Where do you guys pick up your lead for melting?

[bladeracer]

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Lead would have to be very scarce before I'd bother hacking up car batteries.

Youve lost your inner kid. busting and burning was the fun part more than ever the prospect of obtaining the lead for whatever purpose we were getting it for

For fun is a whole different matter

We just went off-grid and I'm looking at the 120kg lithium battery hanging off the wall thinking, "What would happen if I shot that?"

[cadet]

I can’t believe I’m reading that people are burning batteries in their backyards to get lead. Not safe for the home hobbyist. Don’t. Rip the terminals off and leave it at that if you're really desperate.
Commercially made lead shot is far too expensive to melt for bullets.
Scrap wheelweights don’t have nearly the proportion of lead ones they used to, but the clip ons are a good hard alloy, and the stick ons are near dead soft. just have cull the steel and zinc out. Scrap roof flashing is dead soft. Both can be had via the beer economy. Op shop and garage sale pewter is mostly tin, and often sells for cheaper than scrap prices; good for alloying. linotype/printers lead is a good hard alloy (harder than ww), but hard to find now.

[TassieTiger]

[

Lead would have to be very scarce before I'd bother hacking up car batteries.

Youve lost your inner kid. busting and burning was the fun part more than ever the prospect of obtaining the lead for whatever purpose we were getting it for

For fun is a whole different matter

We just went off-grid and I'm looking at the 120kg lithium battery hanging off the wall thinking, "What would happen if I shot that?"

“Der is hella kemistree din herr, poot it out, poot it out” these guys with their lithium lol.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y-a405s1eio

[Irish9]

If you have crappy, contaminated lead (such as melted down batteries, wheelwights etc) flux it with beeswax, it is amazing the difference it makes. I use beeswax for casting most of the non-ferrous metals I use, clean, easy and non toxic. Buy the cheaper stuff cast into blocks if you can get it, it still has bits of bees and crap in it but makes no difference to the metals in my experience.

[Oldbloke]

If you have crappy, contaminated lead (such as melted down batteries, wheelwights etc) flux it with beeswax, it is amazing the difference it makes. I use beeswax for casting most of the non-ferrous metals I use, clean, easy and non toxic. Buy the cheaper stuff cast into blocks if you can get it, it still has bits of bees and crap in it but makes no difference to the metals in my experience.

+1. Including any scrap lead you get. You need to melt it into handy ingots anyway

[Gadge]

I can’t believe I’m reading that people are burning batteries in their backyards to get lead. Not safe for the home hobbyist. Don’t. Rip the terminals off and leave it at that if you're really desperate.

This, plus a biggest one. And I say this wearing my 'professional hats' - dual qualified Industrial Chemist and Chemical Engineer.

This article over at the Cast Boolits forums spells the rationale out extremely well...
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthr ... -Dangerous

[wrenchman]

I have wheel weights and old fishing sinkers and my late brother worked for a armored car company and the money bags had lead seals so I have lots of soft lead and the harder stuff