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

gunrunner8 said:
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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That is a 43% markup, which is decent by most business standards (aside from retail). Volume would dictate whether the actual amount of money involved was worth it to OP or not.


Mark
 
Let me open your eyes guys, the cheapest place in US and shipped free if bought more than $99 US worth....

ht tp://www.rotometals.com/Bullet-Casting-Alloys-s/5.htm
 
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I know there are a few guys who do this on Cast boolits, but that mainly hinges on USPS having flat rate boxes. IIRC Canada post might have some flat rate boxes, look around at them and the private shippers ( Fedex/ups/dhl ) to see what they would charge.

I'd be interested if the price is better or comparable to buying it scrap. keep in mind you also have the added bonus of consistency, and not needing to melt it down once first to clean it. Given how much time that can take, I'd say double the scrap value might be a fair place to start. ( that would be around 2$ per lb )

Another thing to note if you are the entrepreneurial type here, is how much more valuable cast tips are as opposed to the straight lead. If you can get lots of lead cheap you might want to invest in an automated casting machine and cast a few different desirable tips. IE hollow base tips.
 
Lead shot in Ottawa is $2/lbs. Last time I bought some in Sudbury it was $1.35/lbs. Paying $0.50/lbs seems unreal to me for a known alloy of quality lead. Scrap lead/wheel weights for free is one thing. For refined, quality lead ingots I wouldn't expect to pay less than $1.50/lbs.
 
$.35 to $.50 is 30%markup.

I say you figure your raw cost and processing and then double it, discount if anyone orders large quantity. Hard to know all those costs without knowing demand unfortunately.

Lead is about the best thing to ship around, can't break it and is as compact as it gets.
 
Red Herring said:
... 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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There is a market for Wheel Weight ingots, just check Ebay.com Last time I looked, people in the U.S. were paying $1.00 to 2.00 per lb of WW ingot, plus shipping. Most deals closed at around $1.60/lb. Four years ago, the price for WW was much less than $1.00 per lb average. Back then, I bought Linotype (worth at least double the cost of WW) for $1.00 per lb. So as long as shooters cast bullets, there will be a market.

Couple years ago, I bought scrap Clip-on wheel weights for $.50 per lb plus tax, at a local metal recycler (in Langley). Average recovery after melting out all the gunk and steel clips was 65-70%. Cost came out to about $.75 per lb of purified wheel weight ingot.

Last year, I bought several hundred pounds of assorted wheel weights, scrap pure lead and some of those Isotope lead bottles. After melting and purifying, my cost came to about $.60 per pound of Wheelweight ingots.

Labor and energy costs are not factored in. It is a lot easier to purify and melt isotope bottles because they are clean already. Simply melt, flux and pour. I did add 1 part lino to 6 part isotope lead to improve mold filling and water quenching hardenability.

Due to tighter and tighter government regulations on hazardous materials handling, (lead is classified as HazMat), as well as rising metal prices and inflation, lead has slowly but steadily increased in price over the years.

IMO, as long as you have the supply and the ability to store the lead scrap, I'd say buy up all you can.

Lead is like gold to bullet casters. Bullets are like gold to us reloaders. If you accumulate many tons of it, you can go into the lead bullet casting business. Lead bullet casting machines are not very expensive. Just go online to see what commercial casters are charging for their bullets....expensive but what can you do, the market dictates pricing.
 
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mmattockx said:
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
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I'd be intrested in putting some $ towards a bulk order...
 
hey im up in nanaimo, i would be interested in the 50-75 cents a lb range, and i could even pick up on the average trip to victoria i make. pm me when your up and running.
 
Maybe the bullet barn would take any excess... I'd make a trip to the island for a good deal on clean lead! If you have the space to store it and the funds to buy it without stress then I'd say go for it! Why don't they re-use them?
 
must be cheaper to buy new containers than to ship the empties back to Chalk River .

Can-down said:
Maybe the bullet barn would take any excess... I'd make a trip to the island for a good deal on clean lead! If you have the space to store it and the funds to buy it without stress then I'd say go for it! Why don't they re-use them?
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I have put in a request to buy the lead, and will see how it goes. The administrative wheels turn slowly, and they are currently reviewing how they dispose of used isotope lead... so everything is up in the air right now. Hopefully it lands in my favor, and I might have to do some hazmat training... but we'll see. I have talked to the current recycler, who says he will sell me what I need, but that doesn't help anyone else...

Will add updates as they happen.

Thanks for the feedback guys. If I can make this happen, seems like it would be a good thing for quite a few people.
 
Red Herring said:
Thanks for the feedback guys. If I can make this happen, seems like it would be a good thing for quite a few people.
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You will be doing a great service to the casting and reloading community if you can prevent all this good lead from going to China. Please keep the lead here where it will do us the most good. If I did not stock up on lead in the last couple years, I'd be interested in some, but I am pretty sure other casters will be.

In fact, you do not even have to cast the Isotope containers into ingots. Sell them on the EE as is. Thanks for your efforts.
 
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I am not sure of the size of an Isotope container, but for shipping purposes you might want to squish them flat with a hammer or some other method. I agree that melting them down into ingots would just create more work for the vendor.
 
Unfortunately for us here in Canada, Canada Post does not offer a flat rate like the USPS does. I had my 40 lb box of linotype shipped from a US ebayer to my US shipping address for $10.00, because it fit in the $10 flat rate box.

I sent 50 lbs linotype from Vancouver to a Calgary address via Greyhound and they charged my buyer $87.00. I guess that exhorbitant shipping cost was acceptable to the buyer because he needed the lino.
 
easyrider604 said:
In fact, you do not even have to cast the Isotope containers into ingots.
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buckbrush said:
I am not sure of the size of an Isotope container, but for shipping purposes you might want to squish them flat with a hammer or some other method. I agree that melting them down into ingots would just create more work for the vendor.
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I would be more than happy to just get the flattened containers and do the ingot work myself.


Mark
 
mmattockx said:
43% markup, actually.
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In sales the % of mark up is not figured as you calculated it. 50% mark up means doubling your cost, or that half your gross sale is "profit". So if I was to buy a product for $100 and turn around and sell it at $200. That's 50% mark up.
If his raw cost was $.35 a 43% markup would require a $.61 sale price. If you do it the other way, you're leaving money on the table.


Just wanted to clarify it, its important to do it right to make $ and still give the customer the idea that your margins are low. :)
 
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