Where to get lead for decoy anchors?

[Ringbill]

I decided this year to get a mold and make some of those strap weights for the heck of it. I was going to use wheel weight lead, but i have been told that it makes brittle strap anchors that won't last but a few times of being bent back and forth. Anyone have any experience with making these? Where do you get your lead? If I can't use the wheel weight lead, where might I buy some lead to make my own? Thanks very much.

Ringbill

[judge jb]

i always used wheel weights and they don't seem to last long... i think the store bought ones have another material mixed in for strength... tin or something ? may try a local plumbing supply who got caught with a load of lead before it became obsolete....

judge jb

[chance]

Try your local junkyard. Ask for sheet lead or soft lead like lead pipe. There is quite a difference between it and used wheel weights. Lead is pretty cheap.

[Ringbill]

Good ideas...thanks very much...I will try each!

Ringbill

[tunica du4u]

You can still buy lead at plumbing supply warehouses. Kinda steep though, last i got. Friend of mine said he uses old battery lead. Haven't tried that myself

[Ringbill]

Thanks again for the ideas...I found a local recycle place that sells it for $0.20/lb as old lead pipe and they have 800lbs. I figure for $10 i can make a ton of weights! I appreciate the help.

Ringbill

[Wildfowler]

The thing is with the strap weights, you need as "pure" of lead as you can get. I tried it with the tire weights also. And had the bad results. I was told that the lead was cheap. Meaning it had impurities.

I've never thought of the lead pipe before, do you happen to know if it is a good quality lead? Let us know what your results are.

Thanks.

[Ringbill]

Wildfowler,
I don't know if it is good quality or not, but from what I have read over at the refugeforums it seems that folks have much better luck with lead pipe and sheet lead than wheel weight lead. Others say that you can skim the linotype from the wheel weight lead, but I imagine that I would screw that up. So I will try the pipe when the melter gets here and report back.

Ringbill

[Brian Hollis]

2 places:
1. call a residential roofer in your area and ask him if he has any old lead flashings from roofs he has torn off. This lead is high quality and can't be reused. Cut it with tin snips into strips and drill a hole for string
2. check with any local racers in your area. The lead used on race cars has usually been melted down at least once and should be pretty pure. You could anchor a lifetime of decoys from one 25 lb. brick of lead

[southboundanddown]

There is a place in ruleville ms that makes the weights and also you can by lead from them to.. The name of the place is precision delta. They make lead bullets.

[Ringbill]

Well here's what I did. I got some scrap lead from the recycle place in West Point for 20 cents/lb. It was really dirty and they claimed came from old sewer lines. Nonetheless it melted fine and after skimming off the crap (pun intended) it made soft and nice decoy anchors. I will say, though, that it was much harder to pour them than i thought and it took me probably 20 to get it right. At least i can remelt them. I was using a Lee Precision Pot to melt the lead. Hope this helps someone, email or PM me if I can help you do this .

Ringbill

[Bullie]

Wheelweights make excellent cast handgun bullets but poor decoy weights. Wheelweights are made up of several different metals and don't hold up well to bending. In my experience if they are thin enough to bend, they break. Seems to be a little worse in cold weather. Any "pure" lead should make good weights and the suggestions for sources were right on. All my reloading manuals say the same thing about battery lead. "DON'T TRY TO USE IT!!!" Could cause your kids to be born naked and in funny shapes. Also could cause em to be tree huggers (not the timber hunting kind of tree hugger) and in a few cases, they turned out to be Tennessee Vol fans. And, I know noone here wants that to happen. It is supposed to be dangerous. Fumes and the hazard of just acquiring the metal. Anyway, wheelweights bad (too many harder more brittle metals), pure lead good. Use all the wheelweights for bullets.