eBay who sell and ship lead ingots for bullet casting in large flat rate boxes at much better prices. eBay lead ingot search Well, sorry, but their current selling prices are running between $1 and $1.20 a pound. And, quality can vary quite a bit. So, turns out not to be a great deal. All the naive eBayers must have gone quiet or raised prices to what the smart fellows who follow the lead market are doing. Good luck, GJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Houston # 35508 Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 "What lead do you use" The grey kind I get from Mastercraft Bullets !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bodine Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 A note about Wheel Weights or sinkers with zinc antimonium (sp?) in them. They need a little higher melting temp than pure lead does, or else you get "pockets" of separation which result in "fliers" due to unbalanced castings. Using anything but pure lead requires the higher temps to fully coagulate (sp?) the combination of metals to get wiehgt distribution consitency in casting. Bodine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrison Joe, SASS #60708 Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 A note about Wheel Weights or sinkers with zinc antimonium (sp?) in them. They need a little higher melting temp than pure lead does, or else you get "pockets" of separation which result in "fliers" due to unbalanced castings. Using anything but pure lead requires the higher temps to fully coagulate (sp?) the combination of metals to get wiehgt distribution consitency in casting. Bodine Ok, little lesson in metallurgy, folks. The lead alloys we want for CAS cast bullets are generally about 96% lead, 3% antimony, 1 (or 2)% tin (that is, what the LEAD ALLOY wheelweights are cast from). We don't want ANY zinc in the alloy. Zinc makes it very hard to cast a good bullet, and it has to be cast at a higher temperature than normal. It also causes the bullet to be lighter, as zinc is not as dense as lead and antimony. Adding more antimony to make the bullets harder, when you are not going to exceed about 1250 FPS anyway, is just a waste of money, usually. Adding more tin can make the alloy cast a little better, give sharper features to the finished slugs, etc. But, tin is so DARN expensive right now ($12 a pound) that it is hard to justify adding much tin. Black powder slugs are normally close to 100% pure lead, sometimes with up to 5% tin added, and if any antimony, only a little. Round balls for cap and ball revolvers are usually best when 100% pure (soft) lead. The antimony and tin in the normal bullet alloy lower the melting point of the alloy. Pure lead is a higher melting point than our normal bullet alloys. When these metals are melted together, once they become molten, they mix together well. No "extra temperature" is needed past the point at which everything is molten. No extra stirring or other messing around is needed to keep the alloy well mixed. Fluxing (with paraffin, sawdust, several other good fluxes) and stirring the flux into the alloy helps separate the non-molten dirt, sand and metal oxides from the molten lead alloy and they pop to the surface as a gray powder or "slush". Fluxing well is always a good thing to do. Sinkers rarely have much antimony in them - costs more to add the antimony, and makes the sinkers slightly more brittle. Split shot sinkers are usually pure lead. Some large "home made" sinkers may be cast from wheel weight alloy, just because it (used to be) cheap. So, stir your molten lead alloy well when it all gets molten, flux well, and, assuming you have a good alloy, you will be able to cast consistent, fully-filled slugs without voids, assuming you know how to cast. Get a copy of the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook. It covers this subject very well. Good luck, GJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kougarok George Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 I have bought wheel weights both in original and ingot form. I think the recovery rate on WW is about 75%, cause there is a lot of zincs showing up. I will not buy others WW ingots. The zinc WW's are so easy to miss, and they have to be doing this in big pots. I do not want zinc in my casting pot. I prefer to buy pure lead and then add what I need. kg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anvil Al #59168 Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 I am buying 92-6-2 That's 6% antimony 2% tin. But get it by the ton. So pay less than some. Also picked up about 1300 pounds of wheel wieghts.(not useing that in customers bullets) If you use WW's. Just watch out for the zinc. As not all WW's are lead. Some are zinc. So watch out for that. If you are looking for some already to go. I can sell you some of the 92-6-2 in smaller amounts. Anywhere from 8 pounds to 50-60 pounds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bodine Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 That's what I was trying to say in short: STEER AWAY from ZINC! Thanks for the more scientific expalnation. Bodine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergeant Smokepole #29248L Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 A couple times a year, I clean the traps of my club's indoor range. I mine about 500 pounds and share with friends.... Cost? Just my time and LP used in my smelting operation, about 15 yankee greenbacks worth of LP.... The lead is pretty soft, perfect for the velocities we shoot as the bullets slug up and seal the rifling grooves. It's probably 95% from jacketed/swaged/plated and .22's.... Some hard cast fired there but not much.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bramble Mountain Buzzard Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 Bodine, you are incorrect about the melt temps. While true that zinc melts at about 90° more than pure lead, clip on WW's (Lead alloy) melt at a lower temp than pure lead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willie Earp, SASS#19022 Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 I have three different grades of casting lead: 1) Pure Wheelweight This typically about 92% pure and very hard stuff. I use this exclusively for 2000 fps or greater applications. 2) 50/50 Mix of WW and pure lead. This is typically about 96% pure and perfect for any cartridge bullets, that are less than 2000 fps (everything Cowboy Action) 3) Pure Lead. I use this for muzzle-loaders (round balls, Mineballs and such) Several other points: I also use range scrap which turns out to be perfect for the 50\50 mix. The problem with range scrap is that about 15% of it turns out to be copper, so if you are buying the lead (at $1/lb) you are getting less than if you buy pure lead. BTW, my local metal scrap dealer won't buy the copper back from me... I also have one of the local stained-glass window makers give me his old lead scrap; telling him that he is "recycling" rather than throwing it away. This stuff is also a good 50/50 mix. I give him a 5 gal bucket to throw his lead trash into, and then exchange it out for an empty one, about every 6 months or so. Regards, Willie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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