Hey everyone, I started casting not too long ago and I just used the last of my block of lead that I got. I went around to most of the stores around Arlington Hts. IL, like home depot and Manards and none of these hardware stores carry pure lead in big enough size to mold and what they got is for small scale soddering. Where does everyone get their lead from? There has to be a place that I missed, if anyone lives in the Chicagoland area or knows what kind of places carry lead that would be a big help if you could tell me.

Thanks,
Mike

Wheel weights are a common source you can find at tire shops and garages that work on cars. Roofers some times take lead flashing off of old roofs that is soft pure lead and the phone company has lead sheilding material that you maybe able to pick up. Check with any metal recycling places or scrapyards for lead. THe wheel weights are good for pistol and rifle bullets but not good for muzzle loaders unless used with a sabot. the other lead sources as long as it us pure lead is good for muzzleloaders. Another source of pure lead is the lead used for sheilding at hospitals for xray machines ect.

I may have forgotten to add in that i use a mold for a 375 gr. (i think) muzzleloader but mainly a 525 gr. Sabot Slug mold for a 12ga. shotgun, just adding it in incase it changes something.

Dentists use lead foil on their x-rays. Many will save it for you. The quantity is small, but if you hit them all, you can have a decent supply of nearly pure lead for the muzzleloader.

If you are loading for the muzzle loader then you need to use the pure lead sources mentioned. I am not sure on the shotgun slugs if the wheel weights would work or not so they might need soft lead also. Any wheel weights you can get save though as you may be able to trade them to a other caster in your area who may have a source of pure lead who wants wheel weights instead as then he will not have to alloy his mix. Jim

Hey so let me get a few things straight from what I hear. The wheel weights that everyone recommends aren't 100% pure lead or they, and you said that you should only use pure lead for casting bullets for muzzleloaders but what about Shotgun slugs? Do you have to make an alloy and if so does anyone know it and the ratio of metals that are needed. Is there something wrong with using pure lead for slugs, because thats what I have been using. I haven't tried it out yet but the 40 or so slugs that I made of pure lead, last week I have already loaded and I'm going to go try them out this weekend.

God has saved me people. I asked my dad and he scrapped some lead from a construction site he was at today, something like 100 lbs. give or take a few. So ya thanks everyone for all the imput, if I run out, then I will look into the wheel weights and everything.

Thanks,
Mike

Hah! 100 pounds is only 1,333 shots when you're throwing those big chunks of lead you're casting.:) Better to nail those sources down now than when you're out again.

Ya he got it from a plumber out there and he got it, probably could get more, he works at a plumbing supply warehouse.

You guys better cherish what wheel weights you can find. I told my story about having to pay .50/lb for mine. I was in the big city today at Discount Tire and the manager of two stores said they now get new weights pound for pound by turning in the old.

You guys better cherish what wheel weights you can find. I told my story about having to pay .50/lb for mine. I was in the big city today at Discount Tire and the manager of two stores said they now get new weights pound for pound by turning in the old.


Hey RD I think the problem is the stinking EPA they are getting involved in all aspects of anything that is even possably dangerous.
But some of the smaller shops will still give you what they have or if you get to know one of the guys in the back just give him a 12 pack once in a while for all the WW's you can haul off. I need to get back out and do this some more I need more WW's and more type metal if I am going to go commercial again. Wes

Hey RD I think the problem is the stinking EPA they are getting involved in all aspects of anything that is even possably dangerous. But some of the smaller shops will still give you what they have or if you get to know one of the guys in the back just give him a 12 pack once in a while for all the WW's you can haul off. I need to get back out and do this some more I need more WW's and more type metal if I am going to go commercial again. Wes

I'm sure this is what has brought the change on. Basically, if the shops depend on recycling directly back to their supplier they are somehow absolved of their obligations to any danger/damages. Not much has changed for the grunt that is out there mounting and balancing the tire though.

I think in the small towns, like the one I live in, it comes down to the economics of the situation. Small business have been having a tough go of it and are scrapping for every dime they can find.

I'm being mentored in this cast bullet stuff by a group of older fellows and they where suprised by my plight of finding wheel weights... they also want to trade for linotype. They hadn't checked their supply sources in a year or so and have now found the same problem. I think the best sources for ww might be shops/garages that have shut down. Might do a bit of a clean up for the material or at least that is my next move.

I hate this casting! I can't go for a jog or walk without coming back with every pocket full of WWs that I've found on the side of the road. I've become that fellow searching the road bed for trash! :(

Few years back, they impimented (at least in this areas) new rules on the storage tanks at gas stations...several in this area hadn't done the modifications and shut down. In a couple of cases, I relieved them of their wheel weights. Every chace you get, at each station (and the run-down ones are a better bet) ask...will get a lot of "nos" but it only takes one "yes".

If you live in a large enough area there are metal recyclers...they know the value of metals to the penny and update it daily (in some cases several times a day) so you won't be getting any bargains there, but you won't be paying shipping.

Mining the backstops of unofficail ranges...esp. afer a few days of rain on a dirt bank...has yielded 40-60 pounds. DO BAKE IT DRY!!! Expanded jacketed bullets tend to trap moisture in the space between jacket and core.

Garage sales have been pretty much a bust for finding lead..hav efound other neat items, but normally not lead. Guess I keep trying them becasue ONCE, about 15 years ago, I scored two buckets of lino. (cast in letters) for $10...bucketd included.

Back when tire stores would give it to you, that is where I got about half. I bought the other half from hardware stores or plumbing supply. Not exactly the cheapest source, but reliable nonetheless. Since I started shooting Beartooth bullets, I have retired the melting pot, and frankly, good riddance.

Have asthma now, so can't stand to breathe the fumes like before.

Back in the early '60's, I was a young engineer retiring an old wrought iron gas pipeline that ran cross-country and installing a new steel one. The wrought iron line had threaded jointers every 20' which had been sealed with poured lead and tarred jute packing. As we lifted the old pipe from the ground the jointer would snap and the lead rings would fall clear. At the end of the workday, I'd drive down the right-of-way and load up the stashed lead rings in my company station wagon and haul them in to my gunsmith buddy. We'd take a weekend every month to melt them down and cast .38 Spl 148 gr wadcutters.

Have no idea of how many thousands of slugs we cast and loaded.

Wheel weights have a bunch of different alloys in them and you will see that when you melt them down. All the rainbow colors are the different alloys in the lead.

Wheel weights are good for plinking out of your pistols and with smokeless powder. But if you shoot M/L or black powder cartridges, you want pure lead. Much more accurate.

The cartridges should have a mix if tin in them at about 20 or 30:1. M/L round balls and conicals or mini and maxi balls should be pure lead. Sabots it does not matter because of the sabot. Same with your slug in the shotgun, it is in a sabot jacket right? the Lead does not matter.

I got lucky and found someone at a gun show that needed to get rid of about 700# of pure lead. A Buddy of mine and I bought it cheap. I mean real cheap, like $150!:eek:

But you can get lead from a metal supplier or a salvage yard.

Those pipelines that one of you were talking about, dang that must have been a crap load of lead, too bad I can't find anything around Chicago like that, I'm gonna have to find some recycle places or scrapeyards. But ya I guess I'm gonna have to start picking up wheel wieghts every time I see one. Thanks for the info.

mike,
My source of WW dried up and I started using chilled shot from my local gunstore ($12.00 @ 25pounds) It works fairly well.
When air cooled it has a BHN approx 10-14 and when quenched is's about 19-21 .
9 pounds shot with 1 pound 50/50 bar solder. Also Midway usa offers several alloys of lead including certified pure 99.97 %.
http://www.midwayusa.com/ebrowse.exe/browse?TabID=5&CategoryID=8662&CategoryString=685+***

Depending on how close you live to Missouri shipping may be high. also there are ads in the Black Powder Cartridge periodicals for alloys. and the empty shot bags make fine sand bags for the range.

Depends on the Arsenic content of the chilled shot. Using "reclaimed" shot (they at least use to skim the top layer of skeet/trap fields for reclaimation) get some surface dents/pocks with too high an Arsenic content...if it happens, keep cutting the alloy with other lead scrap / wheel weights until it stops.

With the cheap shot, it proably won't have enough Arsenic to bother bullet quality...has a little as that is what helps form round shot.

I work for a small telephone company. When we went to buried cable we wrecked out all of our aerial cable. We had what were called load coils that were housed in pure lead casing. Each one of those casings wieghs from 25-35 lbs. each, I have about 10 of them left. I don't cast bullets but I've made many fishing jigs/wieghts with the stuff.
The scrappers usually get the lead with the copper cable but I was lucky enough to know what it was and lay claim to it first.

Before PVC was accepted for waste lines inside houses,and building codes were revised to permit it,plumbers used cast iron pipe with leaded joints. Some still use it.
Many small town hardware stores and plumbing supply houses still sell pure lead in 5 - 10 lb. chunks.
You may find some older plumbers who have now switched to PVC but still have a supply of lead that they want to get rid of.

Hey everyone now that I think about it, don't car batteries have a big chunk of lead in it, if you got old batteries cleaned them out and drained the acid and washed the lead inside couldn't you use that. I mean a batter is like 25 pounds or better, its lot of lead.

Don't - there is a bunch of other toxic stuff in car battery lead these days. Don't, don't, don't.....

Discussion of the subject well-covered in the Lyman Cast bullet handbook and other places.

Never thought about that, but make sure you neutralize the acid before you dump it. And be careful, that stuff will burn ya pretty easily and quickly.

I work with sulfuric acid and many other chemicals of that nature. If you are not careful you can get hurt. Also, it is illegal to just dump it and do not poor it on the ground.;)

Don't - there is a bunch of other toxic stuff in car battery lead these days. Don't, don't, don't.....

Discussion of the subject well-covered in the Lyman Cast bullet handbook and other places.

And the calcium contained in the plates of modern batteries makes any lead obtained unusable for casting anyway. Like the man says: Don't, don't, don't...

And the calcium contained in the plates of modern batteries makes any lead obtained unusable for casting anyway. Like the man says: Don't, don't, don't...

Even if scrubbed down, let sit in water, everything possible or is it something within the lead that makes it unusuable. Whats the problem with it, too soft? doesn't mold well. I don't have the casting book so I don't know this stuff. Its not that I don't believe you guys its just that I want to know the why about this topic.

I work with electric forklifts and the sponge lead in the plates, is unsuitable for casting. It has all the additives listed above but the worst is Cadmium. This a very toxic substance when heated, and it does not cast well. Don't even try to use the battery plates.

Even if scrubbed down, let sit in water, everything possible or is it something within the lead that makes it unusuable. Whats the problem with it, too soft? doesn't mold well. I don't have the casting book so I don't know this stuff. Its not that I don't believe you guys its just that I want to know the why about this topic.

Modern batteries (made since the mid '80s) have calcium alloyed into the lead. It will cause heavy drossing and you will not be able to get the mould to fill out.

Ok thats sounds good, I believed you guys when you said that the first time I was just wanting to find out the reason why, just to have the knowlegde about it. thanks.

Ok thats sounds good, I believed you guys when you said that the first time I was just wanting to find out the reason why, just to have the knowlegde about it. thanks.

Mike,

I own a tire store. I give my old wheel weights to people all
the time that come in looking for them. Have you tried any tire stores? How about the place you buy tires? I read somewhere(probably on this forum) that some tire store manager has to turn his old weights in pound for pound for his new weights. I've never heard of a deal like that. I spend a lot of $ every year buying wheel weights. Trust me if I could trade them in I would be doing it. Lead is considered a Haz Mat. Nobody wants the liability of handling it. I know you are in the Chicago area right? I would try some tire dealers in the more suburban or outlying less populated areas near your home. A mom and pop tire store would probably be easier to deal with. One 5 gal. bucket of junk wheel weights is usually 120-130 lbs. of lead. Good Luck.
If your ever in Southern Vermont stop by. I'll give you all the lead you want.

When I get the time I'm going to try to stop and check out some shops, I also heard about the thing that they trade in the weights but if this isn't true then i will try to look around for some.

I scrounge for scrap also, but lead around here is already scrounged heavily by anglers to make fishing jigs and downrigger balls.

When I want pure lead or pure tin, I just buy the stuff. I've read that plumbing suppliers carry it, and there are suppliers of large quantities. And as a previous poster said, Midway carries it. My last purchase was from www.buffaloarms.com . Its expensive from these sources. My last shipment of 300 pounds pure lead cost me $300 plus $100 shipping (from Idaho to Minnesota). By the way, My house was snowed in the day of delivery and the UPS truck could not get up my driveway, so he had to carry six boxes (50 pounds each) about 100 yards to my house. I've talked to him since and he never complained about it. WHO SAYS those UPS guys don't earn their keep! GO BROWN!!

I bought a couple of cheap moulds for fishing weights. Take a box with you and most workers at tire shops will trade you any wheel weights they have for them. It also works well with bullets for muzzleloaders around deer season.

When I get the time I'm going to try to stop and check out some shops, I also heard about the thing that they trade in the weights but if this isn't true then i will try to look around for some.

Mike,

I checked with some of my vendors this week. It seems that there is a program out there for Tire dealers to trade in old wheels weights. I understand that the program is not very popular ( at least not where I am). I would keep trying different tire dealers.

Mike,
I have some lead. I might be able to get some if ya like, but you have to pay the shipping. Send me an e-mail if you are interested. I have a few hundred pounds.;)

Though it is usually a mixed bag, take a friend a sieve and a wheelbarrow and shovel to your local range, if it's like mine you can bring a tag sale cast fry pan and start a fire to smelt it down, but please do take a good container for proper disposal of the offal. Just a note if you can go to a local scrap yard and get a 50s to 60s non PVC rocker cover for a small block chevy. Level full to the gasket ring is 55lbs for pure lead. It's a pain to float the sand but sometimes a little exercise and a friendly fire will bring help from some new curious friends. Have fun.

Pure lead is getting tougher and tougher to come by cheap. The old demo companies and roofers can provide some, but most just take the scrap AL, PB, and CU to the scrap yard. I have been lucky and have a scap yard that sells pure lead for $.15/lb. Usually a few hundred pounds at a time. Most of my casting is for the .45 and .50 cal BPCR's so I burn about 12 pounds per hundred bullets. I usually cast 1:20 and sometimes 1:30. The tin I get by buying 50/50 solder. $3.75/lb.

Just to keep the supply line open at full retail. Dive shops sell lead weights by the pound, whoppuing $1.7? around here. fish weights sell for 1.47 pound at Wal mart. And yes i scrounge all the lead i can. Here Tin is actually cheaper, abuck a pound is usually what i pay average.

Here Tin is actually cheaper, abuck a pound is usually what i pay average.

What is the source for tin?

Dave

Midway sells it and so does The Antimony man.

Yea, but not for what Doc is paying for it.

Midway sells tin for more than $8.00 a pound.

I just bought 20 pounds from the Antimony Man at $5.75 a pound.

Dave

I'v been useing old car battries, the terminals and bars inside. Its a bit hard but works well. No good for the cap & ball.

Mike -
Pure lead is 5 BHN (Brinell Hardness Number), wheel wts, ~9 BHN, linotype 21 BHN.
If, like me, you can't/won't afford a hardness tester, a method that's basically as accurate as your measuring ability is:
Using a PURE lead sample and an unknown sample (cast one of each in a convenient mould), squeeze the two in a vise w/a small ball bearing (1/4" is handy - decent size indent) in between flat surfaces (say, the meplat of a FN) - clamp presure isn't critical since you'll use the INVERSE RATIO of the diameter of the resulting indentations to determine the hardness of your unknown alloy.
E.G., if the indent in your X sample is 1/2 the diam. of that in pure lead, it's TWICE as hard, 1/3 size is 3 times as hard, etc.
Measure as accurately as possible - magnifying glass & vernier calipers work for me, w/a calculator to handle those pesky decimal fractions.
Hardest part is getting all three components into the vise! :-)

EDITORIAL :
Use of only PURE lead for MLs and slugs is conventional wisdom -
In a pistol, OK; in a choked shotgun bbl., OK -
BUT CONSIDER........
if a roundball is land diameter or less, properly patched, the patching fills the rifling & no metal touches the bbl. anyway.
Also, a shotcupped slug in a rifled shotgun bore can CERTAINLY be at least as hard as any SHOT one might use, right?
Softer IS better for expansion on target, but cast bullets up to 16ish BHN expand just fine in modern rifles & pistols, so why pure lead only?

Terry
"Labor Fellat"

aussiecolector, you have been using car battery lead? I asked about that before and people said it wasnt good for casting, how does it work for you, do they mold well, do they flight well, whats up with that because that would be a good supply of lead.

Just because he is using them doesn't mean he should.

Car batteries are known to contain elements in the alloy which make it too hazardous to be safe, considering there are better options available.

He might shrug it off, and figure no harm done. But if he continues to get his lead this way, he might have something else to say in 15 years or so. (when he is dying of cancer)

The lead terminals should be great for a source of soft lead.
It is the lead plates inside the battery which are more hazardous.

I've got to say "more" hazardous because some people tend to forget that lead itself is a heavy metal which causes tons of health and environmental problems.

Dave

Just because he is using them doesn't mean he should.

Car batteries are known to contain elements in the alloy which make it too hazardous to be safe, considering there are better options available.
.

Dave


Ya ya I know all that I wasn't really asking about using it I was asking how his molds turn out. Are the termials big or are they like 2 slugs of lead, because if they are, and just for the record, how do the slugs turn out from the plates inside the battery? Anyone ever try that?

The places around here will let you have them for a little less than they are getting for scrap. I don't know if they have to pay haz mat charges to ship it across town or what. I don't mind paying scrap prices for them. Compare scrap lead prices to the price of bullets. I just got through workingup 450 pounds of 12 ounce ingots. at 8 cents a pound.

I consider the casting time as therapy.