How much lead fits in a 5 gal bucket?

[awp101]

I used to have a source for wheel weights that would bring them by every so often. I wound up with a full 5 gal bucket, most of another and 2 smaller buckets.

The only scale I have goes to 5lbs and we don't have a scale at work. Any idea what the weight of a full 5 gal of wheel weights should be?

Thanks!

[TedH]

I think about 180 pounds?

[MikeS.]

More than I care to lift anymore

[fordwannabe]

varies depending on trash, tape weights,zinc, cig butts ect,ect but between 125 and 150 is a good guess. Tom

[awp101]

Thanks guys!

MikeS, that's no joke!

[Hankster]

Be sure to wash them THOROUGHLY before melting!!!! Any old "road salt" will cause an ugly accident!

[adirondakjack]

All the way full they are dangerous. The handles wanna pull loose of the bucket. About 2/3 full, or 100 lbs, is about all the wire bail wants to take without exiting the plastic.

Now a 25 gallon oil barel 80% full is 389 lbs. Got one sitting in the garage right now, and another at 330.

FWIW I never wash em. I dump em on the concrete apron outside the garage, pick out the valve stems, most of the stick-on weights, and shovel em into a big dutch oven on the fish cooker burner. When they start smoking, light scraps of cardboard and toss them in to keep a flame going and limit the smoke. shovel out the clips and flux with sawdust then a final flux with wax, then make ingots. I processed 100 lbs of pipe and 250 of WW the other afternoon.

[awp101]

Well, that's what I get for posting past my bedtime. It's two full 5gal buckets and two 2.5-3 gal buckets (pool chemical buckets, that's how he brought them to me once).

Thanks aj, I almost found that out the hard way.

So if I use the 125lb estimate, I figure roughly 375lbs as they sit. If I were to sell them with no sorting would it be fair to consider the whole lot as 300lbs? I know there's some stick on weights but it's not much, no trash (dirt is another story ) and some cast bullets (maybe 10lbs worth) I've picked up at close out sales and the like over the years.

What's the going rate per pound now a days for wheel weights?

[adirondakjack]

Scrap yards PAY about 25 cents a pound and sell em for fifty cents a pound.

[fordwannabe]

if you melt em, skim em, flux em and make ingots about $1 a pound. Tom

[TedH]

My curiosity got the best of me, so I brought out the bathroom scale and weighed a couple of buckets I had here. The one on the left was pretty much level full and weighed 179 pounds. The one on the right was down a couple inches from the top and weighed 161 pounds.

[awp101]

Thanks Ted! That really gives me an idea of what I've got.

[TedH]

I should point out that those buckets don't contain any zinc or other unusable weights. Minimal dirt/garbage too, perhaps a stray valve stem or two.

[KirkD]

TedH, those are nice looking wheel weights. The ones I get are filthy.

[adirondakjack]

So yer clip ons will yield about 125-135 lbs of alloy, and ya end up with half a bucket oc clips and such.

Sweeten WW with pure lead, 3WW to 1 pb, ya got some nice bullets for pistols and low end levergun stuff.