Lead salvaging
- Thread starter cXIII
- Start date
i have noticed the last couple pails I have taken from my garage supplier has been, if lucky, one third of them are lead. the rest are metal and small number of zinc. one thing i did think about the other day for another method of finding zine is to weigh them. lead weights will be just about twice as heavy as the same sized zinc ones...
as far as melting them, i put the clip on's in separate from the stick ones. just because i use the softer ones for cap and ball.
will have to look for stained glass shops around here. i did run an ad on kijji for a bit offering to buy lead at a better rate then the scrap yard and did get some uptake from that. (tax free money for the ones to bring too much scrap to the yard)
Not sure if it was mentioned but yard saling for downriggers was suggested to me. If you live near fishing. I have 4 actually 3.5 now
I just melted 3 down this past weekend that i got from somebody answering my ad... I think that the lead is soft on the 3 i had. i have to get my tester out and see what it comes out as. i usually stamp my ingots WW of SW (stick on weight) etc so I know where they came from.
Mining lead in a berm is dangerous in thatA the berm may collapse on the miner.
Also allowing mining of lead scrap does damage to the berm.
I found to tire shops with wheel weights last month and cannot buy them. Both places they could not understand why I wanted them. Was impossible to get any where. Plus a friend I have deals in scrap and I gave up with him too. Course doesn't help trying to do this in french also. If it's not normal they can't think it through.
That is about normal behaviour when asking for lead
Charge them a disposal fee, they should understand that....
I talked to a guy at the range who went to some local tire shops asking for old WW and they all said something along the lines of "you'll have to talk to Bill (or whatever) as he's been taking anything we get for years for casting bullets" or something like "you're not the first to come asking, but we'll add you to the list for if the other guys stop showing up"
I'm not going to go through all of the threads to see if it's already been suggested but I used to purchase a lot of "lead" in the form of fired and reclaimed shot from a Trap Shooting Club in the Lower Mainland.
I would think they still offer up their reclaimed lead but have no idea at the cost.
I liked it because it had the same hardness as the Lyman #2 alloy mix. It was fine for pistol shooting and later, when I started powder coating the last of the bags of reclaimed shot, I had worked well for rifle rounds.
I would think they still offer up their reclaimed lead but have no idea at the cost.
I liked it because it had the same hardness as the Lyman #2 alloy mix. It was fine for pistol shooting and later, when I started powder coating the last of the bags of reclaimed shot, I had worked well for rifle rounds.
We will be cleaning out our bullet traps in our indoor range in the new year.
It has lots of slag, but the results give you very good lead for alloying with tin for cast bullets or for shot making.
I smelt it out in a big ol' brake drum and a tiger torch and pour it into a muffin tin pan.
As cheap as you can get !
Cat
It has lots of slag, but the results give you very good lead for alloying with tin for cast bullets or for shot making.
I smelt it out in a big ol' brake drum and a tiger torch and pour it into a muffin tin pan.
As cheap as you can get !
Cat
I have a whole munch of 70 pounds sheets from old roofing projects, but its is dirty as hell and smokes forever. Even though I live on an acreage I usually burn off the tar in winter when all the neighbors have thier windows closed.
vagrantviking
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- High River, Alberta
I used a pot with a lid last time and I can't believe how little smoke there was just doing that.
Keeping a little propane torch at hand to burn the fumes and smoke works well too but it can be difficult to keep it lit sometimes.
I was given a fair amount of lead from a red repair shop, about 50lbs of drippings, and thats exactly what it was. Molten lead dripped into a plastic 5 gallon pail. I ended up cutting it in half, down the sides and melting the plastic pail and all. I now have no more used motor oil and a nice pile of 60/40 1/2 inch round lead balls
vagrantviking
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- High River, Alberta
I have a couple ugly looking pails of that stuff too. Fittings abd rubber hose and rags all mixed in.
Going to be a stinky one to process.
Have a few 110lb blocks that should be already pretty clean but who the heck makes 110lb cupcakes!? Absolutely not user friendly to move or melt or deal with.
fingers284
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Alberta Cowboy Ranges
Those super sized heavy ingots are actually quite easy to process down to manageable sizes if you have an engine hoist available. i have done several by drilling a hole in the ingot that will hold a bar for hanging the lead from the hoist....then i set up my burner & pot and just lower the ingot into the puddle a small bit at a time, as it slowly melts I ladle the melt into muffin pans. I can do 100 lbs an hour with no strain at all.
