Where do you buy your lead?

[silvercorvette]

When I lived in Ny I bought lead in plumbing supply stores, but in SC they use plastic pipe so I haven't found and lead in plumbing supply stores. I live in Anderson SC any suggestions?

[Pahoo]

I'm not going to be much help but perhaps, give you some ideas on where to find/buy some.

1) I just bought another 15lbs. at a garage sale that was also selling lots of tools. You often find lead sinkers at garage sales as well.

2) Our son-in-law works at a mill and he got me some pipe from a salvage yard.

3) An old shooting buddy of mine passed on and he had alloy and pure, about 200lbs. They wound up taking it to a salvage yard and sold it for .50 per pound.

4) Go to area plumbing shops and plumbing supply houses. Even though they have gone mostly to PVC, they still have some laying around.

To date, I have never had to order any and just pick it up a little at a time. I run my own lead and always pick up what I need.

Be Safe!!!

[Doc Hoy]

Wheel weights.

They are now between 93 and 99 percent pure. At least that is what the leadning wheel weight manufacturer told me.

[mrappe]

I found 200 lbs on craigslist locally. It was going to be used origionally for a sailboat balast.

[mrappe]

If you find a roofer you might get to give you some flashing that they take off of old roofs.

[Zildjian]

Use to get mine here at the local stations that did a lot of tire repair and tire changes. You might try those locally. Most of those places are already spoken for their lead Wheel weights. Some just give the lead away to local shooters for free. Just ask around your area. I would get the clip on style and not mix it with the stick on style if it were me.

[Rifleman1776]

I use only pure soft lead for traditional muzzle loaders. I get my lead by scrounging anywhere I can find it.

[Hawg]

Use to get mine here at the local stations that did a lot of tire repair and tire changes. You might try those locally. Most of those places are already spoken for their lead Wheel weights. Some just give the lead away to local shooters for free. Just ask around your area. I would get the clip on style and not mix it with the stick on style if it were me.

Clip on weights are too hard and don't shrink enough for bp. Stick on weights are 99.5% pure and are plenty soft enough.

[Cleet]

www.rotometals.com

Free shipping with over $100 purchase

I'm not friends with a mechanice to get wheel weights

[Mr Lucky]

Some scrape yards deal only in lead, brass, copper, nickle shavings and other semi-precious metals other than steel. Find one that does not deal in wrecked cars and they will probably have lead.

[Hawg]

I'm not friends with a mechanice to get wheel weights

Don't have to be. Go to tire shops and don't talk to manager, talk to tire techs. They may give you a bucket or two. Watch out for zinc weights tho.

[Mr Lucky]

Actually Doe Run in Missouri is the largest Lead mining and smelting plant in the US. I suppose you could contact them and see who they sell to near you.

Shipping costs would be cost prohibitive.

You might also check with recyclers near you.

[robhof]

If there's an outdoor range, or an area that the locals shoot alot; you can make a frame of hardware cloth and sieve the berms. I do it at our local outdoor range and get 50 or more lbs in a short time. I sort the cast and jacketed into separate buckets. The jacketed cores are almost pure lead, soft enough for B/P and the cast are considered hard and are mixed with some Linotype that I scored on Ebay for non-B/p.

[Mr Lucky]

If there's an outdoor range, or an area that the locals shoot alot; you can make a frame of hardware cloth and sieve the berms. I do it at our local outdoor range and get 50 or more lbs in a short time. I sort the cast and jacketed into separate buckets. The jacketed cores are almost pure lead, soft enough for B/P and the cast are considered hard and are mixed with some Linotype that I scored on Ebay for non-B/p.

Why not just buy it from an indoor range? What do you do about bonded cores? Is it usable? Does the copper or brass skim off when you melt it or do you re-cast everything?

[mrappe]

Copper is lighter than lead so it floats to the top.

[robhof]

The jackets melt at a higher temp and as stated above; float on top and can be skimmed off. Even the bonded cores are of soft lead and will leak out when they reach the lead melting temp. I skim with an old slotted spoon to get as much lead as possible from the jacket, a little tapping on the side of the pot renders more lead. The berms at our outdoor range have never been recovered from, they only add fresh dirt over the front about yearly. Now 3 or 4 other patrons work the berms and it actually reduces the need for recovering as often.

[HisSoldier]

I bought two buckets of wheel weights, and would say that 30% at least were zinc. The problem is that if you get the temperature hot enough it will spoil your alloy. How can you get it hot enough? By doing a stupid trick like I did, I didn't want to skim 50 lbs of crud off the top of my melt so I put it on a plate of 3/16 steel and played the acetylene torch over it.

As time goes on more and more of the wheel weights will be zinc, just as more and more of the handguns will be made of it.

[Mr Lucky]

mrappe, robhof & HisSoldier,

Thanks for the interesting information. I have never cast bullets. Seems like it would be great fun to try sometime.

[Hardcase]

I'm lucky as all get-out sometimes. The brother of one of my good buddies manages a tire store, so we get all the wheel weights that we can stagger out of the garage with for the cost of some pizza or donuts. Then we split 'em between us. I've got four five gallon buckets in the garage waiting to be cleaned up and smelted.

We've run across very few zinc or steel weights. They're in the buckets, but not many, maybe not even 10%. That just may be because here in Idaho the tree huggers are outnumbered by regular folks by a fairly monstrous margin.

[Slamfire]

I have gone down to the local scrap yard. People bring in lead and lead things and I filled 5 gallon buckets of lead objects.

As an example, these rings were pure lead, must have sealed pipe joints.



Melted the pure lead with 50/50 ingots, and wheel weights.



And made new ingots close in hardness to Lyman #2 alloy.

[silvercorvette]

Thanks for the interesting information. I have never cast bullets. Seems like it would be great fun to try sometime.

A word of caution, don't be stupid like I was. I melted my lead on a gasoline Coleman stove on my kitchen table.

fortunately I guess I didn't suffer from any ill effects from breathing lead fumes. because I only did it for a short while 35 years ago before I got wise.

IF you melt lead do it in a well ventilated preferably outside on a day with a light breeze to blow away the fumes.

[Hawg]

fortunately I guess I didn't suffer from any ill effects from breathing lead fumes

You'd have to get it to boiling point for dangerous fumes.

[MrWesson]

I get my lead from auto repair/tire shops I dont shoot blackpowder/muzzleloader but just recently got a 5gallon bucket of stick on wheelweights for 20 and traded them for clip on WW.

[silvercorvette]

You'd have to get it to boiling point for dangerous fumes.

I was young and foolich back then and have no idea if the lead got close to the boiling point but I strongly doubt it did. But cooking up a batch of lead on a gasoline coleman stove without precise control of the heat and doing on the kitchen table with the windows closed was not one of myu smartest moments.

I am a retired cop and our department used an outside range, the officers that worked the range were test and found to have high levels of lead in their blood and they usually stood about 10 feet behind the firing line.

I have heard stories that I can confirm as true about people developing old times (Alzheimer's disease) from working around lead constantly. All I am saying is be careful when casting lead balls or bullets

[arcticap]

Originally Posted by silvercorvette

I am a retired cop and our department used an outside range, the officers that worked the range were test and found to have high levels of lead in their blood and they usually stood about 10 feet behind the firing line.

That happened here too and IIRC the problem was mostly caused by the primers which contained & emitted lead, and then they breathed in the smoke.