Well, yesterday i wasted much of the day driving around to the various tire shops trying to scrounge lead. They either had a corporate recovery program or had some well established buyers who are in the fishing weight/sinker business. This morning I decided to let me fingers do the walking and came across a recycling company in a smaller town nearby. They have:

roofer's lead @ $0.74/lb which they said is 95% lead
wheel weights @ $0.48/lb - when available.

What are the pros and cons and roofers lead? The wheel weights are cheaper but they don't know when they get them.

Eric

Roof flashing lead is nearly pure lead - best I can tell about 99.5% lead.

Most BPCR and muzzle loader shooters will pay at least $1/lb for it.

Pure lead is harder to find than wheel weights. You can often trade it for wheel weights. I have wheel weights that I would trade for it.

The $.48 price for wheels weights is ok - especially for the stick on WW since they have no waste in the clip.

The roofers lead is too soft by itself for most rifles and handguns without some tin and antimony added. You can find recipes on the web where you add it to linotype to make Lyman #2 alloy of the hard ball alloy.

I like the roofers lead because it is nearly pure so I am starting out with a known metal.
Then I make 20 to 1 alloy by adding 1 part tin to 20 parts pure lead. This is used in BPCR target rifles.

Here is a lot of good information about bullet casting, lead alloys etc.

LA Silhouette Club

The lady also mentioned she had pharmacy lead that came in sheets and was used for shielding when taking x-rays. I have read elsewhere that this is 96/3/1 lead/antimony/tin. The same price as the roofers lead.

quote:

Originally posted by ELeeton:
The lady also mentioned she had pharmacy lead that came in sheets and was used for shielding when taking x-rays. I have read elsewhere that this is 96/3/1 lead/antimony/tin. The same price as the roofers lead.

Page with some lead alloys

I have always heard that xray shielding is also pure lead.
If what you can get really is 96/3/1 you should buy it. It should be very near the same alloy as wheel weights and should work well for most pistol and rifle shooting.

In the LA Silhouette articles you will find some discussion of alloy hardness.

Pure lead is about 5 Brinnel
Clip on Wheel weights are about 12 to 13 Brinnel
Stick on WW are about 5 to 6 Brinnel (close to pure lead)

20 to 1 alloy is about 10 Brinnel

Lyman #2 is about 15 Brinnel

Linotype alloy is about 18 to 22 brinnel.

Excellent link.

Now I just need to convince my wife that I need to buy the lead, sizer, melting pot, etc. I have done some basic number crunching and I think it is cheaper to buy 100lbs of lead, the melter, sizer, moulds and dies then it is to buy a similar amount of cast bullets from one of the various manufacturers like Missouri Bullets.

Eric

quote:

I think it is cheaper to buy 100lbs of lead, the melter, sizer, moulds and dies then it is to buy a similar amount of cast bullets from one of the various manufacturers like Missouri Bullets.

It is, without a doubt. But be forewarned: casting your own becomes an all-encompassing hobby/mistress if not managed properly... I now have well over $10k in just moulds!

I went by a scrap yard a few weeks ago and picked up 140 lbs of roofing lead. Some was in round ingots that I will be checking because I think it is melted down wheel weights someone was passing off as pure lead, for the additional price.

The roofing lead was very soft and with my hardness tester, should be around 8BHN.

I will cast a few bullets with the ingot lead and if it tests out around 12-14 as dropped from the mould, I will know it is wheel weight lead.

Either way, I have plenty of lead now to cast for my 45ACP. It won't take but about a pound of WW lead to mix with the roofing lead to make good bullets for the 45.

I still use straight WW lead with a little tin added for my 45-70 and 44 mag. bullets.

Let's just say I have lots of lead. My neighbor runs the recycling plant (trash as where I live you take your trask there, they don't have pickup) and there are lots of remodeling of old building thus all the lead. What I am short on is wheelweights. It's very hard to obtain them where I live.

It's much cheaper to cast your own especially after you have acquired all the equipment to make them and it becomes an addiction as doubless mentioned.