I am having a hard time finding any wheel weight lead. Apparently everyone and their brother asks for it at the tire places. Is there someplace you can order lead on the Internet?

Brad at Missouri Bullets has 2/6/92 alloy , you can watch castboolits been a bit of range lead floating through there

Sometimes you can find a good deal on Ebay.  

Mostly it's way overpriced, though.

Check Your local recycler, that's where My friend gets all His.

Watch Castboolits swap & sell forum

Good luck man, I am in the same situation

I got lucky and a buddy had a gallon bucket full he gave me

but after sorting and smelting I ended up with only 5lbs of usable alloy

almost the whole bucket was Zinc  


after I use up the 45ish pounds I have I dont know what I will do

Well crap lol. Wonder what it goes for at the recyclers?

I called a local recycler and they will NOT sell it.  I was gonna recycle it.  

I've never had any luck at tire places or at the recycling place (they can't, won't, don't want to sell it to you). Place a want ad on craigslist, I mine own lead from the berms at the gun range.

Sir, I've had the same experience at the scrap metal dealer where I sell my old brass.  They only want to buy scrap metal, they don't want to bother with the sale of small lots of scrap to individuals.

For the OP, I've had good luck at a local auto repair shop where I take my cars for minor work, tires, state inspection etc.  When I want some WW I just take an empty coffee can with me and the shop manager lets me fill it up.  I've got four vehicles so I guess I go there frequently.  It helps if they know you. HTH, 7zero1.

I just called Skagit River Recycling, .75 cents a pound, I asked how much they have, "A shitload" was the response.

If you find the right recycling center, they will buy the zinc weights.  

I have seen people on the castboolit forum offer to buy zinc wheel weights.  Apparently some casters use them to make large cannon balls.

there are  a couple guys on castboolits that will trade lead for zinc

This and ebay are my main sources. Sometimes i get lucky at a local tire place. I look on the ground every where I go for weighs. Redlights, stop signs and curblines.

I haven't tried them yet, but these guys have several alloys to choose from; http://www.rotometals.com/Bullet-Casting-Alloys-s/5.htm

Well, lead is trading at roughly $0.96 per pound on the London Metals Exchange. Lead at $0.75 is a good deal if you needed it.

jonblack

  I'd hit eBay. You can get wheelweights for around $1.50 delivered which is less than HALF what you'll pay for commercial cast bullets. I'm afraid the days of free lead are loooong gone, so suck it up and pay a little!

Wheel weights are not equal to lead... #1 you have about 20-25% waste in melting them down into ingots. #2 You have the effort in sorting, fuel cost in melting, and effort in making the ingots and you're left with a somewhat "unknown" alloy of lead in the end. FWIW, last I checked about a week ago local scrap yard was buying clean wheel weights at $.30/lb, dirty/mix wheel-weights at the price of the lowest value metal found in the bin (likely zinc or steel depending how nice he is).

Also, the good sources are still out there if you know the right people. I've got connections to 2 different shops. One is a semi-truck tire shop (I won't say where) that gives me wheel weights at no charge. I occasionally tip the guy in whatever he wants. Most recently he wants 22 ammo. I'm going to make use of this source hard because the sources are drying up fast. The other source is an auto tire shop. They have a large bin of weights that I've tried to buy but they won't sell it. They will only sell a bucket or 2 at a time. Price depends who you talk to. One guy just rings it up at $25/bucket as a misc charge. Another guy just makes up arbitrary numbers (got screwed by him once), and another guy insists on weighing them out and calling the scrap yard to see what their price is on that day. The things that peeves me about this is that sometimes he says "wheel weights" on the phone and others he says "lead". When he says lead I know its gonna be expensive because scrappers buy lead at much higher price than mix wheel-weights. This is still a good source, but the variable pricing has put it as my backup source since finding the truck-weight source. The truck weights are big too, up to 8 oz. per weight. The last 5 gallon bucket I got (4" down from the top) tipped the scale at 154lb which should yield a good 120lb of WW ingots.

Ultimately, it all boils down to connections. Some random guy off the street is going to have a harder time finding a source. But when you know the guy behind the counter personally, and you've been buying your tires there for decades, it's much easier to strike up a deal and often times the better you know him the better the deal is. All that can go out the window pretty quickly though when one of the guys working in the shop figures out that he can cast bullets really cheap and he starts hoarding all the lead...

keep an eye on the EE

hmmm Might have to save them till I get enough to really mess with

The problem I have with buying lead at places like rotometals is that the cost is high enough that it makes better sense just to buy cast bullets instead of casting them yourself.  Of course, I'm only casting to save money, if it's cheaper to buy them, I'll just buy them.





I've had moderately good luck trolling the castboolits forum for the last few years and getting stuff a bit cheaper.




 

I started casting in 2009 and i've built up (what seems like) a lifetime supply of lead at around $.50-.60/lb.   Deals are out there, but you have to be patient.   I bought 9 of the 31.5# isotope cores locally a few weeks ago for $180 cash.   That's 280lbs of top notch product for $180.     A minor score for sure.    I wasn't even looking for lead but I had to jump on the deal.

KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN and you'll find something.  

Let everyone you know that may have connections that you're interested in buying lead.

Scoring lead for a good price is like planting a garden.   It takes time but it's worth the effort.