Where d'yall get your lead?

[AJ Dual]

I need some 20/1 lead/tin alloy for the .45-70 low pressure Trapdoor loads I'm making.

Found a good load using Hogdon with decent 1645fps velocity, and a nice low 18,900 CUP, way under the 28,000 max recommended for a Trapdoor. 405gr hollow/skirt base that Lee makes for good bore obturation and rifling engraving for accuracy.

I got some Natchez shooters supply gift certs for Christmas, got all I needed, but to my chagrin, they don't seem to carry any casting alloy. To date, I've only been making Foster slugs for my cylinder bore Saiga 12ga, and they use pure lead, or hell... any lousy scrap I could find, dug out of my club's berms, and fluxed once or twice since they ride in a shot cup and never touch the bore, and I know they'll never be going through a choke anyway.

So when you can't scrap what you want, where do you go? 

[Jim147]

Do you have some pure lead? You could use tin solder to make your own.

I think Midway carries it. I don't see any at Missouri Bullet right now. There is another company but I can't think of the name right now.

jim

[AJ Dual]

Do you have some pure lead? You could use tin solder to make your own.

I think Midway carries it. I don't see any at Missouri Bullet right now. There is another company but I can't think of the name right now.

jim

No. I've been making "Moscow match" slugs out of Wallyworld 100 round pack Fed. Bulk #8's, and someone from the Milwaukee area on Arfcom was looking to dispose of several hundred rounds of old reloaded shells that sat in a garage for years, so I tore them down for components.

I'd thought about getting a bar of tin from a hardware store and just alloying it with scrap. I guess I could just go to the scrapyard, and flux the hell out of what they've got. But I figured for my first attempt at some "real bullets" I'd go with something that was a known quantity.

I'll do Midway unless there's other good suggestions.

Thanks!

[mtnbkr]

I got an 80lb chunk of x-ray shielding from a friend and added 20-odd pounds of superhard alloy from Rotometals.

I purchased 300lbs of wheel weights from a local guy as well.

Chris

[Jim147]

  and added 20-odd pounds of superhard alloy from Rotometals.

Chris

www.rotometals.com was the other company I couldn't think of. That would be a good place to look if you want to start off with a know alloy.

jim

[AJ Dual]

I got an 80lb chunk of x-ray shielding from a friend and added 20-odd pounds of superhard alloy from Rotometals.

I purchased 300lbs of wheel weights from a local guy as well.

Chris

Yeah, I know buying lead is never cost effective as compared to scrapping and smelting, it's just that this is a pilot project for a Springfield Trapdoor, so I'm looking to limit my variables a bit this first time. With the 12ga slugs, as long as they filed in okay, I didn't give a damn how the alloy was. They were for blasting from 20 round Saiga drums at 25-50 yards.  

So if someone has an idea that's as cost-effective as it gets for buying 20/1 lead/tin alloy online, let me know.  

www.rotometals.com was the other company I couldn't think of. That would be a good place to look if you want to start off with a know alloy.

jim

Oh... that's good. They actually start getting close to spot prices in high quantities, which is a hint you're not getting raped on their upcharge for handling etc.

[RoadKingLarry]

I've gotten quite a bit of "pure enough" soft lead from old shower pans and old cable sheathing. If you can find lead pipe it is close enough as well.

[zahc]

I need some 20/1 lead/tin alloy

You keep saying that. What does 20/1 mean?

[mtnbkr]

20 parts lead, 1 part tin.

Chris

[RoadKingLarry]

You keep saying that. What does 20/1 mean?

Standard alloy for BPCR.

[Jim147]

20, 21 whatever it takes.

jim

[AJ Dual]

Standard alloy for BPCR.

Yep, I'd go harder, to keep things cleaner, but the Trapdoor 405gr loads need a softer alloy so the Minié Ball-esque hollow-base skirt can expand and engrave the rifling properly. (Lee makes a 405gr .458 diameter hollow base mold just for this purpose...)

Later on in the service life of the .45-70, the Ordnance corps found that a 500gr solid was big enough and long enough to obdurate the bore sufficiently without the hollow base.

The Lee single-cavity molds are only about $16, and as such, are about one of the cheapest parts of the whole enterprise. If I find the sights on my Trapdoor are better regulated for 500gr, (Look at the big man talking! Thinks he's Quigley or something! Gun club's range is only 100 yards...) it's not a really big deal to try again with the 500gr mold.

[roo_ster]

Buddy of mine has some radioactive lead bricks if you'er intersted.

[zxcvbob]

I bought 300# of pure lead foundry ingots a few years ago for about $100 by running an ad of Craigslist.

I get most of my lead now at the pistol range.  In the summer, I carry a gallon ziplock freezer bag and a trowel with me in my range bag.  If I'm the only one there (so I don't disrupt someone else's shooting) I scrape up the lead under the steel targets.  Just takes a couple of minutes to get 15# or so.  Last spring, I cleaned out the indoor range bullet trap.  Got about 800#, and could have got more except I ran out of buckets.  The hardest part was lugging the buckets upstairs and loading 'em in my truck.

[AJ Dual]

Buddy of mine has some radioactive lead bricks if you'er intersted.

How radioactive are we talking here?  

I bought 300# of pure lead foundry ingots a few years ago for about $100 by running an ad of Craigslist.

I get most of my lead now at the pistol range.  In the summer, I carry a gallon ziplock freezer bag and a trowel with me in my range bag.  If I'm the only one there (so I don't disrupt someone else's shooting) I scrape up the lead under the steel targets.  Just takes a couple of minutes to get 15# or so.  Last spring, I cleaned out the indoor range bullet trap.  Got about 800#, and could have got more except I ran out of buckets.  The hardest part was lugging the buckets upstairs and loading 'em in my truck.

I've used some range pickup lead from my club too. However, my club only leaves steel plates out for USPSA/IDPA matches, so the lead is mostly all embedded in the dirt berms. And we don't have an indoor range at all. I suppose I could as the club if I could dig out the berms. Although they just might say "no" on "better safe than sorry" out of concerns I wouldn't put the dirt back, or erode the berm or something. Or they think it'll undermine the lead re-claimers who go through our club every couple of years.

[zahc]

Standard alloy for BPCR.

Thanks.

What does BPCR mean?

[MillCreek]

^^^ Black powder cartridge rifle

[Pharmacology]

I bought 300# of pure lead foundry ingots a few years ago for about $100 by running an ad of Craigslist.

I get most of my lead now at the pistol range.  In the summer, I carry a gallon ziplock freezer bag and a trowel with me in my range bag.  If I'm the only one there (so I don't disrupt someone else's shooting) I scrape up the lead under the steel targets.  Just takes a couple of minutes to get 15# or so.  Last spring, I cleaned out the indoor range bullet trap.  Got about 800#, and could have got more except I ran out of buckets.  The hardest part was lugging the buckets upstairs and loading 'em in my truck.

Holy cow! 
I used to get lead from tire shops, but the managers I was on good terms with have all but left.

A buddy worked at a pep boys, and got me a whole bunch one time. Store manager was fine with it, but the service department manager (?) then told my buddy that I needed to make him 7mm ammo (which I don't reload for) in exchange for lead.  I told the guy that I was fine with paying the business for the lead, but that he could go pound sand.

[Scout26]

Ask around the tire shops.  I've got a few that I hit about every other month and get 100-200#'s total each trip.

[HankB]

Wheelweight alloy varies all over the place - years ago when I was in college I did some gamma spectroscopy on wheelweights and in addition to the expected lead, I found antimony, arsenic, and all kinds of other interesting stuff. It's moderately hard, but not like Linotype. I remember reading that there are "some" wheelweights made today that are not primarily lead . . .

I expect the 20:1 lead/tin alloy to be very soft - usually antimony is used to harden lead. (Most lead shot contains antimony as a hardener.) Tin is usually in cast bullets to aid "castability."  I usually added 60/40 solder to my wheelweight alloy for this reason; the wheelweights were "tin deficient."

I've read that some people using pure lead/tin alloy effectively end up with solder that really sticks to the bore - I haven't experienced this myself, but haven't shot anything that didn't have at least some antimony in it.

[brimic]

Most of the chain tire shops aren't going to give away W/Ws.
Look for a garage/tire shop that might be listed as a superfund site in the future.
They will usually have an old oil drum or several 5 gallon buckets full of W/Ws lying around the shop.
Make them an offer. The shop I used to get mine from let me have whatever I would haul away.

You can get just about any alloy from Ebay for reasonable pricing. The shipping isn't as bad as you think either as most sellers stuff as many ingots as they can into a USPS flat rate box

I mainly use W/Ws as-is, unless I'm making very heavy bullets (.475s) or long skinny bullets (6.5s) where its difficult to get the mould to fill out. I add a 1/2lb of 50/50 bar to the mix, then add in small increments until the mould fills correctly(I'm not too particular or scientific in my casting). Tin isn't for hardening, its for allowing the lead to flow into all the nooks and crannies in the mould before it hardens.

If you can't find bar solder locally (menards and Home depot won't have it) Neu's Hardware in Fall's has it, or at least had it last time I was there.

[Fly320s]

I grow my own.





I'm a lead farmer, motherf***er!

Sorry. Had to be done. 

[Pharmacology]

Ask around the tire shops.  I've got a few that I hit about every other month and get 100-200#'s total each trip.

Wow man, the shops in your area must be a lot busier than mine,  as I only nab about 15 or 20 lbs every time I go out.

[Pharmacology]

Dang it... think I'll go lead hunting this weekend now.

I am running low