Scrap Lead For Casting?

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?138362-Why-Car-Batteries-Are-Dangerous

Read the first post on that linky. the maintenance free batteries will kill you if you breath the fumes.

If there's a secret to getting lead in today's culture, it's by word of mouth. YOUR MOUTH to friends-relatives-your cop buddies, let them know you're looking for lead. IF they're listening, and they care about you, they will remember you when the run across lead, give you a call. I showed a buddy at work a couple of bullets I had just cast. He was very interested even though he had never fired a gun. Several months passed, he come stomping up to me with a chunk of lead in his hand. He had a ""statue"" that was made by layering lead over a wire form to create a figurine. He said he thought it was pewter and it weighed 75 pounds. Turned out to be nearly pure lead, I gave him .50/lb, he was ecstatic!

Another co-worker said hey they're junking a big multi spindle drill that has a massive counter weigh consisting of lead plates about 100 pounds each;



I ended up with 17 of these, 90 pounds apiece. Alloy is pure lead with just enough tin to make it melt at a lower temp and fill the mold better(hardness measured with my Lee tester is 7 BHN). Alloyed with linotype 17# of those weights to 3# of linotype makes it cast like standard wheel weights.

It wasn't stolen! Honest ossifer, I have this here materials pass issued by the maintenance chief. They were glad to get RID of it, otherwise hazardous waste disposal had to be done. That stack of over 40 of those weights were gone in 3 days!

 

What about the lead in the hulls of boats/sailboats, like center keels and ballast? Are those still viable sources?

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

 

That's what XRF analysis is for. People make way to much out of hardness. The commercial casters have duped people into believing they need hard bullets. Fact is you can get buy w/ a BHN of 11-12 for almost all applications. This is easy to achieve w/ wheel weights. If you need it harder water drop or heat treat. Remember that anything we use is hard compared to what the likes of Elmer Keith used.

Problem w/ keels/ballast is they use whatever was available at the time. You won't know until you have it analyzed.

 

Old sail boats. Many of them have huge hunks of lead as ballast either in the hulls or keel. plenty of free haul away opportunities on craigslist

 

Living on the coast, I thought sailboat ballasts would be easy to find, but what I found out is the boat yards reuse it, and usually won't turn loose of it, at least around here. When I talked to one of the boat repair facilities, they told me that have as much trouble finding lead as we do.

Another source that comes up once in awhile are counter balances from forklifts, but they're usually solid chunks of lead weighing in the neighborhood of 1,000 pounds or more, depending on the size of the forklift being scrapped out.

I got a good price on two tons of reclaimed shot last year at .80 cents a pound that worked out very well for casting bullets. It had been blown and cleaned, but not washed and graphited, which is why I got such a good deal on it. Out of the 4,000 pounds, I ended up with about 20 pounds of dross after smelting into 10 pound ingots, so it was very clean......

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

I was burning lots of time and gas and not finding much, so I did a little searching and found a company the does custom lead casting for the nuclear industry. They made me a ton of 96-2-2 ingots for $1.10 a pound. So chances are pretty good I have a lifetime supply in the barn.

 

Thank you for the assistance everyone. Until I gain some experience I plan to purchase lead alloy from rotometals. Later on I will experiment adjusting alloys myself. Thank you again for the help.

 

When using range lead be careful to really screen your lead closely.Live ammo,particularly .22 RF can find its way into your lead pile. I used to get lead from an indoor range and really had to be careful about looking for live ammo and anything else that may be hazardous before melting it.

Wheel weights are not the same anymore.Zinc weights "look" the same as lead but can really mess up your alloy .Steel clips and other steel scrap will float to the top during melting.Zinc weights 'tink" when dropped onto a hard surface unlike lead which has a 'thud" sound.

Try and sort out any plastic and other contaminates before putting into the pot.Wear a good respirator and have plenty of ventilation.

Range scrap bullets are generally pretty soft alloys and you end up adding tin/antimony.Wheel weights now days do not have the same amount of tin or antimony in them.

 

Range lead

My gun club doesn't allow shooting on Sundays and Holidays during the summer. So I go out and pick the pistol berm for lead on closed days.I can pick a 5 quart ice cream pail in less than an hour.That will yeald 22-24 pounds of smelted ingots for storage. When pouring bullets I flux and add a foot of lead free solder for good mold fill out. I keep the .45 acp to between 750-800 fps and the .38 to around 700-750 fps and get little or no leading after tumble lubing .I have just over 300 pounds of ingots stored in the shed. habiker

 

Buffalo Arms sells quality alloy's and often times their prices are better than Rotometals.
Range scrap etc. is alright when you can get it, but often you end up with bullets of unknown contents, and it's a lot of work to get the stuff cleaned up and fluxed so that there won't be a bunch of inclusions hidden in the bullet.

 

For buying alloy I would also recommend RMR. They sell 92/6/2 alloy for about 2 bucks a pound and you can use the THR member discount to save 5%. They only sell it in increments of 64lbs but it is a good general purpose alloy that comes to your house clean and everything.

 

I've got a Saeco tester. I was really in the dark until I bought it.

 

A few years back, I acquired about 300 lbs. of pure sheets that were scale dampeners in one of the labs. I also acquired a couple of hunks that were in fact boat ballasts.
I discovered Missouri Bullets though and no longer cast

 

I have found the best place to look for lead is the local scrap yards. Typically, they have a bin full of various types of lead. What I look for is lead of a known alloy. What I buy is either lead pipe or lead sheets, both of which are typically pure or nearly pure lead. Occasionally, I will find where someone tossed some solder in with the lead, and I grab that eagerly. I have never seen linotype there, so I buy that online so as to mix in with the pure to create an alloy with some hardness. For wheel weights, I have a friend who owns an auto repair shop where I can obtain them, but currently here in NY State, I am finding that only about 50 percent of them are lead, and it's only going to get worse, since the lead wheel weights were outlawed several years ago. Hope that helps.

Don

 

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All one has to do is keep their melt below about 780°
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Man, I never even considered that. Awesome advice.

 

Berm picking seems to be getting more popular.

This video mentions some of what's already been said here: boat ballasts, WWs, roofing lead, but it also shows some sort of lead containers used to transport radioactive materials for the medical industry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4KmaXfoIKE

Those lead aprons that you wear for some xray machines also have lead in them but those probably aren't thrown away very often.

 

This source has almost come a halt. It used to be that the containers would be used once and then recycled, after the proper cool down time. This is no longer the case and they are being reused. I don't know how many times. But I was buying all I could get of the large cores which are 96/3/1. They are available but on a much much smaller scale. It's a shame because it was clean alloy that was ready to cast. W/ the large containers there were two small brass nutserts in it and possibly a sticker stuck to it. Just had to melt it into useable size ingots and you were good to go.

 

I went by 3 tire places in South Carolina on Friday. First place wanted a couple of bucks for a small, but heavy bucket. Told them no thank you.
2nd place only kept them for a doctor and lawyer who made their own bullets and fishing weights.
3rd place I hit the jackpot, got a huge bucket that was so heavy I needed help carrying it to my trunk which was only 15 feet away. I asked the mechanic about them being lead or zinc or what not. He said nearly all of them were less! I checked when I got home and he is right! So keep looking and don't be afraid to ask!

 

Good idea!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for the tip!!!

 

Can you provide a source for this information?
I'm unaware of any law banning the manufacture or use of lead wheel weights on the Federal level. Tire shops around here still have plenty of bright, shiny and brand new looking lead wheel weights that they use every day.

To be fair, a lot of folks in this area didn't pay much attention to prohibition either...

 

A couple of years ago the EPA was pushing hard to eliminate the use of lead in wheel weights, and were trying to get them banned within 5 years. It appears Congress wouldn't go along with them on this ban, but several states have individually banned the use of lead in wheel weights.

Here's a link to the information: https://archive.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/wastemin/web/html/nlfwwi.html

It appears the EPA has backed off on Federal Legislation, so I misstated the facts.

Here's a link to the states that have banned lead wheel weights: http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/...e/OEMs/3M_Solutions/Wheel_Weight_Legislation/

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

@Fred - Thanks for the info.

It was ironic to note that Illinois banned lead in wheel weights, but not in their citizens... sad really.