Lead salvaging

cXIII

cXIII

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Howdy
I’ve been looking for reclaimed sources for lead.

I’ve watched Elvis and fortune cookie 45lc salvage lead from ranges on YouTube. I spoke to my range master and he stated that he did not want any disruption to the berm for health reasons.

What do you guys have luck with?
 
Local tire shops, Ask for their scrap wheel weights they recycle. Look at what scrap yards prices are and offer the same. Save's them gas to transport the wheel weights to the scrap yard. Bring a scale with you and buckets. I have about 6 garages that I deal with.
 
Tire shops, especially the small town ones when I’m away for work, I always come home with some 5gal pails and more than not they gave them to me for free. I can sift my range berms but I haven’t bothered to build anything to screen and separate with yet. I literally look anywhere for it, thrift stores, garage sales. Lead dive weights etc etc etc, I’ll take it all.
 
Roofing lead is another source, try and see if you can make some deals or friend at least with some beers or the like....... or Theyll might just give it to you...
Its cheap and typically not alot of value to a roofing company. Theyll throw it in there big metal returns... but its not that much for them....

Depending on the hardness your looking for, the main body of the stacks are typically pure lead, the bases(pure aswell) are soldered onto the stack section. So if your not picky as to how hard but quantity... them melt it all together, or cut out the soldered joints, as to limit the amount of Sb/Sn into you mix.
 
It is getting hard to find tire shops that will actually sell you wheel weights. They keep telling me that they cant legally sell them for one reason or another. Usually small town tire shops is where you will have the best luck. Tried even trading copper pipe for lead at a recycler and they said they couldn't sell me lead. It is really hit and miss.
 
Dive shop for old dive weights. Tire shop is best. Just a bit of manual labor. A simple scoop made from mesh will produce out of a sand berm at the range. I could probably pull 50lbs in less than 30 min out of my range backstop.
When I was casting for 45-70, it was worth the effort. I used to pick up intact clays for my personal machine as well. Nowadays, I seem to have much less time for fun and like to make the most of it. I can work a couple of hours overtime and buy a thousand each .45-230gr and 9mm-124gr plated bullets. It’s like cheating after casting for so many years. No more buckets of scrap metal everywhere. Hovering over a casting pot for hours! Lubing and sizing…
I’m super cheap, and used to brag how I can shoot 9mm for the same price of .22. I’m leaning the other way these days.
 
I think everyone here has covered where I have sourced lead, one other place is private linesman companies switching out the old lead line weights for the new stile. They are 1/2” sheets about 2-3’ long and 1’ wide cased in either plastic or fibre insulation. I also know of people who recycle batteries though I don’t know the hazards involved in that or the quality of the smelt after the fact.
 
A lot of wheel weights are not lead.

Backstops do need to be cleaned and restored. Leave them in better condition than when you started screening. Rigging up an archeologist style swinging screen is worthwhile.
 
Ya... have to sort the zinc ww out before the smelt... it'll ruin the whole batch, if one bit of zinc touches the mix...
 
cXIII said:
Howdy
I’ve been looking for reclaimed sources for lead.

I’ve watched Elvis and fortune cookie 45lc salvage lead from ranges on YouTube. I spoke to my range master and he stated that he did not want any disruption to the berm for health reasons.

What do you guys have luck with?
Click to expand...

Canvas stained glass window shops, they use lead and usually have lots of clean scrap available. I've amassed over 500 lbs from them for nothing, they were just glad to get rid of it.
 
I forgot about one source that I scored last year, Radiator shops. Most of the new ones cant be repaired but if you can find one that does old style steel radiators you are golden. Noticed a bucket of lead scraps by the back door when I was servicing some air conditioning equipment and asked what they did with it and he gave me a funny look, no one has ever asked me that before. I usually say I make lead sinkers for fishing out of them or I am a Boy Scout leader and the boys need the lead for there cub car projects for each weight class and I usually get a few handfuls if not the whole bucket for free. Don't be greedy and just ask for an ice cream pail full.
 
mckutzy said:
Ya... have to sort the zinc ww out before the smelt... it'll ruin the whole batch, if one bit of zinc touches the mix...
Click to expand...

as long as you keep the temp below the zinc melting temperature you are good.
then you can scoop the zinc and steel ones off the top, no need for sorting the weights.
 
WereWeasel said:
I think everyone here has covered where I have sourced lead, one other place is private linesman companies switching out the old lead line weights for the new stile. They are 1/2” sheets about 2-3’ long and 1’ wide cased in either plastic or fibre insulation. I also know of people who recycle batteries though I don’t know the hazards involved in that or the quality of the smelt after the fact.
Click to expand...

There is a ton of pure lead removed from transformer rooms on a regular basis. Lead pipe for connecting old lead primary cable, Lead pads for setting transformers on, Lead bushings for resting lead cased wire on the supporting racks ect. It is one thing I miss about working in the field. When I was there I was allowed to take as much as I wanted as it saved the company money. I took thousands of pound of pure lead.
 
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