What would you pay for castable lead (UPDATE POST #45)

Red Herring

Red Herring

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Hi All,

I am curious to see if there is a market out there for castable lead that comes in 1lb, 2Lb and 5Lb ingots.

With wheel weights becoming scarcer, and new lead not inexpensive, I am considering making a go of casting fluxed recycled medical grade isotope pigs into pound bars. I will likely, assuming it goes ahead, wind up with way more lead than I can use, so the logical thing is to resell it. It might become a small local side business. The wheel weight market here seems to be cornered, and local people also use the lead for fishing sinkers and lures.

Hardness will be 10.5-11 BHN

Question is... is there a market for it, and how much is a fair price for readily castable, clean, small ingot lead? $.50/lb? $.75/lb, $1.00/lb...more?

Feed back please!
 
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I am interested. No idea what would be a fair price.

I suppose the deciding factor would be shipping costs. Just like with buying a safe, if the shipping adds +200% to the cost few people are going to want to do it.
 
Shipping would be expensive... which is why I was thinking primarily a local business. Can do Vancouver as well since we get over there periodically. I'll likely wind up with ~3000 lbs of 10.5 BHN, and several hundred pounds of 12.5 BHN per year IF this happens.

I have an e-mail in to some lead guys in Van to see what their rates for ingots are. I;m betting it's more than a buck a pound...
 
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Red Herring said:
Shipping would be expensive... which is why I was thinking primarily a local business. Can do Vancouver as well since we get over there periodically. I'll likely wind up with ~3000 lbs of 10.5 BHN, and several hundred pounds of 12.5 BHN per year IF this happens.

I have an e-mail in to some lead guys in Van to see what their rates for ingots are. I;m betting it's more than a buck a pound...
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You will be lucky to reach 10BHN out od isotope containers but even at 9BHN with 2% tin added that alloy would be perfect for 32auto, 38auto, 45ACP, 38sp and such. That 12,5BHN again with 2%tin added would be very good for 9mm Luger, 357mag, 44mag and such. For rifle bullets that wouldn't be even close, you would need at least 15-16BHN and gas check to avoid leading. Price? Local metal scrap yard is making me a favour selling their dirty lead trash for 75c/lb so the price for nice KNOWN quality lead in ingots for $1/lb plus shipping is not out of line. EE in "Castbullits" site offers lead for that much and sometimes more. You are right, the time of "free" w-w are over.
 
Lead containers used for shipping radioactive isotopes used in things like nuclear medicine. They have no radiation when released as scrap. It brakes down and is gone within 8 days. (I know that's the next question).

They look like this

core.JPG
 
Lol, hey mr sick, drink this radioactive isotope that has traveled in a lead container, trust me, it's safe. We'll get a picture of your guts and you'll die from cancer in 20 years...
 
I'd say $1/lb.

As for shipping, I've discovered that 50 lbs of lead weighs the same as 50 lbs of bullets. If you need bullets, your choices are either local or shipped, be it lead for casting, already cast bullets, or jacketed.


I've tried this before and it flopped, but maybe it'll work now that wheelweight is more scarce. The shipping cost scared the few serious buyers off.
 
The department is currently selling it to "the scrap guy they have always used" for $.25/lb for the big pigs, and $.08 for the harder, but painted scrap. I'm thinking that I can generously top that price, and even if I don't recast it into pound bars, offer it back to the shooting community at a great price, and I think it would sell...

My main concern is taking over the contract to buy the lead, then being stuck with an accumulating pile of more then I can use. I would like to have 1000lbs for personal use, and frankly... I think that would cover my pistol shooting till i am old and grey! But it seems like too good a source of lead to NOT do something with. I just want to get a better deal for the hospital... offer a good deal to the local shooting community... and not wind up with an excess of lead that I can't get rid of.
 
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Red Herring said:
The department is currently selling it to "the scrap guy they have always used" for $.25/lb for the big pigs, and $.08 for the harder, but painted scrap. I'm thinking that I can generously top that price, and even if I don't recast it into pound bars, offer it back to the shooting community at a great price, and I think it would sell...

My main concern is taking over the contract to buy the lead, then being stuck with an accumulating pile of more then I can use. I would like to have 1000lbs for personal use, and frankly... I think that would cover my pistol shooting till i am old and grey! But it seems like too good a source of lead to NOT do something with. I just want to get a better deal for the hospital... offer a good deal to the local shooting community... and not wind up with an excess of lead that I can't get rid of.
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There is no such thing as excess of lead, for say $.30/lb-$.35/lb buy couple of tons! The spot market for lead is way past $1/lb ($.60/lb 3-4years ago) and raising fast b/c China's & India's growing demand. Say in 20-30years this could be your retiremend fund.... That reminds me, I need to visit RIH hospital next week....
 
If the price was good I would buy some from you. I have a daughter in Victoria so shipping would not be needed. Let me know if you buy some of the soft lead pigs. How much does one pig weigh?
 
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Stevebot-7 said:
I am interested. No idea what would be a fair price.

I suppose the deciding factor would be shipping costs. Just like with buying a safe, if the shipping adds +200% to the cost few people are going to want to do it.
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I can't say from Victoria (the water transport may jack the cost up), but I get ~60lb of bullets shipped from eastern Sask for $25-$30 through CP, depending on the packaging size. Figuring on $0.50/lb in shipping costs wouldn't be an unreasonable starting point for a major center in Alberta. If we could get a bulk order together that gets up to industrial types of shipping that may bring the cost down. Not sure OP wants to cast industrial weights/quantities, though.


Mark
 
I recently bought lead from a local recycle yard. They looked up the current market price and that is what they charged me. $2.28 /Kg. They only had 3 and a half kg on hand. I would take 20 or 30 kg in Campbell River. If I'm on my way to Vic in the next little while I'll see if you got anything hooked up. Cheers.
 
i have a bunch of ww lead hard and soft, I too was wondering what that stuff is worth. Thought I would bring some to the next gunshow and see if anyone wants to buy.
 
buckbrush said:
you need to offer a bulk discount rate, the more you buy the cheaper the price per lb. Say, 2000 lb for .50 cents per lb plus shipping
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Let's say you found good source of lead for $.35/lb, spend hours to transport the containers (once or twice a month for a year), paid for bunch of gas on top of it, purchased all of equipment to remelt it into nice shiny ingots plus a lot of propane and your own time to do it and then selling it all for $.50/lb....would you?
 
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