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Old October 12, 2011, 05:30 PM   #1
Gitsum
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2 day WW collection

Over the last two days I hit up about 25 tire shops looking for WW. Most of them tell me that all of their weights get picked up from some company. About 6 shops however let me have them for a total cost of $10 (2 guys charged me $5). After seperating, I ended up with an over full 5 gal bucket and about 20-25lbs of stick ons. Is it normal to have to go to so many shops to get them? I was also surprised during seperating them how many "appeared" to be zinc or steel. Im guessing maybe 30% and about 25% stick ons so if Im lucky Ill end up with 50%lead WW plus clips. Is this about normal or are the zinc/steel WW taking over the world?... lol
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Old October 12, 2011, 09:35 PM   #2
GP100man
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Take care of em !!!!

The zinc/steel ratio is `bout rite & the ratio of shops that`ll actually let em go !!!

GO BACK & CARRY EM SOME PIZZA & SODA FOR LUNCH !!!!!

That way they`ll keep em gathered up & have em waitin on ya next time .

Take care of your sources as they`re becoming harder to find !!!
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Old October 12, 2011, 10:34 PM   #3
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Yep, and it is only going to get harder to find lead WWs. Since CA started banning them, the rest of the world thinks they need to as well. The percentage of Fe and Zn will continue to go up until it will be an extremely rare thing to find any lead ones.

On a positive note about your haul, the lead stick-on weights are generally considered very close to pure lead. Mix them 50/50 with the clip-ons and you will have a good alloy for most handgun applications. If you are shooting hollow points, go maybe up to as high as 75% stick-ons to 25% clip-ons.

As GP100man said, treat your sources right and they will treat you right as long as they are able to.
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Old October 15, 2011, 09:24 PM   #4
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Here in El Paso there is a surplus of below minimum wage labor, which raises the amount of auto shops which clean and re-use WW's. I found a couple places that sold them but was always in competition with some other reloaders buying them out as well.

This last time I was beat out at both places and decided to try a tire shop I'd skipped previously because it was a national chain. They were sitting on three 5 gallon buckets of WW which I gladly took off their hands. They had no idea why I needed that much lead and much to their surprise I told them why. No one had ever stopped there before to buy up their stock and they were happy not to have to send a worker down to the scrapper to off load them.

The moral is don't assume what the answer will be, go and ask.

ZN aren't too common here and I quit looking for FE weights. I just strain them out when they float to the top.
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Old October 16, 2011, 06:14 PM   #5
Gerry
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I just cooked up two 5 gallon buckets today and I had one of the best yields ever. Out of about 200 pounds of WW, I only collected about 15 pounds of lead stick-ons, and just a couple Zn. (I collect and save both for selling.) There weren't many Fe either, perhaps 10 pounds total, but they were removed with the steel clips. I'd say I pretty much aced an 75 to 80% total yield which is really weird. During my melt before in early summer I had tons and tons of steel and had maybe a 65% yield.

I have no explanation why there's so little consistency in my melts, especially considering I'm mostly using the same tire shops to collect my WWs from. Wield stuff. I just hope that Canada doesn't ban them like some US states have. I'm stocking up for my life time supply just in case though.
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Old October 17, 2011, 04:15 PM   #6
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I gave up looking at tire shops in So. CA 6 years ago. I tried small shops all the way up to big chains and box stores. None to be found. I don't remember the exact date the state banned lead wheel weights but they were unavailable to the "public" long before that date, seems they "had" to go through a "certified" lead/hazmat recycler, or so I was told again and again. One item on the list of why I fled L.A...
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Old October 30, 2011, 12:19 AM   #7
sw282
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Up til last month l had not cast any since 1984. l still had my little Lee bottom pour pot and Rcbs sizer. A purchase of a 2 cavity 357 mold off the net
got me started
After deciding to start back my main problem became LEAD. l got around 15 lb
from one guy and had a few left over from years ago. l cast about 1200 and was OUT. Fortunately l hit one guy for 10 lb and another 30. l ask but most say no. l only found 2 places that gave me any. l am going out next week and
start beating the bushes. l see an urgency now..

My renewed interest started with a Model 27-2 8 3/8 l purchased a few years ago. My goal is to kill a deer with bullets made by me. Practice at the range
has consumed app 500rds in 4 trips. Thats quite a bit of shooting for me. l just hope l get good enough with my shooting before deer season ends New Years
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