Where to find free lead?

[WolverineFury]

So I bought a melting pot, and went to a chain tire shop and asked the guy for some old wheel weights, I got about half of a five gallon bucket full and went on my merry way.

Later I went back and the guy told me that he got in trouble for giving me the wheel weights because the company has a policy about recycling them, and so it has been at every other tire/mechanic's shop that I've gone to. The big chain stores have policies about recycling, and the little guys all sell them.

So where do you guys get your lead (or preferably lead alloy)?

 

[jwrowland77]

It's amazing what a dozen donuts can get you at the places that sell them.

Since then, I found a guy that works in a garage that I go to church with, and can get them free anytime I want. Last haul was 2 5-gallon buckets.

Just have to keep asking around.


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[Patocazador]

I paid $20 for a 5 gal. bucket of wheel weights at a tire shop, the same price they get from a recycler. The bucket was too heavy for one man to lift. 3 of us put it in my truck.
About 1/4th was pure lead stick-on weights, with the remainder divided equally between lead alloy and non-lead weights.

I estimate that the bucket weighed at least 160 lb. About 60 lbs. was worthless iron weights while the remainder was what I desired. Paying $20 for 100 lb. of lead is a good deal for me. Commercial lead has been selling for over one dollar/lb. I paid 1/5th of that.

 

[jmorris]

Beer worked at the places I went to, just make sure you don't give any to minors.

My free lead comes from berms these days (picked up after matches when others are picking up brass) or my bullet trap.

 

[ReloaderFred]

If your range will allow it, the impact berm is a great source of bullet alloy. It was a bullet once, so you can make it a bullet again. My recycler pays for #2 copper for the cleaned non-steel jackets after I've smelted it, too. I make sure all the lead is out of the jackets and use a large magnet to remove the steel.

If you do reclaim lead from the berm, make sure you put all the material back and leave it better than you found it, or you'll never be allowed to mine the berm again.....

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[WolverineFury]

Beer worked at the places I went to, just make sure you don't give any to minors.

That's a great idea... now I just need to find someone who's 21 to supply the beer.

 

[Reefinmike]

Spread the word that you are looking for lead. ask those around you if they know any mechanics, roofers, plumbers, dentist, etc. When I first started casting, my lead supply was just getting me by and I found myself digging the berm at the range like a crack head going after the copper pipes in a vacant building. I've since built up a nice pile of lead to last me several years.

I have also worked a couple deals with people that posted scrap lead on armslist. I took their scrap, cleaned it up and gave them back a percentage in ready to load bullet form. Got about 1500lbs worth of clean ww ingots and ~500lbs of pure soft lead that way. Now that I've found my own little private shooting area, most of my bullets end up in a 2'x2' area in the dirt pile. Once I start running low on lead I will reclaim those bullets.

 

[jmorris]

If you do reclaim lead from the berm, make sure you put all the material back and leave it better than you found it, or you'll never be allowed to mine the berm again.....

I don't "mine" it, just pick the ones off the top of the soil. Never get a huge hall but I generally wind up with about 50lbs after smelting.

 

[mdi]

Well, I've gotten pretty lazy since I retired and cut my lead acquisitions down to 2 sources (mebbe three if you count my alloying lead from Rotometals). I mine lead occasionally from the "range" where I shoot and I buy from Vendor Sponsors on Castboolits.com.

Free/cheap lead on the west coast has long been gone the way of the wild goose; ain't no such thing. I bought wheel weights from small tire shops, independents not chain stores ($$ + a dozen do-nuts) up until about 8-10 years ago, but in CA and OR I quit asking 'cause I always got a "nope"...

 

[Arkansas Paul]

The bucket was too heavy for one man to lift. 3 of us put it in my truck.
I estimate that the bucket weighed at least 160 lb.

Oh yeah. I always back up to the lift and have them raise them up to the level of the tailgate. Then you only have to move them about a foot onto the tailgate.
I pay substantially more than $20 a bucket though. However, even paying $40 a bucket like I do, I usually yield 100-110 pounds of lead ingots so that is still pretty cheap lead.

Unfortunately the days of taking a 12 pack of beer to the tire store and getting a bucket of wheel weights is about over, at least here it is.
Unless you know someone personally that can hook you up, you're going to have to pay for them.

However, you can still get lead much cheaper this way than buying it.

There is even a scrap yard close by me that will sell me wheel weights for 0.35 a pound and they already have sorted the steel weights out of it. That's a good deal that way.
The same place had a box of about 15 pounds of wire solder they sold me for the same 0.35 a pound which is dirt cheap.

Also, if you have zinc WWs, don't throw them out. The guys who are into shooting cannons use them to make cannon balls and will purchase them from you. There was a guy on the castboolits site that would trade you lead for zinc pound for pound. Don't know if he's still doing that or not.

 

[TimSr]

I think lead wheel weights are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. They use mostly steel here now. It might be time to start picking old salvage yards.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

Double post.

 

[hdbiker]

Free lead wheel weights are a thing of the past,and many are now steel or zink,ya don't want that.I go to my gun club on Sundays and holidays,when their closed and mine the pistol berms.I can pick a 5 quart pail in about 45 minutes and after smelting,fluxing,and pouring into my Lymal ingot mold it yealds 22-24 one pound ingots.I mix the wheel weights that I do have 50-50 with the range lead,flux and add a foot of 95/5 solder and get great bullets ( pistol only). I have about 300 one pound ingots ready to go.GOOD LUCK hdbiker

 

[Traffer]

I wish that I had as much luck as you guys in finding lead. Here in Central Wisconsin, it is getting to be almost like gold. I consider it a great victory when I can buy it for $1 per lb. The going rate around here is $2 per lb.

 

[Schwing]

Alas, I too have given up on free lead and have lowered my expectations significantly over the definition of "Cheap" lead is.

I have one shop that will give me free lead. He is a friend of mine and gives me all that comes in. Unfortunately, he doesn't see much lead anymore. The last 5 pound bucket I got had about 30 lbs of lead. The rest was steel or zinc. Not to go on a side tangent here but I am one of those lucky guys who has to seriously minimize my lead exposure because I seem to absorb every molecule I come into contact with. Spending a couple of hours sorting and melting 30lbs just isn't worth it for me.

For a short time, I bought from a scrap yard but they ramped their prices on wheel weights up to .88 per pound. They sell roofing lead for that price as well but you have to alloy it or it is too soft.

I have settled on buying lead alloy off o ebay for about 1.12 shipped. I have one seller that I have purchased from several times. Just a couple of weeks ago, I dug deep and bought 600lbs from him.

I think the days of free or even cheap lead are fast fading.

 

[snuffy]

Word-of-mouth

Tell all your friends that you use a LOT of lead. You'll be surprised when they call of come up to you with chunks of lead.

I showed one guy I used to work with a couple of boolits I had made that day. We talked about my casting hobby for just a few minutes. A week later he said "I've got this statue that I think is made of pewter, would you be interested in it"??!! He said it was 3 feet tall, and probably weighed 75 pounds! I could hardly contain my excitement. He brought in a sample the next Monday that he had melted off, I determined it was nearly pure lead! It had a skeletal framework of wire mesh, so the lead came out at 50#, I gave him a buck a pound.

Geeze if it had really been pewter, it is at LEAST 75% tin! Some is 90% tin. I would be all set for tin for the rest of my life!

 

[dragon813gt]

I don't "mine" it, just pick the ones off the top of the soil. Never get a huge hall but I generally wind up with about 50lbs after smelting.

Same here, except not as much. I typically pick up about 20#s. I like to go after a heavy rain storm in the summer. Lots of bullets lying in the runoff ditches. The range I belong to is on a hill. I also pry bullets out of the posts. I won't lie, this type of scrounging takes a good bit of time and yields small quantities. But free is free.

I can still get free wheel weights from a shop that does a lot of larger trucks. But I hate processing wheel weights so I rarely pick it up anymore. Another guy makes sinkers out of them so they don't go to waste.

I know people want free lead. But there are advantages to buying a known alloy from a foundry. For me the biggest one is time. Drop it in the pot and start casting. Can't do that we the free sources.

I tell everyone that's really into casting to save their money and place an order w/ a foundry. I'm talking 1k# minimum. The more you order the cheaper it is. When I can buy 96/2/2 for a little over $1.30 a pound it's a no brainer. If I could pick it up it would have been right around $1 a #.

 

[Handloader109]

TANSTAFL
you have to pay for Lead one way or another.... Don't expect to get it free. It's worth something to everyone.

 

[kerreckt]

I go to the tire shops and repair shops. The "chain" operations most always have some policy that doesn't permit giving it away to recycle. In fact, one guy I spoke with told me the parent company actually paid, to have the environmentally dangerous heavy metal removed. Long story short, after some conversation a few of the guys will give it to me out the back door at closing time. I ALWAYS make sure their efforts are compensated. One guy gets some of my cast .44 LSWC, for his efforts. He also keeps two buckets and tries to use one for just lead. A little conversation goes a long way especially, with a fellow shooter.

 

[solman]

I work for a fleet automotive operation with a wheel balancer and tire shop section.
Very few weights are lead any longer mostly stick on zinc type. You have too scrounge the whole 5 gal bucket to come up with a little bit of lead, the rest you can't use. I wish I paid more attention to the scrap bucket years ago when it was all lead. I just figured its there when I need it.
Now that I am interested it's too late.
Not sure where else you could find free lead.

 

[jwrowland77]

I work for a fleet automotive operation with a wheel balancer and tire shop section.
Very few weights are lead any longer mostly stick on zinc type. You have too scrounge the whole 5 gal bucket to come up with a little bit of lead, the rest you can't use. I wish I paid more attention to the scrap bucket years ago when it was all lead. I just figured its there when I need it.
Now that I am interested it's too late.
Not sure where else you could find free lead.

Wow. That's crazy and sad. Here in Arkansas, I generally get 75-80% return on my 5 gallon buckets. Last batch of WW I did I got 78#'s of ingots out of 100#'s of WW.

 

[jmorris]

One other place I got a bunch of lead from was a friends print shop. Years ago they replaced the old Lynotype presses and while "talking guns" with him he learned of my interest in casting and gave me all of the old Lynotype he had. That was a pretty big haul, still have a bunch of it and he retired and sold the company around a decade ago.

 

[Reefinmike]

For those interested, A while back I took a detailed weigh on my first big haul of wheel weights. This is a northern Ohio blend of weights.

Sorting
Total scrap weight: 875lb
clip on wheel weights: 442lb
Soft stick on weights: 182lb
steel weights: 140lb
Lug nuts: 75lb
zinc weights: 21lb
Trash: 15lb

Ingot time
Clip on ww ingots- 371lb (84% yield after removing steel clips)
Soft stick on ingots- 180lb
Total clean ingot weight- 551lb
Total lead yield- 63%

The next haul was ~750lb and though I haven't melted that down yet, after sorting my yields are right in line with my first haul.

Happy casting

 

[lightman]

Networking is the key to finding free or cheap lead. Ask you friends, family and coworkers. A true caster is always on the lookout for lead. Ask when you get a tire repaired or buy new tires. Or when you get your car serviced. Small Mom and Pop shops seem to be better. Plumbers and roofers sometime have lead. Some scrap yards will still sell to the public. Check out the backstop where you shoot. Radiator shops will often have solder drippings. Its nasty stuff but is a good source for tin.

 

[Average Joe]

I gave up looking for lead, I just buy it from Roto metals.