Sinking Creek 4WD Association

After doing some researching on internal balancing I have decided to use lead shot to balance my tires. This leaves two options 1 box of target loads 25 ounces for $3.50 or 25 pounds for $19. If there are other people interested I may go the 25 pound route.
Adam

i just got my 37's and i'm looking to go with airsoft (or similar) plastic BB's. as far as i can tell, about 8-12 oz per tire seems to be the right amount. i think 2000 of the cheap airsoft bb's are 8 oz. 2500 (or a whole can) is 10 oz. I think a 2500 bb can is about 6 or 7 bucks at wally-world.

Whats the advantage of the plastic airsoft pellets vs. steel BB's or lead shot? I've heard of several people using the airsoft pellets, but not sure why they'd be better, cost?

Adam, I'm going to internally balance my 34" LTB's, so I might be in if you get the big bag of shot.

they don't rust because they're plastic

I am going the route of lead shot because they dont rust they are very dense and I can add them through the valve stem plus 20 bucks worth could do 25 to 50 tires.

From what i've read (never seen it in person, tho) the copper clad bb's and lead shot tend to deteriorate over time, leaving lead dust or steel dust in the tire. they also will (over time) chip away the paint or powder coat on the inside of the rim. sort of depends on how much street driving the rig will see.

I just got back from wally world and picked up 10,000 .20 gram Heavy plastic bb's for 19 bucks. we'll see how they work. 2500 per tire should be plenty, if not overkill.

I wouldn't do any more than 2472 per tire Clay, but that's just me.

I put 16 oz of BB's in each of my 38.5's and it works great. You never hear them, and they ride better than they did when they were balanced the normal way.

Hey Mike did you add all 16oz on the first try or did you start out with a smaller amount and move up from there.

I added all 16 oz to start with. My tires had been balanced before, so I took the largest amount of weight that was on them, and then divided it in half and went with that.

Divided it in half because the weight will be at the tire now and not at the rim, so you don't need as much.

The way I look at it is you can have too little, but if you have too much it will just balance itself out, so I would put more than you think you need

So whats the rule of thumb on how many oz. of weight to put in each tire? I'm going to be balancing my 34x10.50 LTBs this way and need to know about how much to add per tire.

Here is where I got my info. from. I figured it would give a good starting reference.
http://www.innovativebalancing.com/BigTirechart.htm

lead shot is toxic as well

just to follow up on this:

37x14 bias iroks: 16 oz per tire keeps them balanced all the way up to 75mph. works great.

I split 6500 airsoft BB's between four 35x12.50x15 BFG M/T's on 15x8 steelies. That works out to 7 ounces per tire, just under the 8 that the website above recommends. It shakes around 45mph, so I'm gonna step it up to 10oz per tire and see if that helps.