Hi everyone. I am just starting to get involved into casting and have a question to ask. From what I have read there are many sources of lead, all to different degrees of hardness to which you might add tin and antimony. What are your sources for the tin and antimony ? Any help greatly appreciated.
Casting Metal Sources Help Required
- Thread starter HIGHRPM
- Start date
Pewter items are a great source online or thrift stores. Pewter is usually 90% tin with the rest being lead or antimony and various other metals.
I scored 10lbs of lead free solder (95/5 95% tin 5% antimony) for $90 from a hvac supplier. Although I have barely touched it to be honest. Wheel weights are more then hard enough for pistol rounds from my experience.
I scored 10lbs of lead free solder (95/5 95% tin 5% antimony) for $90 from a hvac supplier. Although I have barely touched it to be honest. Wheel weights are more then hard enough for pistol rounds from my experience.
If you're in Delta, either Canada Metal or Purity Casting Alloys will sell you either tin or a suitable alloy for either hard or soft bullets. Most of us usually get our antimony from an existing alloy like linotype(9% antimony, 4%tin) or lead wheel weights(5%antimony, or at least used to be).
Wheel weights(with 2% tin for accurate rifle bullets) are hard enough for most things, and can be made plenty hard by dropping the hot bullets out of the mold into a padded container of cold water.
Grouch
Wheel weights(with 2% tin for accurate rifle bullets) are hard enough for most things, and can be made plenty hard by dropping the hot bullets out of the mold into a padded container of cold water.
Grouch
kschneider
Regular
- Location
- southern ontario
The bottom of my ranges backstop. Just getting back what was once mine anyway. Lol.
OK, I have made the rounds of far too many tire shops, small and large, trying to pickup some wheel weights but it appears that some company has a contract with virtually everyone and they all refuse to sell any and they won't say what the guy pays either. I went to a metal recycling place that does mainly lead and their cheapest price at the moment because he says it changes everyday, was $1.20 a pound and it was in a 60 # block, so that's not happening. I am disabled and its way over what I am allowed to lift and carry I went to my local, small metal traders and he never gets lead in anymore. I could have bought a lot of bullets today for the amount of gas I burnt. Not a good start for this adventure.
BattleRife
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- of No Fixed Address
But pretty typical. Like anything else, finding lead takes a while to get good at it. It took me a couple of near full days of looking to find my first tire shop that would agree to sell me buckets of wheel weights, and this shop wouldn't fill 3 buckets a year.
The best tip I can offer you: go to the independant shops where english is not the first language. The chain stores all have corporate recycling programs, you'll never have luck there, but the independants can do what they want. Scrounging lead is an activity undertaken by middle aged white guys, and they tend to hit the shops run by white guys. In the south asian neighbourhoods nobody goes looking and often the shops don't even realize the scrap lead is worth anything.
The best tip I can offer you: go to the independant shops where english is not the first language. The chain stores all have corporate recycling programs, you'll never have luck there, but the independants can do what they want. Scrounging lead is an activity undertaken by middle aged white guys, and they tend to hit the shops run by white guys. In the south asian neighbourhoods nobody goes looking and often the shops don't even realize the scrap lead is worth anything.
kenneth carlson
Regular
- Location
- thunder bay on
I know here there is no recycling company or contracts we have. I work at Canadian tire. I get all of the lead from the store I work at. I collect every single bucket we get. But before I started they sold the scrap weights to the scrap yard for booze money at the Christmas party. That's what happens at the other Canadian tire in town still.
I did go there the other day. The guy I talked to quoted me a price of $1.20 per lb., based on a 60 # ingot, if and only if the boss would allow a ingot to be separated from a pallet load. I sat down with a calc and worked out some unit pieces per lb. and then the cost per bullet, and it was working out to more than buying bullets, ( if I am calculating it right) if anybody had any decent stock on cast bullets.. I just contacted a place in Surrey and they quoted me a price of $4.50 per lb. on a 50 lb. ingot, way more money !! Hell, what is a good realistic price for already forged lead ???
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BattleRife
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- of No Fixed Address
$0.50/lb is an outstanding price for lead. Many leadhunters are willing to pay that for unsorted wheel weights, if they think they are likely to get a high proportion of lead weights in the mix. For clean ingots it's a no brainer.
Even $1.20 is not awful. Down in the USA, where shipping is cheap, there are people making a steady business of selling weights at $1.00/lb and shipping it all over the country. Many people find that price is cheap enough they can dispense with the task of finding, collecting and remelting scrap.
One pound is 7000 grains. If you are casting 124gr 9mm bullets one pound gives you 56 bullets, at $1.20/lb that is 2.1 cents each. $21 for a thousand bullets. If you can buy bullets for cheaper than that please help the business and your fellow shooters by broadcasting their name here!
158gr .38 --> 44 bullets per pound, $27 / 1000
230gr .45 --> 30 bullets per pound, $40 / 1000
Even $1.20 is not awful. Down in the USA, where shipping is cheap, there are people making a steady business of selling weights at $1.00/lb and shipping it all over the country. Many people find that price is cheap enough they can dispense with the task of finding, collecting and remelting scrap.
One pound is 7000 grains. If you are casting 124gr 9mm bullets one pound gives you 56 bullets, at $1.20/lb that is 2.1 cents each. $21 for a thousand bullets. If you can buy bullets for cheaper than that please help the business and your fellow shooters by broadcasting their name here!
158gr .38 --> 44 bullets per pound, $27 / 1000
230gr .45 --> 30 bullets per pound, $40 / 1000
Thanks for the correct math ! I did get to the 56 bullets right but somehow after that my math screwed up !Good luck if you can get "new" lead for that. The guys I got quotes from do stuff like lead bricks for the radiation field and sheet lead for roofing. The price I posted was for pure lead. Alloys go up in price from there.
Scrappers buy lead for around $0.50/lb in these parts
Scrappers buy lead for around $0.50/lb in these parts
- Location
- The Conservative part of Ontario
On the tire shops, if you are a regular customer it can pay dividends. I have I think five 20 liter pails of wheel weights. Never paid a cent. Ask for it when you are buying your tires. Makes them more agreeable.
Oh, and bring doughnuts.
Oh, and bring doughnuts.
