Its been a while but the last time I bought it I just want the a local gun store. You can but a 10 pound bag of lead shot used for loading shotgun shells. It pours very easily.

Doug

or do what I did, not lead, but environmentally friendly cat litter. The 6 inch ogive took a kg in the first 7 or 8 inches. Epoxied it in, then foamed, and still have a 4" by 12" payload tube if I need more weight.
J

Never thought about cat litter... 🙂 While getting my fill of fireworks over the 4th of July week off (love 3" motars!) in Missouri, I bought 15 oz. of fishing weights that I'll put in the very tip as I set in the all-thread, remembering to put the nose in a bucket of water to keep it from deforming. I'll still have room for the kitchen sink if necessary, as this monster keeps getting heavier. 10 pounds at the aft, without the motor casing or reload.

Hey if yu had 4 cats (combined family) and hauled in the stuff in 30#+ bags every couple of weeks, you might see the light too. Since this was a NC that houses GPS telemetry, I was advised by the designer to use non-metallic materials on the off chance it would interfere with operation. Cat litter is also very cheap and if I plug it somewhere know hungry kids or animals won't eat it......... 🙄
JS

I realize this thread is kind of old already but I'm sure these topics come up regularly as folks get into new aspects of the hobby.

In creating my L1 rocket for Oktoberfest this coming weekend I ran into the need for 5 oz. of nose weight. The lead shot at the gun stores seems to only come in 25lb bags at around 40-50 dollars which was too much for me (in quantity and price). I stumbled upon zinc plated, steel BBs at Wal-mart in a 4000 ct container that I would guess is about 5lbs worth of shot for just under $3! The 3 oz of shot I used (along with 2 oz of Epoxy) hardly made a dent in the container so it will last for many other projects. No lead too which is nice for the environmentally conscious out there. 😀

John

The price of lead - along with copper, zinc, aluminum, steel and most other commodities has shot up over the last couple years due to China. Do like I do - boycott Chinese goods if at all possible.

Warren

The price of lead - along with copper, zinc, aluminum, steel and most other commodities has shot up over the last couple years due to China. Do like I do - boycott Chinese goods if at all possible.

Warren

Dont worry, there is just a billion of them wanting what three hundred million have here! My roofing nails doubled in price because they shut down the Factories for the Olympics. (dam I am not even a fan) Seams the athletes were complaning about the foul air! What a bunch of wimps! I think we needed to add another element (smog) to the games to make it more challenging.

By the way, I find most Americans, in my Bussiness are very frugal, and never they mind, supporting paying enough money, to support benifits to the families, of the workers that do the job. It just isnt in the cards.
Hey I like 5 doller shirts at walmart too.
Owe well.

The price of lead - along with copper, zinc, aluminum, steel and most other commodities has shot up over the last couple years due to China. Do like I do - boycott Chinese goods if at all possible.

Warren

I hear you. I never shopped at Wally-World until I needed the nose weight, more because I dislike what stores like that do to small business in general. Actually never set foot in the store until then! That said, I am a bit conservative when it comes to resources (don't like waste) and when I found those BBs I couldn't resist. They are manufactured both in the US and China, packaged in the US. Not to start a $@#Tstorm but boycotting the Chinese isn't the way to correct US economic issues...boycott your government and the people who create the situations that sometimes unfairly empower foreign markets here.

John 😉

Wait a second... I like Kung Pao chicken. For weight, we have smelted down the tire weights used to balance/unbalance wheels easily acquired from lots of tire shops. A torch, tongs and a heavy glove makes for condensing weight into nice little chunks that can then be epoxied in place.

mmm...Kung Pao! Ever try to see how many of the peanuts you could pick up individually without dropping one using chopsticks? 😆 The chopsticks also make great stir sticks for epoxy and other stuff!

I like the melt your own approach Joe. An exact fit to the shape is possible that way. Nice.

I've used fine sand in the past. Mix it in with the epoxy. That is until my father in-law told me about powered tungsten. Ideal if space it at a premium. 50% heavier then lead. I get mine from Golfsmith. It's pricey, about $15.00 for a 1lb jar. They also have lead tape, but I don't remember what that costs.

But hey it's only money. a reload costs more then that. 😀

Mark

You know,
You could just go outside and pick up a rock from you land scaping. They are really cheap!
If you dont have any come over to my house!! Many sizes of river rock to choose from.
And if you bring a beer and tell good jokes you can have it for free!!! 😉

I needed a small amount of lead shot, and I also didn't want to buy a huge bag of it, so I bought a box of shotgun shells and cut them open. Then I learned about tungsten powder and that's what I use now. In the last few months I've made two 24mm nosecones with 80 grams of weight, one with epoxy/shot and the other with epoxy/tungsten. The tungsten one had a significant amount of room left over. I got mine (golfsmith also) from Amazon.com. One weird thing about it is that it prevents the epoxy I use from getting very hard. It's not soft enough to move, but it is soft enough to dent with a fingernail. This happened for me with 2 different batches and I never have any trouble with epoxy hardening completely when I use it by itself.

They don't list an amount, but I found some Tungsten BB's
http://www.pinewoodpro.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=021200