What do yall do with your scrap lead finds?

[CoilToTheSoil]

Not sure about yall but round here we have loads of fire bullets (modern) as well as a ton of melted farm and industrial lead/babbitt in some locations. Do you keep it and take it in for scrap? What do you get for it if so?
I've amassed about 125 or so pounds of it thus far lol.

 

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[Crappies-n-Coins]

Give it to one of my buddies who pours jigs. I get free jigs and egg sinkers in return.

 

[CoilToTheSoil]

One day I'll get a swaging setup to cast boooolits for black powder but until then I don't feel like keeping it around hah

 

[wainzoid]

I use mine, roundballs for my muzzleloaders, jigheads, and toy soldiers. Take it in for scrap, its worth something.

 

[garrett at pro lvr]

i save it for sinkers, bullets, and weights for gill nets melt it myself. saves me a bunch of money. the scrap yard dosnt pay but .50c a lb so its worth more to me in a bucket than to give it to them.

 

[DigIron2]

I just throw them in a coffee can.Not much money in lead right now.might scrap them one day it if it ever goes up in price.

 

[ARC]

I grind it up with a heavy duty cheese grater and smoke it. :P

 

[DigIron2]

I grind it up with a heavy duty cheese grater and smoke it. :P

lol AA,that is hardcore man.better slow down or gonna end up like a madhatterevery once in awhile i'll draw out a couple lines with that powder off the old lead for luck

 

[DigIron2]

i save it for sinkers, bullets, and weights for gill nets melt it myself. saves me a bunch of money. the scrap yard dosnt pay but .50c a lb so its worth more to me in a bucket than to give it to them.

Pretty smart,sinkers can be exspensive.

 

[Idaho Digger]

The way this country is going, some day, Lead may be more valuable than Gold.

John

 

[cactusman]

I used to sell it as scrap, but then started melting it down into 1-pound ingots and selling it online in small (flat-rate size) boxes to people who cast their own bullets -- I've gotten WAY more than scrap price that way.

 

[CoilToTheSoil]

I used to sell it as scrap, but then started melting it down into 1-pound ingots and selling it online in small (flat-rate size) boxes to people who cast their own bullets -- I've gotten WAY more than scrap price that way.

Awesome what smelting setup do you use? Where do you sell if you don't mind me asking.

 

[cactusman]

Awesome what smelting setup do you use? Where do you sell if you don't mind me asking.

I use a Lee Lead Production Pot and Lee Ingot Molds, four 1-pounds ingots at a time. -- Every year or two I mine out a small local shooting range by hand for a few days and pick up several hundred dollars, fast and easy. I toss the lead I find metal detecting in with it -- might as well recycle as much as possible!

I sell the ingots on eBay.

 

[CoilToTheSoil]

When mining the backstop you just do it with a pointer? Man that's gotta be a workout but worth it!

 

[Sandman]

When mining the backstop you just do it with a pointer? Man that's gotta be a workout but worth it!

No workout at all, use a screen sifter.

 

[perry2]

Digging range lead I use a shovel and 1/4" screen-takes about 10 min to get a 1/2 bucket--I use a Propane cooker and 10" iron pot-- skim off the copper jackets etc---same process for wheel weights--Good WW lead is good for pistol bullets as is // A bullet caster would have to pay about $4.00/lb to buy it//// Perry

 

[cactusman]

When mining the backstop you just do it with a pointer? Man that's gotta be a workout but worth it!

I use a 1/4-inch classifier, dust mask, a small shovel and some five-gallon buckets -- fast and easy work! I leave the detector at home for that one, and just toss the lead I find detecting in with the bullets. Like everything else; it all adds up!

 

[s.c.shooter]

I give the fishing sinkers I find to my brother who loves to fish. The scrap I save to sell and donate the $ to our local SPCA from where we got one of our cats.

 

[FC-Treasure]

I was looking at pyramid sinkers for ocean fishing on Amazon today. The prices are pretty high. 14 1 ounce sinkers for $10.82, 7 2 ounce sinkers for $7.39, etc. So anyway, $8 or more a pound for lead sinkers.

 

[Juice in the hole]

I toss the lead bits in an old water barrel and take in my scrap to the county recycle place. I just don't see that it would be worth my time to take it to the "paying" recycle place which is about 30 miles away.

My question is where does it all come from. I can identify the bullets sure, but what about all the other melted globs? Why is there so much of it in my primary hunting site? This is an old homestead farm occupied from mid to late 1700's to around 1900. Mining waste? There was plenty of small scale gold mining here in the 1800's. Blacksmith waste? I imagine in the very ealy days of this farm everything was probably made by hand on site.

Anyone else experience this melted lead and other metal gold phenomena?