A while back I bough a bunch of mixed type metal from a scrap metal dealer couple cities up. They had a metal bin about 3.5' square full of mixed linotype.. and monotype.. foundry cores.. etc.. an odd cast bullet.. etc... 99.9% type metals.
I had been going down on my days off and buying a 5g bucket of it.. here and there.. then sat down and smelted it all a couple months back. Got 493# of clean type metal ingots out of that labor.
The guy at the scrap metal place called me and said he grabbed about 80# for himself and that they were getting rid of the rest if it didn't move. they had already stacked the bin to head to the recycler. I went down there today with 5 5g buckets ..gloves and a scoop and after about 1.5 hours work had looted the bin down to dust and crumbs...and filled the 5 buckets about 2/3's or so each.. about as heavy as them buckets will take. Paid for 448# of bulk scrap type metal and that officially cleaned them out. 1.50 per pound plus tax.
Over the holiday I will start smelting down into ingots and see how much I get this time. I am making pound and half pound lee ingots, smooth and ridged corn pone ingots, and mini muffin ingots, as well as short and long angle iron mold ingots. I use the mini muffin pan to also pour 'coin' mini ingots so I can just drop coins into a pot to sweeten the mix if needed. When done I hope to have at least 380# or more of type metal ingots out of this haul. This was on the bottom of the bin.. and is a bit dirtier. I'm still ok .. the buckfifty price is great for type metal.
Between this and my last haul.. I should have plenty of bullet lead for a loooooong time. ( may have to trade some for soft lead or coww lead eventually though.. )