Cheapest place to buy lead online?

[Maillemaker]

I currently buy 99.9% pure lead online from rotometals. It's about $2.35 a pound with free shipping over $100. Anyone know of a cheaper place?

Steve

[ian45662]

Buffalo arms

[Maillemaker]

Great web site!

But they do not offer free shipping on their lead like Rotometals does.

When you price out 60 pounds of lead, including shipping, Rotometals is very slightly cheaper.

Steve

[Fred Jr]

I plan to have lead at the Nats in Oct. I will post here around the end of August at which time I will have a price. The price last spring was $1.65 a pound. Watch for my post "FRED'S LEAD". My lead is virgin lead and is 99.99 pure. I have been suppling members here for at least 25 years. I will also bring a load down at the other skirmishes if enough is ordered.

Thanks for looking,
Fred Herlinger 1097

12 TH PA

[RaiderANV]

While I try not to buy anything outside of a steal deal on this anti-gun site......ebay usually has it cheap.I sold there years ago. I made a mold that fit the inside of the small USPS flat rate box and it ran$4.145 shipping. They hated me because the block of lead that fit in it weighted51 pounds. They reduced the size of the box so I don't know what will fit but I'd guess 30-32lbs.

[Maillemaker]

I plan to have lead at the Nats in Oct.

Yeah, I'm always jealous when I see people buying your lead at those great prices! :) Unfortunately I'll probably never go to a nationals as it's a 10-12 hour drive from here and not something my family with little kids will be into so it's hard to justify the vacation time.

Steve

[mike a]

Thanks Ill contact you before the fall nationals Mike A Nasemond Guard
I plan to have lead at the Nats in Oct. I will post here around the end of August at which time I will have a price. The price last spring was $1.65 a pound. Watch for my post "FRED'S LEAD". My lead is virgin lead and is 99.99 pure. I have been suppling members here for at least 25 years. I will also bring a load down at the other skirmishes if enough is ordered.

Thanks for looking,
Fred Herlinger 1097

12 TH PA

[Mike Stein]

Yeah, I'm always jealous when I see people buying your lead at those great prices! :) Unfortunately I'll probably never go to a nationals as it's a 10-12 hour drive from here and not something my family with little kids will be into so it's hard to justify the vacation time.

Steve Call it an education vacation. You just happen to be stopping at Winchester. Throw the keys to the wife with a "have fun, see you at dinner." Virginia has lots of things to see and do.

[RaiderANV]

If you want the lead deal from Fred at Nationals ASK ONE OF your team mates if they'd mind bring it back for you.

[Maillemaker]

Call it an education vacation. You just happen to be stopping at Winchester. Throw the keys to the wife with a "have fun, see you at dinner." Virginia has lots of things to see and do.

Yeah, but it's not much of a vacation for my wife to babysit two small children (4 and 7) in an RV while I go have fun shooting - she'd just as soon stay at home and babysit where at least she has her own things to putter around with.

How many days out of the 6 days of the event do you actually shoot?

I think if we are driving 10 hours for a week anywhere with the RV my wife will insist it be Disney. :)


If you want the lead deal from Fred at Nationals ASK ONE OF your team mates if they'd mind bring it back for you.

I've had folks pick up caps and powder for me before, but we don't always have people going to the Nationals, and I'd hate to ask someone to pick up 100 pounds of lead.

Steve

[mike a]

I currently buy 99.9% pure lead online from rotometals. It's about $2.35 a pound with free shipping over $100. Anyone know of a cheaper place?

Steve KCould I have their contact info? Do you have to do it on line or can you call them and send a check? thanks mike a Nasemond Guard

[Maillemaker]

http://www.rotometals.com

I always just use the online shopping cart with a credit card.

I almost never do business by phone anymore unless the vendor is still in the stone ages and no other options are available.

Steve

[Bob Lintner]

Check out castboolits.com search for a guy by the name of Phoenix. He sells triple fluxed lead at good prices.

[Lou Lou Lou]

"The Captain" also sells hard and soft lead on castboolits.com

[terrydull]

Hey! ... still new to ML shooting ... and trying to put a budget together for the shooting accessories I'm going to need. How much lead does the average shooter go through in a year?

I'm going to start with pre-made "Burton" balls to gain experience in just the live fire aspects, but I want to quickly move into casting my own "Burton" balls.
I'm looking at having to buy moulds, casting equipment (my wife won't let me use her pots & pans ... don't know why ;)), a sizer (still trying to figure that one out), etc. So a budget will be important.

I read above that somebody said they order $100 worth? Is that what lasts a season?

Thanks,
Terry

[Lou Lou Lou]

terry
it depends on how much you shoot. A pound is 7,000 grains. A full size minie is 500 grains. There for figure 14 minies to the pound. That is why some people shoot the smaller minies.

At a regional shoot, between individuals and team events you could shoot 75-100 rounds, depending on your speed and fervor. If all you had was a musket, you could attend approximately 14 skirmishes a year. Start adding other guns and your lead usage goes up.

I do not know who makes a Burton Ball mould. Moulds can run from $75-$125 each. Custom moulds will run more. Check out moose moulds on the NSSA site under vendors.

Any other questions just ask.

[Lou Lou Lou]

I believe Steve said that for orders over $100, shipping was free. Lead can be obtained fro $1 to $3 a pound. One of our members Fred brigs several tons to Winchester at around $1.60 a pound. The $100 was for 60 pounds of lead from roto metals. Hope this helps.

[terrydull]

terry
it depends on how much you shoot. A pound is 7,000 grains. A full size minie is 500 grains. There for figure 14 minies to the pound. That is why some people shoot the smaller minies.

At a regional shoot, between individuals and team events you could shoot 75-100 rounds, depending on your speed and fervor. If all you had was a musket, you could attend approximately 14 skirmishes a year. Start adding other guns and your lead usage goes up.

I do not know who makes a Burton Ball mould. Moulds can run from $75-$125 each. Custom moulds will run more. Check out moose moulds on the NSSA site under vendors.

Any other questions just ask.

Yes, this was very helpful ... little bit-o "kitchen" math going from lbs to minie's (which Phil S. calls "Burton balls") He gave me an electronic "Gibbs head smach" the other day for calling them minie balls :D ... Phil's done a lot of reserach lately on Mr. Minie's design and the improvements made by a Mr. Burton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Burton) at Harpers' Ferry.

Calling them "Burton Ball" is just a homage to Mr. Spaugy ;)

[Maillemaker]

If you have to have it shipped, Rotometals is the cheapest place I have found to buy pure lead through an online shopping cart store.


A pound is 7,000 grains. A full size minie is 500 grains. There for figure 14 minies to the pound.

So, to take this to a feasible number of annual usage, let's assume you only shoot Rifled Musket.

Figure a 100 rounds per skirmish. Figure one skirmish per month. That's 1200 bullets.

Figure one practice session per month at 100 rounds per session. That's another 1200 bullets.

1200 + 1200 = 2400 bullets
2400 500 grain bullets = 1,200,000 grains = 171 pounds of lead.

If you shoot a rifled musket and a carbine, you can double that.

If you shoot a rifle musket, a carbine, and a smoothbore, triple it.

If you also shoot a revolver, add some more.

So you can figure 200-500 pounds of lead annually depending on how many guns you shoot, how often you practice, and how often you go to skirmishes.

Steve

[Jim Mulligan 7288V]

The Burton bullet design although an improvement to the Minie design was still inadequate. It was not until the mid twentieth century that Zimmerman made it work very well.
You guys shoot a lot. I figure 6-7 skirmishes 60-75 rounds per and same number of practice sessions 25 rounds per.

[terrydull]

Thanks for all the sage advice ... I plan on practice shoots twice a month Nov - Mar ... I'll budget 30 rounds per shoot ... so, that will leave me needing about 22 lbs for the winter, if my math is right ...

Maybe Santee Claus will being some lead this year instead of coal!

[Jim Mulligan 7288V]

You're an engineer...just but 500 lbs and forget it.

[terrydull]

you're an engineer...just but 500 lbs and forget it.

rotflmao!!!!

[Maillemaker]

I probably only do 5-6 skirmishes, but then I go shooting for practice about twice a month if I can, and shoot about 100 rounds per practice. If I'm going to the range I make day of it.

Steve

[ian45662]

I go to the scrap yard. I will go in whenever I get the feeling. Sometimes I may find 40 pounds of lead that I can use and I will buy it at .70 per pound. Other times there is no lead and every once in a while I will walk in there and they will have almost 300 pounds of x ray room lead. When that happens I buy it all up :cool:. 2 weeks ago I was able to get enough to keep me shooting for the next few years which is a really good thing since I had about 40 pounds to my name. If your going to buy from a scrap yard though it pays to have a lead tester. Preferably one that you could take down there and test ingots like the cabin tree lead tester. Very handy tool when dealing with lead from un known sources.

[terrydull]

I go to the scrap yard. .... If your going to buy from a scrap yard though it pays to have a lead tester. Preferably one that you could take down there and test ingots like the cabin tree lead tester. Very handy tool when dealing with lead from un known sources.

Good advice. Never thought of the scarp yard.

[Maillemaker]

http://www.castingstuff.com/cabinetree_loading_products.htm

Web site for the Cabine Tree Tester.

Whew. It's astonishing to me the number of folks in this industry that have web sites that still look like they are from 1995! :)

Steve

[Phil Spaugy, 3475V]

Good advice. Never thought of the scarp yard.

Make damn sure it is soft........or you will not be very happy at all.

[R. McAuley 3014V]

I shoot hard lead (wheel-weights if not 1:20 alloy) for everything but musket and carbine (muzzle-loading) because I can alloy the hard lead to reduce bullet weight. My .685 round ball, for example, would typically weigh about 460-grains in 99.9% pure (2780 gr/cu.in.), weigh just 440-grains with 1:20 alloy (2650 gr./cu.in.) and so only needs 40 grains FFFg at 50 yards versus 70 grains FFg with a 460-grain ball. You guys are throwing far too much lead downrange and burning far too much powder for the cost of both. At $0.16 for powder plus another 11 to 16 cents per round for lead, for some of you it costs between 27 to 32 cents to load smoothbore. It costs me just a tad over 9 cents per round for powder, and 5.6 cents per ball or maybe 15 cents a round--- a savings of at least 12 to 18 cents per round, and that’s at 90 cents per pound for lead. And some of you are consuming 500 lbs of lead a year? WOW!!! You guys got some gas wells up in Pennsylvania?

[ian45662]

My carbines do not like hard lead. Neither sharps or smith although the smith took the harder stuff better than the sharps did. My Henry likes harder stuff and my smoothbore does not know the difference between hard or soft lead. I have never had a problem with scrap yard lead mainly because I test it but I have heard horror stories. From now on just in case I bought 100 pounds of pure virgin lead and I will use that only for musket. All the other stuff that tests soft and pure will be shot in carbine. A mixture of wheel weight and soft will go through Henry and if I don't know what the make up is the smoothbore eats it up

[Maillemaker]

I just got an email from Rotometals for a 10% discount offer:



Explore the Savings...4 Days Only!


Now through Monday, October 14th, Save 10% on your website* order.


We just want to say thank you for being a loyal customer.
use website coupon code "1492" during online checkout to save instantly.


Steve

[R. McAuley 3014V]

According to Rotometal's website, their price for 55-lb (99.9%) pigs is $1.49/lb. Question is, is how much does Rotometals charge for shipping? I can only imagine shipping rates from the San Francisco bay area to anywhere on the east coast is likely going to be cost-prohibitive for shipping lead ingots, though they do offer free shipping on some products, the cost per pound for those products is at least double the price at nearly $3.00/lb. About the least expensive of the "free shipping" line of products is the 5-pound ingots at $2.39/lb (at $11.95/ingot). Thanks but I think I'll stick with my local suppliers.

[Maillemaker]

Question is, is how much does Rotometals charge for shipping?

Shipping is "free" for some orders over $100 (look for the green truck icon). They ship it in USPS flat rate boxes which my post lady loves. :)

If you buy 55 pounds (11 ingots) of their 99.9% pure ingots the total cost is $131.45, or $2.39 per pound. Right now you can get a 10% discount.

For the 55 pound pigs, I just noticed that they will sell them cut in half and give free shipping for $112.99, which works out to $2.05 per pound.

If you buy it now with the 1492 10% discount code, the total with shipping is $101.69, or $1.85 per pound.

http://www.rotometals.com/product-p/55_lbs._of_lead.htm

These pigs are stated as being approximately 2.5" x 3" x 10", which means they will just fit in my Lee 4-20 pot.

I have been buying ingots. Thanks for pointing out those pigs!

If you've got a local supplier for lead it will almost certainly be better than buying it through the mail. I don't have a local supplier and while there are some scrap yards I don't really want to deal with the variability in buying unknown purity lead.

Steve

[FirinFlatTop]

no guessing on X-ray lead or plumbers lead, should both be super soft.

[Mike Stein]

I qualified for free shipping from Roto-Metals. The only downside was the look from the mail carrier wondering what in thunder I'd ordered in a relatively small box.

[R. McAuley 3014V]

no guessing on X-ray lead or plumbers lead, should both be super soft.

Don't count on either of these as being as soft as you may think. Sheet lead, and radiation shielding such as lead brick or lead-lined drywall products are required to meet Federal Specification QQ-L-201F, for either Grade B (99.5%), C (99.9%), or D (99.85%). Grade B lead sheet is intended for use in laboratories and shops in general application, or in contact with corrosive chemicals; Grade C is intended in uses where high purity is indicated, or for use for submarine battery tank liners; while Grade D is intended for use where lead sheet requires structural strength, such as lead brick. Grade D lead sheet, for example, is required to have a Brinell hardness of 6.0 to 7.5 measured with a 10mm ball under 100 kg load for 30 seconds. Grade C and D sheet lead (1/2" thick) bear symbols, including grade, in non-water soluble ink or paint.

[Dheisey#7003]

I have seen radiology lead go all over the place also. MANY years ago a friend bought two Xray rooms worth of lead - I think 5 ton, it cost more in gas to bring it home. It was soft. But the lead I got from a relative from Three Mile Island was very hard. I traded the hard lead to a plumber who wanted to make sinkers out of lead pipe he had which was dead soft. We both won.

I buy lead now from a team mate. He is pretty local and when I buy, I but about 150# at a shot.
On the shooting side, I shoot about 200 rounds a year out of my musket and same out of the carbines, (two Nationals, 3-4 regionals and hardly any practice) I buy speer swaged balls for my revolver.

[Bullseye54]

Coundn't resist... I had 2 orders of Roto Metals Presidents Day special delivered today.. Free shipping and all.. And got the finger from my usally very nice mail lady, wonder whats bothering her.. Anyway, I will weigh and test tomorrow for hardness...

[Southron Sr.]

Sanders Lead Company of Troy, Alabama will sell you 99.9% PURE LEAD at the "Market Price" on lead on that day.

Tonight the "Market Price" of pure lead is 85 CENTS PER POUND In other words, about $51.00 per ingot (plus sales tax.)

The only thing is that they sell lead in 60 pound ingots only, and hence you will need a 40 pound lead pot to melt the ingots for casting.

The only other proviso is that you have to stop by the smelter in Troy to pick up the ingots.

[Maillemaker]

I used to live down in Montgomery. Would be so easy to pick some up then.

Steve

[Maillemaker]

Hey Southron,

I did some poking around on Google maps, and discovered that Troy is only about 2 hours south of where I'm already driving to for our skirmish at Brierfield.

So since I was taking last Friday off anyway to shoot at the skirmish, I went down Thursday night and camped out in the local Walmart parking lot, and then got up bright and early and headed over to Sanders lead. Picked up 5 60-pound pigs of certified pure lead for $.906 per pound ($54.36 per pig). I kept one for myself and sold the rest to team mates for $60/pig. So I "made" $5.64 per pig, or $22.56, to help pay for gas.

It's a 225 mile trip to pick up the lead, and at 10 MPG and $2 per gallon for gas that works out to $50 in gas to pick up the pig. So the $60/60 pound pig cost me $110. Subtracting the $22.56 I made off the other 4 pigs that's $87.44 for the pig, or about $1.45 per pound.

Rotometals lead costs me about $1.80 per pound, delivered.

In the future I think I'll charge an extra $10 per pig to cover gas. That will make it $1.16 per pound delivered.

A single pig is a bit too large for my rendering furnace but I'll either figure out a way to cut it in half or I'll just rig up a crane to suspend the pig in the pot with some chain and pull out half when the pot gets full.

Thanks for getting me thinking about this again.

Steve

[bobanderson]

A single pig is a bit too large for my rendering furnace but I'll either figure out a way to cut it in half or I'll just rig up a crane to suspend the pig in the pot with some chain and pull out half when the pot gets full.

Thanks for getting me thinking about this again.

Steve

I cut a large chunk once with my logsplitter.

[Michael Bodner]

I use a 3" wide floor chisel and a 2-3 lb hand sledge. Just keep pounding away and it only takes a few minutes to cut through. Just don't try to get it in one shot...

[ken stiles, 0526V]

several years ago a skirmisher organized a bulk buy of lead and had the 18-wheeler deliver it to the fort.

we got a great lead in 60-70-lb ingots for a super cheap price. i think people needed to buy at least 1,000 lbs each or so.

wondering if there's interest in doing such again?

[ChrisWBR]

several years ago a skirmisher organized a bulk buy of lead and had the 18-wheeler deliver it to the fort.we got a great lead in 60-70-lb ingots for a super cheap price. i think people needed to buy at least 1,000 lbs each or so.wondering if there's interest in doing such again?That was Dave Baldwin of the WBR. Unfortunately Doe Run, the smelter he used, has been shut down due to federal (EPA) regulations. Rumor was they were going to reopen, but it hasn't happened yet.