Free lead for bullet casting and overall savings

[TruthTellers]

I've been doing some research and thinking I'd like to cast bullets, but if I'm not able to source lead for free or very low cost, I don't see the point of getting into casting unless it's for black powder muzzleloading or bp cartridge shooting. I could see some savings for smaller bullets, like .32 caliber, but for .45... I'm not coming up with much savings if I have to buy lead.

So if you're able to get your hands on lead for free? How do you do it?

 

[ReloaderFred]

The days of readily available free lead (tire weights) are pretty much gone. Tire weights are now made of zinc or steel. Other sources are equally drying up, such as lead pipes, cable sheaths and roof flashing. Once in awhile you can get some from a demolition project, but not often.

I've been buying reclaimed lead shot by the ton for casting into bullets, but you still have to smelt it into ingots and alloy it prior to casting. A ton of bulk reclaimed shot costs me $1,600.00, and I have to go get it, which is about 200 miles round trip.

If you're only going to be casting on a small scale, some scrap yards will sell you lead in smaller amounts. People bring in old fishing weights and all kinds of lead, but you'll have to try to figure out what the alloy is that you're getting when you buy it that way.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[41 Mag]

In the area I live there is or was, when I started out a few years back, little chance in finding sources of fee lead due to the number of folks who already had "dib's" on every tire shop I came across. When I checked out the local scrap yards most of what I found was not, what I personally would consider at the time, usable for pouring bullets. I did however manage to scrape up enough to get the ball rolling by putting out feelers among my fishing friends who checked around here and there and managed to come up with a bucket or less once in a while.

I found plenty for sale in different forums and that is where most of mine came from. There just always seemed to be someone looking to sell off a box or more of COWW, (clip on wheel weights), or SOWW, (stick on wheel weights). Sometimes you would find someone with LINO or similar type metal, which comes in handy if you have a big pile or supply of pure or almost pure dead soft lead. This gives you both antimony and some tin to sweeten things up for a bit harder or easier casting alloy.

With the oddball calibers like 10mm, 41mag, and 454, there is nothing to saving money over commercial bullets. Even with my 45 ACP, pouring up 185 and 200gr SWC's is still cheaper, in that I know exactly what I have and how it shoots. Running straight COWW alloy is a pretty good all around alloy, however if you can't find them you have to blend what you can into something similar which isn't hard. Of course that usually doesn't happen with the very first batch, but it only takes a little bit of blending to hit a good blend and your off and running. Usually the same alloy will work just fine for other similar calibers. If you DO have to blend weigh out your main components, just like handloading, and mix in small bathes first, then bump up to larger batches after you hit where you want to be. Saves base components since once they are blended, well they stay that way. You can make alloy softer using pure Pb and harder adding in Lino type or similar alloy with a high % of antimony, but your most precious component is tin. It probably cost the most per pound and helps as much or more than anything. Just remember a little bit of it goes a long way towards a big batch of alloy. I am only using around 9oz added to a 70# batch of alloy for one of my biggest uses, and even that is more than what most need, but this is a special blend for HP's so it has to be malleable or they simply fracture into pieces.

Anyway go over to the Castboolit site and do some reading there on things, also check out sources for alloy. IF you can get 65-68# worth of alloy delivered to your doorstep for $70-80 it isn't a bad deal when you consider driving around town trying to scrape up that amount for "free". I'm not saying you cannot do that or better in one haul, but the time and fuel it takes to get that one haul isn't worth it to me.

 

[jwrowland77]

Ask around. Ask your friends, if you go to church...ask folks in Sunday school.

I was able to find a friend in a small group bible study group I'm in, that manages a garage. He allows me to come by and get a 5 gallon bucket full when I need more lead.

I've had other friends bring me lead that are plumbers, and roofers.

Just got to do some leg work.

I powder coat all my lead and save the pure lead for my cap and ball revolver.

 

[silicosys4]

by my cost calculations, .45acp with 200gr. cast bullets
"free" lead = $127/1k rounds
cast with lead bought at my price for lead at $0.75/lb from a local recycler, $150/1k rounds
paying full price for pure at $2/lb, $190/1k rounds.

This includes purchase of new brass, reusing brass would save you about $80/1k after the first loading.

So even paying full price for the lead you cast with, You'd be spending $125-ish max for 1k rounds of .45 if you cast yourself, with reused brass.

Now if you do find free lead and already have brass ready to go, you are looking at $50/1k, give or take depending on powder charge.

Casting is well worth it for me.

 

[AV8TOR]

Linotype is another good source to search for. Back in the 80's I had a free source and it's nice and hard. I see ebay has plenty of sources. I did a quick search and for a 45 you would be in the $50 range for 1k.

 

[Don McDowell]

I think it's going to depend on just how much and what type of shooting you do.
For most handgun shooting buying the commercial cast bullets is a decent way to go especially if you put some value on your time, and can get the bullets in the right diameter for your gun.
For the bpcr shooting, if you shoot any amount of matches, you'll spend way more buying the precast bullets, than you will buying certified alloy and casting them yourself.

 

[25cschaefer]

I have found most of mine at ranges. Indoor ranges will let you come in after hours so long as you promise not to sue them for cancer, most of the time. If you do the indoor range thing, a respirator is a necessity, a painter's suit is better. If you are outside, you can usually just pluck them off the ground. If you start "mining" or digging/sifting outside, the same precautions as inside should be taken.

It is very expensive for ranges to have their lead cleaned up by professionals so most are more than happy to have some guy or gal come in and scoop their bills away.

 

[wbrco]

What jwrowland77 said. I've been doing business with the same garage for 30 years. I don't have any problems getting a 5 gallon bucket of lead a couple times a year.

Yes there are steel and zinc, but enough coww and a little soww to keep me shooting more than I have time for.

 

[jmorris]

I used to get free wheel weights and that is where most of my lead has come from a friend that owned a print shop gave me a bunch of lynotype years ago as well. So I don't deplete my "stash" my free lead comes off the top of berms after matches (after a good rain is a great time as well.



More useful recycling than separating your trash before they dump it all in the same land fill....

 

[hdbiker]

scrat lead

I always used old wheel weights until they begin using zink or steel for making them. Now I pick the berm at my gun club range during non shooting hours. I can pick a ice cream pail in about an hour and that will yield 22-24 pounds of smelted lead ingots.Range lead is pretty soft so I add the wheel weights I do have at a 50/50 mixture with about a foot of lead free solder for great mold fill out.My .45 acp bullets at around 800 fps and.357 bullets at arounfd 750 fps leave very little leading.I have just over 300 ingots stored in my shed ready for casting.
hdbiker

 

[Handloader109]

I've gone the way of buying ready to cast lead from others. I value my time but still find that there is fun in casting your own bullets. I just don't want the cost and hassle of cleaning up the wheel weights and other reclaimed lead. So I buy off of others. Not eBay, those sellers are higher priced and not as reliable. Yes, I had problems with one last year..... Nothing but good experience with everyone on the castbullets site. Go ahead it is fun! And you can save a little $ too

 

[snuffy]

I have found most of mine at ranges. Indoor ranges will let you come in after hours so long as you promise not to sue them for cancer, most of the time. If you do the indoor range thing, a respirator is a necessity, a painter's suit is better. If you are outside, you can usually just pluck them off the ground. If you start "mining" or digging/sifting outside, the same precautions as inside should be taken.

It is very expensive for ranges to have their lead cleaned up by professionals so most are more than happy to have some guy or gal come in and scoop their bills away.

THIS^^^^
I belong to a gun-club with an indoor range. The backstop hadn't been mined for a very long time. I got a friend who had a bunch of kids/gang he could enlist for free labor, so we mined the pit one night. (The pit is the sand trap at the bottom of the 45 degree steel plates the bullets hit behind the targets.)

It yielded a ton,(yeah 2,000#'s). It took about 7 20# propane tanks and a couple weeks to re-claim the lead. It varied in hardness, but I've been using it with ½% tin to cast most of the handgun calibers. It runs about 12-14 BHN.

Here's my haul when all was said and done;



Turkey fryer, 10 quart cast iron dutch oven;



Muffin molds, lee and lyman ingot molds, and one that a fabricator guy I know made, casts a 5# ingot.



The other half, kept by the buddy that helped;



This lead was hardly free. Cost of transportation, propane, and sweat. I don't put a dollar cost on my free time. I would not be paid otherwise so it's free.

The best part about casting is being able to control every aspect of what produces an accurate lead boolit load. The alloy, the size, you get to pick the nose shape, the amount and type of lube, and the hardness.

The equipment cost, molds, furnaces/melters, sizers all cost money. But one casting session that produces a couple hundred boolits will pay for most molds. There's a couple of beautiful creations from Slovenia made by Miha Previc that were in the $150.00 range.

Imagine a 500 S&W lead boolit round for 14 cents! I've seen them sell for over 2 bucks apiece. Home cast boolit, surplus powder and a primer that is about 4 cents. Or 45/70 rounds for about the same price!;

 

[BigBore45]

i get mine from hospital remodels, and x-ray/nuke med people.

if a hospital remodels the x-ray department almost all of the contractors will let you take it so they dont have to deal with it. and its is alot of lead. i have around 4 50 lb sheets left from the last time. they are 3/8" 4X8 strips of lead they line the walls with.

also some pills that they use for nuke med come in a container of lead covered in plastic. this is about 1/6 lb of lead and they use one pill per test on a person. my wife does x-ray and the nuke med. so its easy for me all except her boss makes his own fishing lures so i have to "share" the bottles 50/50

 

[mdi]

So far you've gotten a bunch of hints on where to find casting lead. If your only motivation for casting is money, I'd say don't bother. Cast lead bullets are available from many commercial casters and most produce good bullets at reasonable costs. I started casting out of curiosity (I had made sinkers for many years); "Hmmm. That looks like fun, I wonder if I could do that?". Many years later and several hundred dollars spent, but I ain't counting, on equipment (but I started with a Coleman stove, a Lee mold, a Lee dipper, and some wheel weights), I have no idea what my cast bullets cost, and I don't care. Casting is a hobby that supports my reloading/shooting hobbies and I try not to place a $$$ tag on my "happy time"...

 

[TruthTellers]

So far you've gotten a bunch of hints on where to find casting lead. If your only motivation for casting is money, I'd say don't bother. Cast lead bullets are available from many commercial casters and most produce good bullets at reasonable costs. I started casting out of curiosity (I had made sinkers for many years); "Hmmm. That looks like fun, I wonder if I could do that?". Many years later and several hundred dollars spent, but I ain't counting, on equipment (but I started with a Coleman stove, a Lee mold, a Lee dipper, and some wheel weights), I have no idea what my cast bullets cost, and I don't care. Casting is a hobby that supports my reloading/shooting hobbies and I try not to place a $$$ tag on my "happy time"...

Most of my motivation for casting bullets is money, but the other draw towards casting is for the next panic where the selves go bare, then I could buy lead ingots online if it got that bad.

Like I said, even if I buy the lead for over $2/lb, the real savings I see is with casting conical bullets for C&B guns, large musket balls, and smaller calibers that don't weigh as much.

 

[BigBore45]

most local scrap lead prices go for around a dollar a lb to you without shipping included. best to get local to save shipping.

so if you take 7000 grains per lb. 200 grain round nose bullet for .45 acp you get : 35 bullets per lb of lead. $14.29 per 500 bullets worth of lead or .028 cents per bullet

MBC: 45 OddBall
.452 Diameter
.45 ACP
200 Grain RN Flat-Base
Brinell 18
For General Shooting
Price per box of 500
Price: $46.00

that equates to .092 cents per bullet + shipping which ads roughly a penny per bullet

now if we are paying a dollar per lb of lead and around .002 cents for powder coat per bullet casting 500 bullets cost you are paying for lead+powdercoat is roughly ..03 cents per bullet. less time and electricity for heat. but even with electricity you are beating commercial by a good amount per boolit. due to the heaviness of lead you never can overcome shipping to any real advantage. i know im gonna catch $%# about that but really you can only ship 50 lbs flat rate. thats around 1500 bullets in the 200 grain 45 acp. wont make up the cost difference that much.

the trick to it is find local lead even if you have to buy it make sure you do not go over $1.25 per lb. also you can get cast lead to fit way better and lead way less than any commercial bullet on the market. There is no one size or BHN fits all in bullet casting.

And although savings is only a few pennies per bullet, you will make that up over time and it does depend on how much you shoot. but i run around 500-1000 rounds a month and im only 29 so in 30 years i could guess my saving is going to be more than a penny or 2.

i also get lead for free so im making bullets at .002 + electricity and time. but like i said in another thread i would most likely be using electricity or fuel in my free time anyways.

also even at 2 dollars a lb for lead it only costs $28.60 for 500 bullets. + the .002 for powder coating.

P.S. the powder coat cost can vary a lot, i buy the cheapest stuff i can find in bulk and do one coat only. i have very little to no leading so im fine with it even though they dont look the best. Also lee Alox is super cheap and works great for anything under 1200 FPS.

 

[jwrowland77]

I'd say a big benefit to casting my own boolits is....I get better accuracy with cast.

In my 9mm, the barrel slugs at .3555". I cast and size my boolits to .357, and get great accuracy.

My .380acp, is .3545, and I size those to .356 and again, get great accuracy with them.

Both get far better accuracy with cast over jacketed or plated.