The joy of free roofing lead

[P Flados]

The neighbor across the street is in the roofing business.

We are on good terms and infrequently (~once a year) he comes through with a gift.

This one was a good size pile :bigsmyl2:

It will be ingots within a week using my lead smelting / pine cone disposal system (second picture, old photo).

It would seem that us "non muzzle loading guys" tend to score the soft stuff and those that want soft seem to score the hard stuff. I am not asking for a trade, but I do happen to reside in Southeastern NC if anyone is interested :wink:

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[maxreloader]

There may be quite a bit of tin in that pile... the joints on all the old traps/pipes were sweat with 50/50 or better...

[jeepyj]

There may be quite a bit of tin in that pile... the joints on all the old traps/pipes were sweat with 50/50 or better...

Those look like the old roof boots from a flat roof,. I've removed a few in my younger days. Should test a tad harder than pure.

[OS OK]

Be ever so careful melting those as they can trap water...for goodness sakes don't add them to molten lead. Bring each batch up to melting temperature from an almost cold pot, an empty pot.

[maxreloader]

Those look like the old roof boots from a flat roof,. I've removed a few in my younger days. Should test a tad harder than pure.

Geeeeeez, haha I missed that, from a roofing bub, not a plumber... sorry but I dont know what roofing lead entails so please disregard my earlier comment. Apologies.

[dtknowles]

Geeeeeez, haha I missed that, from a roofing bub, not a plumber... sorry but I dont know what roofing lead entails so please disregard my earlier comment. Apologies.

I an not sure you are wrong and neither is Jeepyj. If you melt them all together it will have a little tin because there are some solder joints and it will be a tiny bit harder than pure. I got a bunch and I cut the joints out and kept them separate. The rest was dead soft, BHN of 6. I have not melted the joints.

Tim

[Conditor22]

a nice score of roof pipe vent jacks

https://i.imgur.com/d8S4MmD.jpg

180# pure
https://i.imgur.com/x2xRU1v.png

[kevin c]

Whole lotta lead. Even better is that it's an ongoing source. :drinks:

[richhodg66]

A bout a year ago, I looked at a big bucket of old roof jacks, water pipe solder joints, lead pipe and other "pure" stuff I had that I wasn't really sure about and made a big batch of 20 to one as I've been blessed the past few years with quite a bit of free tin. The intent was to cast all 60 pounds or so of it into those Lee 405 grain hollow based bullets for my .45-70 shooting and I cast a few and they shoot well. Truthfully, I probably could have gotten away with less tin and still had good results. The real soft stuff can be useful, you don't have to be a muzzle loader to appreciate it.

I fond pure to be a pain to cast with, works fine for the short, fat conicals and round balls, but was wondering if "purish" lead like that would make good mid range wadcutters for .38 Special.

[P Flados]

FYI, I am probably going to remove any joints with visible high tin appearance. Any high tin stuff will get blended in with other stuff I use for boolit making. The last batch of soft I did this way tested out a 4.5 bhn. I will hold onto the "near pure" as long as possible just in case I find someone looking for dead soft.

My biggest low cost (no actual cash, more than a little sweat equity) source is 8.5 - 9 bhn range lead. I have typically been getting 5 to 10 gallons of unprocessed range lead a year. It comes from a private club range that has open to the public IHMSA matches. I get a harvesting opportunity (no one at the pistol range) about half the times I attend a match.

Over the past 3 years, the zero cash stuff has probably been 60% of my supply. I supplement as needed.

Quite a bit of my current stash came from $1.10 / lb chunks of 6 bhn sailboat keel. I have been blending this up to ~7.5 bhn by mixing 50-50 with range lead for light pistol load boolits. Before we did the keel stuff, I did one run to a local scrap yard where I paid a little more, but most of the scrap yard stuff was a little harder (say 8 bhn).

Where I am hurting is my pitiful stash of harder stuff. Probably 50 lbs of stuff that will water drop up to 14 - 16 bhn.

[lightman]

Thats a nice score. It sounds like you have a good neighbor.

[jsizemore]

Wilmington?

[MOA]

I had a roofer off load all the roofing jacks from his jobs in Mobile Alabama for 7 years. Would get maybe 10 of these barrels full of flattened boots a year. Was able to buy wheel weights from Fausak tire. Got maybe 8 five gallon buckets which almost all was good lead. I've got one 35 gallon trash can left of boots to smelt down. Will pour them into 10 pound bricks.

https://i.postimg.cc/9Q9B8wXq/20190325_043025.jpg (https://postimg.cc/cvsY6Hns)

https://i.postimg.cc/2SySZfQq/20190324_111403.jpg (https://postimg.cc/v4RsJkSM)

[LAGS]

I use to get my roof lead from several subcontractors that worked on the jobs I managed in construction for the past 20 years.
Before that I was in demolition and scrounged the lead from pipe joints , lead Flashings and roofing material we tore off.
I gave most of it to other reloaders over the years , but still have over 300 lbs left now that I retired.
All that scrap lead worked great , and some if not most of it I smelted it down and blended it with Tin and Antimony for casting rifle and handgun Boolits.
A bunch of it was cast into muzzleloading balls and buckshot for my black powder collection.

[P Flados]

Wilmington?

Yes I live in Wilmington.

[P Flados]

Cutting the joints out was harder than I remembered. First you have to unfold a wadded up mess, then pull off any sealant/shingle pieces, then cut out the joint with tin snips.

A looong day.

183 lbs of pure ingots and half a 5 gallon bucket of loose packed joints

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I was also very lucky, it was cool, overcast and breezy all day. Then it just started to rain as I was wheeling in the last of the stuff from the back yard.

[GregLaROCHE]

You sure are right that we don’t always score what we really want. I collect range scrap from my clubs indoor range. Jacketed bullets aren’t allowed. Where I find the most lead people are shooting mostly handguns. The factory made boolits, they tend to use are pretty hard, my ingots range from 12-16 BHN. It works great for high powered rifle rounds, but now days I’m doing a lot of muzzle loading, so soft is better suited.

Unfortunately, I am in Europe, so and trading is out of the question due to transportation costs.

[P Flados]

FYI,

A couple of guys contacted me about possible trades, but for now I will just put this stuff back and wait. Hopefully I will eventually run across someone that will trade hard for pure on an even basis.

I have a good supply for my regular needs. I just worry about finding a wonderful rifle loads that want a lot of stuff that is harder than my bulk supply.

Also, there are folks down here on the coast that cast fishing weights on a regular basis (they used to be my competition at the tire store where I got wheel weights). If I really get ambitious (or desperate) I do have a couple of options that I really ought to look into. I should hit up the local bait shops and see if they can give me any names of local guys making them fishing weights. Alternately I could just get some fishing weight molds and try to turn some pure lead into cash to be used to buy superhard.

[lightman]

I used to get a lot of telephone cable splice covers that had seams put together with solder and I used to try and cut them out. I even bought an air chisel for the job. I finally quit. Just too much work for the end product. The small amount of tin had a minimal hardening affect when I melted everything down and fluxed it.

[trebleplink]

I have processed a bunch of lead vents with good success - cutting up on a table saw. It was pretty much all soft lead - some tar and silicone sealant dross. What is a "roofing jack"?

[Doubles Shooter]

I ran into a friend at the diner this morning that had 50 pounds of new sheet lead in his trunk for me. He also has a 5 gallon bucket of plumbers lead scrap. He's also checking a contact for tin for me too. It was worth giving him some of my coated boolits. Working on another guy that works for the village to watch for lead pipe on water main repairs. He's interested in some boolits too. I like bartering for stuff.

[MOA]

I have processed a bunch of lead vents with good success - cutting up on a table saw. It was pretty much all soft lead - some tar and silicone sealant dross. What is a "roofing jack"?

We'll the roofing vent boots were sometimes called roofing jacks. They are in reality not roofing jacks. Just a slang term I've heard used. A roofing jack actually is a platform with locking plates that give one something to stand on while working on a roof.

[jsizemore]

Some manufacturers still refer to their roof vent flashing as roof jacks. Guess they don't know any better.