I bought some 25# pure lead ingots from a gun shop last year that got them surplus & I paid $ 10. each for the ingots. (.40 a pound)
If you find any "cheap" pure lead it will be a fluke...... and the guy won't know what he has. Or it will be wheel weight lead & they lie about it being pure.
If it is Pure Lead, you can easily cut it with your thumb nail.
Pure scrap lead was going for $ .82 a pound about 2 weeks ago here. It was up to $ 1.25 a pound a couple months ago, til China decided they had all they need for a while. China controls the market on Lead now, as about 95% of the auto & truck batteries are coming from there.
I did buy a 500# pure lead ingot for .25 a #, but only because it was encased in 1/2" plate steel & they didn't want to bother melting it out & etc. Fortunately for me they never looked at the bottom of it, as the bottom was already cut out. :grin: I only had to make one 6" cut & the entire encasement came off. YOu should try to miove a 500# ingot of that stuff :shocked2: it lays REAL close to the ground...
I also bought a big piece of sheet lead from them that is 1/8" thick by ? 3-4' square all wrinkled & folded, anyway, it weighed 205# & had to give .75 a pound for it. Looks like a industrial flashing off an old building or something.
Even wheel weight lead is high right now, but don't remember the $ he said it was. Same dealer had a 55 gal steel drum of pure lead drain pipes in assorted sizes... LOTS of weight there, but I didn't need it. Plus I am a little leery of what may have went thru those pipes.. He offered it to me for .70 a # since I sell them allot of scrap copper & brass, but I have more lead now than I will ever use.
Keith Lisle