No more free lead for casting

[Arkansas Paul]

I've never gotten free lead for casting except those few times I picked up bullets from the berm at the range. Then it was only a few pounds.
Lead wheel weights are still fairly easy to find here. I give $35-$40 for a bucket and usually net around 100 pounds of ingots from one. That's pretty cheap.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

Thanks Walkalong
I thought straight wheelwrights are about 12 BHN. I read that 18 is needed. Yes indeed the wheelwright bounty is gone.
I will need to ask around. If I can find a good source I will make the investment in tooling to proceed

For the majority of applications, 12 is fine. Elmer Keith developed the .44 magnum with a BHN of about 11.
The bullet's fit to your barrel is more important than BHN.
This sounds crazy, but bullets that are too hard probably cause more leading than bullets that are too soft.

 

[Jesse Heywood]

There's tons of it in the tailing mounds around Pitcher, Oklahoma. Of course you'll have to do some intermediate processing of it before you can start to cast it.

For the unknowing, Picher, Ok is an EPA cleanup sight. Anything removed from the sight is considered haz-mat. I am aware of one company bought chat from the area and established a business reselling the chat for paving. EPA uncovered it, forced the company to remove all chat sold and return it to Picher. Consider yourself warned.

 

[clearcut]

Yard sales are a good place to look as is the scrap yard but the days of free lead are nearly gone.

CC

 

[brewer12345]

You know what? I decided to skip smelting and just cast. I pay for ingots and have from the start. I lucked out on an estate sale to buy some cheap, but mostly I pay a buck or so a pound. I figured i cast plain based bullets for about 3 cents each, including lube. Add 3 cents for a gas check for those designs, but mostly I shoot plain based bullets. My cost is cheap enough that I am more than fine with it. Since I started casting last year I have accumulated a stock of roughly 8000 bullets. I have saved at least a nickel a piece which pays for much of the necessary equipment. Hard to complain when this is something I wanted to learn to do anyway.

 

[Slamfire]

I went to our scrap bucket and out of a 5 gallon bucket full, I ended up with just a small handful of lead weights. The rest are all zinc and useless for bullet casting. It seems that the lead weights for wheel balancing are obsolete now.

Yes, the days of lead wheel weights is over. Been through the same process, you can spend all afternoon sorting out the zinc and steel and only find a hand full of lead wheel weights.

 

[ms6852]

If you haven't done so, read this treatise which will give you more insight on leading. www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Contents.htm

Thanks for posting this link, I have a few hundred pounds of pure lead that I will use for my sharps 45/70.

 

[solman]

Thanks Jesse,
That is definitely worth reading. Lots of good information.