How do you guys get free lead?

[Fishslayer]

Get a cheap cast iron pan, a cheap propane burner, a cheap ladle, and some leather gloves.

One of these might not be a bad idea...

[Coffeeshop123]

Pair of pliers, a bucket and a grocery store.

Hmm...Nate, I think I just figured out why my tires are suddenly out of balance. LOL.

[CrustyFN]

A bucket full of ingots will be heavier than a bucket full of WW's. I dare anybody to try and pick up one of these full buckets.



I can take one of these buckets full of WW's and lift it off the ground and set it on the tail gate of my truck. I can barely lift the one full of ingots off the ground.

[Lavid2002]

Yeah my car was parked 100' away from where the bucket was inside the shop. I workout....I consider myself a pretty fit dude. Im like...Ill carry it to the car. Pick it up...walk 5 feet....set it down.... LOL!


Go get the sube and toss it in the trunk and im off!


Lesson learned...LEAD IS FRIGGIN HEAVY!

[NSP64]

I hit the mom and pop tire shops in town every couple of months. I tell them I make lead sinkers for fishing. Our town is only 8 miles from the lake.

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

Yeah when i weighed the 5 gallon bucket i was holding on to it while standing on the scale. I was unaware that this would not give an accurate measurement. It sure felt like 130 pounds...

Doesn't really matter, as long as the bucket is full....right?

[Locoweed]

I used muffin tins for ingot molds one time and the lead soldered itself to the tin and I had to cut the muffin pan apart with snips and hammer the ingots out. After that I went to cast iron molds which are made by Lee and RCBS among others. For the molds that don't have handles I use a pair of Vise Grip pliers. Whatever you do, don't use an aluminum pan to melt your lead in. I use a long handle basting spoon to clean off the clips and dross and a ladle to transfer it into the molds. A Coleman gasoline stove works great for melting but don't get the pan of lead too heavy on the grating or it will sag under the weight and heat.

[11B-101ABN]

Call A scrap yard on the day you go looking for places. Ask what they are paying for lead wheel weights. Remember what they say....if you don't offer more than the tire shop can get for scrap, you're not gonna get squat. The small tire places usually have a christmas fund or something they put the wheel weight money into. Offer more than the scrap yard pays and point out that they don't have to load and transport them. Oh yeah, don't even bother asking the scrap yard how much they sell them for....if they pay a nickel per pound, they CHARGE five to ten times that and will sell you ALL you want (unless you tell them you are gonna make fishing sinkers...they won't sell them if you say that). Dont bother with a small iron skillet.....get a cast iron kettle that will hold 40 to 100 pounds at a time or you will be all week getting anything to work with. Get one of those Turkey Fryers at K-Mart, or Wally world...the kind that runs on a 20 or 30 pound propane bottle...the kind most travel trailers have on their front hitch. Fill it about 3/4 full with your weights..fire it up and come back in 20 minutes. Use something Aluminum for an ingot, the lead will stick to tin muffin pans. When your lead is molten, get a big kitchen spoon with holes in it and skim off the steel clips and dirt, cigarette butts, valve stems and labels that don't burn. Do not skim off the lumpy looking metal that also floats as that is the antimony and other alloying metal that makes the lead hard. Get a can of MARVELUX and put a half teaspoon of the stuff in and stir it gently till it mixes in then ladel it into your ingot making device. Free lead went away along with .99 cent gasoline. The tire shops usually don't put more than 100 pounds in a bucket,cuz they have to move them and the handles wont take much more than that. There are several guys that I shoot with have LEE or OHOUS or RCBS ingot molds I usually borrow all of them and pour 10 or 12 at a time....that gives the lead time to harden and shrink enough to fall out of the mold pretty easy. This is all done OUTside in good weather. Once you have your ingots, you can put them in a electric melting pot and pour your bullets in the garage with a small fan to blow the small amount of fumes away from your face. When you refill the pot, make sure anything you put in your molten metal is DRY...Any moisture will turn to steam so fast the molten metal will fly out of the pot like an explosion. Used to be you could save lots of dough reloading, now it's tougher and usually labor-intensive.

[cobra81]

Free lead went away along with .99 cent gasoline.

I haven't paid .99 for gas for many moons, but I certainly still get free lead. I work at a medium-sized car dealership, and get all the wheelweights I want, about one five-gallon bucket every month. In fact, the techs usually come and ask me if I'm ready for another bucket when it starts to overflow; by that time it's so dang heavy I can barely lift it, and the handle seems close to popping out of its slots.
The service manager also has a buddy who comes in and grabs a bucket now and then, and I am pretty sure he greases his palm with a little payola. Everybody's happy.

To the original poster, here's another suggestion I haven't seen posted yet: Do you have any printing shops around? Back in the day, most towns had a local newspaper, printed by a small shop in town. In my little village of 5000, the paper has long since been farmed out to a large commercial printer, but the guy who ran the print shop still operates the shop, doing small jobs for local businesses.

He long ago dismantled the old press, because now everything is set up on computers and printed with laser copiers, etc, but on a hunch, I went in there one day and struck up a conversation with him. After exchanging pleasantries, reminiscing, and chatting for awhile, I steered the conversation toward the old press, then asked him whatever happened to the old linotype. He got the strangest look on his face, and asked me why I wanted to know? I just played it straight, and told him I needed it to cast bullets.

Turned out he was a gun nut in his younger days, and we ended up talking for hours about guns. Then he told me he had melted all the linotype down into ingots, and it was just sitting in his garage. Told me to come back next week, and when I did, he had a couple milk crates full of ingots for me; wouldn't take any money for it. I've gone back several times since then, and he keeps loading me up; I've done some gratis car repair work for him in return.

I know I was extremely lucky, but I'm convinced similar opportunities exist, you just have to get out there and explore!

[sc928porsche]

Ive never tried to weigh a 5 gal bucket of wheel weights, but I have moved some around. If it is full, when you pick up on the handle, it collapses inward. I decided early on that it was a lot easier to handle 1/2 a bucket full.

If you want to really strain youself, try moving a 15 gal grease container full. It was a good lesson, pulled out the 15gal away from the ballancers and put in 5 gal buckets.

Chevy small block valve cover weighs a lot too. I poured one so I could add balast to the front of a vw dune buggy.

[Mike Irwin]

Stand downrange with a catcher's mitt.

[zippy13]

Originally Posted by cobra81

I know I was extremely lucky, but I'm convinced similar opportunities exist, you just have to get out there and explore!

You were very lucky, indeed!
You'd better check with the old widow woman down the street. Her husband parked a brand new 1953 Corvette in the garage just before he passed. It has only 12 miles on the odo, is up on blocks, under a cover, and just waiting for a guy with your luck to find it.

[Lavid2002]

Cmon zippy you and I both know hard spots on tires is a thing of the past and storing a car on blocks is bad for the suspension... He can find a car that has been treated better : D

[cobra81]

Her husband parked a brand new 1953 Corvette in the garage just before he passed. It has only 12 miles on the odo, is up on blocks, under a cover, and just waiting for a guy with your luck to find it.

Funny you mention it; had a guy trying to trade in a cherry '41 Hudson just this week. It'll take more than luck to get it, though.

[donotsendmeemail]

I am a master s.c.u.b.a. diver. My friends and I fish about 250 pounds of lead fishing weights out of the ocean every season, without trying. Some we sell to pay for our air ($5 a tank) and some we scrap (.38 cents a pound). Take up diving. Its fun, and you can still spear fish.

[Locoweed]

After casting I take a steel letter punch set and mark my ingots. WW= wheel weights, SL= soft lead for muzzleloading, LT= linotype, etc. Helps keep things organized and if I return to them after a few years hiatus I can still figure out what I've got.

[Lavid2002]

Why is soft lead desirable for muzzle loading?

[jaguarxk120]

The round balls will flaten on inpact. And the soft lead is needed for minie bullets when the skirt expands into the rifling. Also at black powder velocitys you need a soft bullet that expands in the game animal.

[Catfishman]

You also have to realize ... you can't weigh 5 gallon buckets on a regular house scale. House scales work on an algorithm and if the weight isn't evenly distributed in the bucket it will not weigh right. It could be as much as 80# off. Even if you DO have it evenly placed in the bucket it might not weigh right! House scales work on a beam type sensor inside the unit itself. It counts on you having two feet on the scale, and not one big foot! See my point? You have to use a pallet or postal scale to weigh 5 gallon buckets.

I think Riverwalker76 is having fun with everyone. Or, he is unwilling to admit that he is clearly wrong.

I weigh 180 pounds on my bathroom scale whether I stand on two feet, one foot or one tiptoe. I bet Riverwalker is laughing his butt off everytime he reads about one of us on a scale with a heavy bucket of lead.

[Lavid2002]

Yeah... I expect someone with a name like catfishman to compose a valid argument

[Catfishman]

Ok...Lavid2002

[Lavid2002]

: ) lmao

[darkgael]

Lavid: About alloys. I use WWs alloy without alteration for most of my casting. The vast majority of those bullets are 200 grain LSWCs for my 1911. They work just fine.
A very serviceable general purpose alloy is Lyman #2 alloy. It is yet harder than WWs (WWs unless hardened are at about 9-10 BHN. Lyman #2 is at 15 BHN)
#2 Alloy has less lead than WW alloy and higher percentages of tin (improves castability) and antimony (hardness).
You take 9 pounds of cleaned WW alloy and add one pound of 50/50 bar solder to make ten lbs. of #2 alloy. I use that for higher velocities and gas checked bullets.
Pete

[polska]

Try asking a plummer. I had some worked done and mentioned I cast bullets and was having a hard time finding lead. He said he was always ripping it out of old house and it would clutter up his truck.I told I would take any he had. He now just drops it in my driveway when he drives by,giving more lead than I could ever use.

[m&p45acp10+1]

I am fortunate enough to have a former roomie that works at a local tire shop. I get a good deal on a bucket of wheel weights. Also most of the guys that work there have been shooting with me. When I told them about how to spot obvious zinc, and not throwing the stems, and junk in the buket they stopped doing so. They like to come out to the range, and shoot my product. Now most of the buckets yeild way more ingots. They have a seperate bucket for the crap to go in. Some time this summer the range I am a member of will be mining the berms. I was told I could help out for all of the lead I wanted. So I may have a pretty good supply of it before I know it.