Price of Lead Up?

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Chuck Perry

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I called a local bullet casting company today for a price on cast bullets for a S&W 500. They had one style available, a 330g truncated cone design. Great, how much for a box of 500? $100!!! Good god!!! He said that the price of lead is way up, thus the significant price. I'll say. He has 325g bullets for the 50AE listed on his website for $40/500. Guess he last updated the site back around 1988 or so... Interestingly, Berry has 350g plated bullets at $62.99/500 DELIVERED. So, has anyone else seen a drastic rise in the cost of cast bullets?
 
From what I've seen the Smith is .500. I've thought about casting, but I have neither the time nor inclination to hunt for lead scrap. I wonder if I could buy lead ingots cheap from a caster?
UPDATE: I fired an email off to Berry's to see if their costs were way up from what's on their website. They are charging a .09 cent surcharge per pound, so it would be about $2.43 extra on top of the $62.99. Think I'm sold.
 
i called a local scrap yard the other day and they no longer even buy lead.......you'd think if it were high, they'd be buying some....Dick
 
Lead Prices

I have heard that the EPA has classed Lead as a hazardous substance and precautions have to be taken in handling and storing it. I used to have to pay scrap yards tire dealers or swap some beer for a 5 gallon brake fluid can full.

Nowadays they are giving it away because they have to pay a scrap yard to take them. My local Sams club would not give me any as they had a contract with someone who got them all but I insisted on the ones they took off my wheels when installing new tires and got a handful. If you do any walking or bicycling I pick up pennies and when I see a tire weight to pick up I picture in my mind about how many bullets it will make. It seems like intersections and gas stations have the most weights. I have heard of men asking a junk yard to let them pull weights off wheels of the cars.

The smaller shops will probably give you some if you ask for them for ocean or river weights justifying larger size weights. Be prepared to say what kind of fishing you do.

Why?. Because it is not any employees business (that has your address in their records) that you own any guns.

I have my own lifetime supply already

I have some helpful posts on finding lead sources.
Sorting kinds of lead at scrap yards.
14 Bullet lube formulas I collected from asking top
competitors among my customers.
Saeco /Brinell hardness relationships.
Operating a Saeco Lead Hardness Tester.

Paul Jones Retired
Saeco Bulletcasting Tool Distributor
 
I saw something about 6 months ago about the price of lead going up. Seems like it had something to do with part of a major foundry in Canada catching fire. Sounds like a bunch of bung to me. Makes me glad I cast. I'm with ya, John Paul. I got plenty as well but keep on putting it back. I am sure the price increase is trickling down to the retail level now. On top of one small increase at the bottom of the ladder, everyone has to put their markup on the product before it is sold. My cost has remained the same- zilch!!!

Lvl1trauma
 
Take off the tin foil hats guys, the lead price increase is for real.

I work in the battery industry (not AA or AAA but 800 lbs. flooded jars) and we have seen three prices increases in the last year with another scheduled for October. Our suppliers claim its a combination of the war effort and the industrial ramp up in China, don't know if either is valid, but the fact is raw lead costs 130% of what it did last year at this time. Of course if you are a bullet casting company a l10% lead price increase can make a sly excuse for a 20% price increase.
 
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