Lead is still out there

Rex

Active Member
:pWent to my local tire shop to get the oil changed in the old pickup. Ask the owner if he could still get lead weights and he said he did. Also said if I would take a 5 gallon bucket full of old weights I could have them. They would need sorted. I believe over half are lead with a lot of stick on.
I just pinch them with a pair of dykes and the non-lead are easy to tell. With what I have under my bench I believe I have enough to last the rest of my life,,,,course, I'm 77.:p
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
I've been trying to convince myself that I should melt down my zinc WWs and save the um, zinc. I see more casters experimenting with them and I can't tell if zinc ingots have any value to the world or not.
 
F

freebullet

Guest
Zinc is cheap as scrap around here. Guys use zinc for cannon balls & fishing weights .
 

RBHarter

West Central AR
I've been musing about a zinc shotgun RB since the Bismuth thread . But I don't have an expendable pot or an iron mould for a .690 . I certainly don't want it any bigger .
 

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
I'm glad someone is getting lead Tire weights....Where I live in the northeast I stopped going around to the tire shops and gas stations.
A 5 gal bucket used to be profitable at $25 ...well the $25 stuck but over the past 3 years I went from 80 % lead to 80 % zinc and now it is about 90 % steel!
The old days are gone for me unless I'm lucky to find an Old Mom / Pop filling station out in the boondocks!
The way I get my lead scrap now it to pick the berms! Mining them on a Public range is illegal
 

Rex

Active Member
I culled about half the bucket full today. Surprisingly most were lead, there were the usual steel stick-ons, a few zinc clipon and a handful of clip on that appeared to be a plastic of some sort. I've never seen these before, anyone else ever find any plastic clip on weights? What the dickens are they?
 

uncle jimbo

Well-Known Member
Yes I find them in the buckets of wheel weights I get. Also find some rubber like stick on weights too. I get mine from a Les Squab tire dealer. Cost me nothing, just need to go pick up. I get a average or 25 to 30% yeild for my efforts.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
We have a lot of old lead mines up here. We also have a large zinc mine, a place my youngest boy is semi lined up to work at. I looked into the recovery process to get the lead from the ore (Galena?) and it appears to be a lot more complex than getting iron ore or eve copper. Anyone know anything about from the practical standpoint?
 

Ian

Notorious member
I thought they just heated it in a closed furnace while piping flue gas to it as a reducant.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Way more complex than that Ian. Lots of flotation tanks and additives. PbS tends to float and ZnS doesn’t.
No way is it a home process
 
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Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
That was my understanding Brad. I watched a video or 2 on it on You Tube. What little I could find in print wasn't geared at all to something to do at home. I was hoping it would be relatively easy like making quick lime or getting iron out of ore. My impression, never having knowingly seen Galena, is that it doesn't come in veins like some minerals, but is scattered through the rock and is pretty tough to separate. I figured it might be easy since it was so common in Rome and early America. Maybe getting a little bit is easy, like with copper. Or maybe it's easier to get in some areas than others, maybe it runs if veins elsewhere. Need a geologist to start posting here!
 

Mitty38

Well-Known Member
I found what I believe to be a zinc alloy, stick on wheel weight. Strip.
When in the melt pot today the sucker would not melt at 675F degrees. Looked like lead a little harder when I did the cut test, but not as hard as a typical zinc weight.
Just floated around for 5 minuets till I took it out. Magnet would not stick. Just curled up and floated. Anyone else ran into this.
I just thought it kinda odd, as I thought all stick on bendable strips were lead, or mild steel.

Oh, and I had another question, is there a better way to get rust particles out of suspension in your lead ingot alloy then fluxing it with sawdust 10 times??
 
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Ole_270

Well-Known Member
I've just been picking lead out of the berm at the local public range, when it's dry enough. Up to about 800 lbs net now, so just doing it out of boredom mostly. I've sent a few samples of to BNE for testing and it's averaging 0.2% Sn, 1.4% SB. Getting enough cast with it to bring the % up some. Once in awhile I'll happen on to a pocket of 45 cal 500 grainers, that fills the bucket up quicker. Sure wish those guys shooting there would upgrade to 44s and 45 instead of all the 380s and 9mm's
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Your tests are roughly the same as what I found years ago when I had some tested.

Range scrap as is makes up the majority of my handgun bullets.
 

Mitty38

Well-Known Member
I have found range scrap to be a good free source also. However for me not so consitant.
The range that I get most of my range scrap from is a proverbial mix.

It contains slugs,muzzle loader balls, and all kinds of pistol and rifle ammo including home cast. (I have even found some "Elvis Ammo" PC Zinc .223. Which I toss.)
I have been putting the Range Scrap into pucks and testing BHN. They can range from 6 to 16 BHN depending on what I pick up that day.

So I pick out anything 9 to 12 and put back for the 357.

Anything less then 9 goes for my muzzle loader balls, and gets mixed 50-50 with lead roof sheeting and 1%tin. Just kinda makes them just the right size and weight for my 50.

I imagine the stuff I am picking up after local CCW classes probably would match your chemistry.

However thanks to a generous gift from a member here,, and also some scrounging I did amongst my old car days buddies. I have amassed a little over 200 lb of mostly vintage, mostly lead coww.

So COWW are still out there. You just got to throw enough inquiry's out there, and see if any stick.

I am in the process of melting them down in small batches and fluxing them clean with saw dust.
Then one day have a smelting marathon, and try and mix the COWW's into 1 big batch of chemically identical ingots. So I can start making my own bullets for the 06.
 
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Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
A couple suggestions.

First, testing ingots gives false readings. The cooling rate of the ingot makes a huge difference. Pour into a cold Ingot mould and your get a different result from the same pot poured into a hot mould.

I tend to do large runs of range scrap, like at least 1 five gallon buckets at a time. If I want to ensure better uniformity I keep ingots from each pot in a separate pile. Once done I remelt using the same number of ingots from each pile. This gives a very uniform lead supply in large quantities.

In my case I just figure that my range scrap is pretty random and therefore uniform. I use a Dutch oven for smelting and it holds 25 pounds or so. I have never found this method to cause me any trouble.

I like to keep it simple whenever possible.