Lead Prices

[LubeckTech]

How much should I expect to pay for clean lead suitable for cap & ball bullet casting? How much should scrap lead go for?

 

[Gunfighter123]

Hello ---- In northern Illinois , I pay around 20 cents a pound for wheel weights and other scrap lead. You will lose almost 25% when you "skim" the clips etc. out.
GF123

 

[DaveP (UK)]

But for C&B revolvers pure lead is to be preferred!

Its of no value to you, but just for interest's sake I pay about 72 cents for a UK pound. Now tell me how much cheaper yours is...

 

[Duncaninfrance]

DaveP. Welcome!
I ask anyone in the plumbing business here if they have any lead that I could have. So far I have paid 0.00€ per kilo!! That was for a boot full! Next up is wheelweights but I need one of my French pals from the club to do the negotiating and I might just pay the same amount!!

 

[sundance44s]

Plumbers grade lead

I pay 1.34 a lb for good soft plumbers grade lead here in MS. They have an internet site ...lucky for me they are only 30 miles from my front door ...so i don`t pay shipping ..i pick it up , uasually 100 lbs at a time . If anyone needs the site i`ll post it .

 

[sjohns]

On ebay, some people sell a few pounds at a whack. They worry me a little after I read somewhere about people selling melted down lead that came from the walls of xray rooms.

Anyone have any info on that type of lead?

Is there an exposure risk?

 

[DaveP (UK)]

On a different (UK based) forum someone was recently crowing about having obtained permission to take some used lead crucibles for casting purposes.
Apparently he works in the nuclear industry...

X rays are not going to leave contamination behind

 

[Steve499]

This has been discussed before on this forum but with new members joining all the time, perhaps it might bear mentioning again.

I have all the dentists in my metropolis ( both of them) save me the lead foil from the dental x-ray film they use. The film apparently has a very thin piece of lead foil attached to it to protect the film itself from ambient radiation. This foil must be removed before the film can be used. I get a box of foil each time I have a checkup and my wife, who goes to the other dentist in town, gets one too. Prior to me asking, they were just throwing it away. I have received about 15 pounds, total, and it is pure, soft lead.

Steve

 

[pohill]

I buy cakes of plumber's lead at the local hardware store for a little over $1.00 per pound (usually 5 lb cakes).
My advice - do not use wheelweights. The lead is way too hard. I tried it and couldn't ram a ball down at all, and there's the chance of breaking the loading lever.

 

[Cap n Ball]

The composition of wheelweight lead can vary from one manufacturer to another. The additive is antimony. Along with old typesetting lead its ok for reloading brass cartridges but its a bit too hard for use in bp revolvers. Stick to plumbers grade and you'll be fine.

 

[dwave]

I get wheel weight lead for .20 cents per pound, and .39 cents for pure lead from my local junk yard.

 

[MutinousDoug]

To answer sjohns' question directly; X-ray radiation does not cause residual radiation. Radioactivity left behind from nuclear fission is what you are worried about. That stuff is from alpha and beta radio waves that are powerful enough to break normal atoms down into isotopes that do emit their own radiation. ( I hope I'm not mis-remembering the names of these radio frequencies, but I'm too lazy to dig out my references.) Gamma radio waves are present only in the presence of a radiation source (such as an x-ray tube, or maybe the sun, if you are above about 50,000 ft from earth), those waves are only powerful enough to damage living tissue.
Long story short: x-ray shielding lead is not radioactive. It's said to "absorb" radiation, but it's not really storing anything.

 

[dwave]

To top it off, if it was radioactive I don't think that it would be allowed to go out to the public.

 

[sjohns]

Thanks for the response.

I wasn't sure.

The gov says lots of things are safe that are not safe.

I was just thinking that if lead absorbs xray, and it becomes somehow trapped in the lead itself, then perhaps when it is melted, the particles would escape in random trajectories.

Actually, that's probably never been tested.

 

[Low Key]

I have all the dentists in my metropolis ( both of them) save me the lead foil from the dental x-ray film they use. The film apparently has a very thin piece of lead foil attached to it to protect the film itself from ambient radiation. This foil must be removed before the film can be used. I get a box of foil each time I have a checkup and my wife, who goes to the other dentist in town, gets one too. Prior to me asking, they were just throwing it away. I have received about 15 pounds, total, and it is pure, soft lead.

Steve

I do the exact same thing. Good source for free lead, and it's pure and casts a really good round ball or conical. Beats the heck outta buying lead ingots.