I smelted 443lbs today over 7 batches. I also my first lead explosion. It was a lucky one too because it didn't get on me or anything important. There was moisture in wheel weights I dumped in and the small heal I had left from the previous batch went BANG! I then used a blow torch to dry out the rest of the wheel weight batch.
I measured one batch of wheel weights. It yielded 77lbs of lead and the steel clips and dross left over weighed 16lbs. 90ish lbs is about the capacity of my system before the heat can't keep up with the lead cooling off and the pot is pretty damn heavy at that point.
Just for anyone observing, this is what I have as todays yield:
19lbs of straight stick on wheel weights (free)
77lbs of clip on wheel weights (might have a few zinc ones that melted, but less than 1% by weight) (free)
75lbs of clip on weights, no zincs, I added a bit of pewter to get up to a predicted 95/3/2 blend. (free)
90lbs of roofing and other lead that tested at 99.8% when I bought it from scrap yard (paid for it)
17lbs of previously lubed bullets that were assorted calibers (I posted photos a month ago of all the random bullets I had aquired) (paid for it)
75lbs of clean bullets that I acquired w the lubed ones above (paid for it)
90lbs of lead that I acquired from another user that XRF tested with 13% sulphur (must be wrong) and now has been "cleaned up" for retesting (the original XRF sulphur reading photo is in a previous post) (paid for it)
Tough Day at the Office:
Its time to get your lead stocks and powder caches in place. Its plentiful and cheap. Its also a good time to get your shell casings stockpiled. The primers will come back and then Murphy's Law... lead, brass and powder will be in a shortage.