This Was the Haul........

......and that's about 1/3 of it. I wish I vould say that it followed me home, or, rather my back wishes it had followed me home, but NO! Box by box and bucket by bucket we (Cheryl & I) loaded it into the Subaru and took it home, riding low.

An old friend, a local gunsmith, had passed away and we were helping to clean out the shop. Over 500 guns had been transferred to an auction house already, keeping BATFE happy (yes, they paid a visit). The family was going to scrap all this metal (EEEKKK!) but I stopped them B4 they did that. There's a couple more loads to be gathered up and then I can begin smelting, it will be coming soon to a sale site near and dear to us all. Gimme a couple weeks to get it poured up and packaged and I'll have it posted on S&S.

I'd never seen a spool of lead foil before.

Attachment 317568

Here's the first load.
Attachment 317569

Some of these bars are marked 60/40, some are marked "Half & Half", and some aren't marked at all. So, 60/40, 40% tin?
Attachment 317570

These are a lifetime of handloaded ammo that never got shot, no labels, unknown loads. They were going to scrap it all (OMG!), "No, let me take them home and I'll pull the bullets and dump the powder. We can probably sell most of the bullets and brass!" "OK", they said. Boys, it's gonna' be a long winter.............
Attachment 317571

the lead flashing is very valuable to slate roof repairers.

Marked solder is "tin/lead" so your 60/40 is 60% tin.

Wow.

If you're going to sell it off, I'd leave the bars, solder, and known soft Lead items like they are.
That way, it's easy to see what it is, and will make it worth more than just a plain ingot.

For example:
Go to ebay, type in 'bar solder' and 'Lead free solder'.
Check out what it's selling for over there.

OR, You could offer on here to members in need of this stuff for a much more reasonable price. I am not saying that because I need it because I don't, I am saying it because we generally take care of each other here and since you did not pay a lot for it then do not try to retire on it. Or at least not all of it. But I do agree that leaving the bar solder in it's original form is best, that way the buyer knows what it is for the sale and also going forward when they need to know what it is. I got a couple hundred lbs. of tin or solder that was just marked as solder or tin and that was it. Melted into blocks and all odd shapes. So now I need to have each piece analyzed to see what they actually are.

The marked solder says 40 60 so 40 percent tin and 60 percent lead.

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Originally Posted by Rickf1985

OR, You could offer on here to members in need of this stuff for a much more reasonable price. I am not saying that because I need it because I don't, I am saying it because we generally take care of each other here and since you did not pay a lot for it then do not try to retire on it. Or at least not all of it. But I do agree that leaving the bar solder in it's original form is best, that way the buyer knows what it is for the sale and also going forward when they need to know what it is. I got a couple hundred lbs. of tin or solder that was just marked as solder or tin and that was it. Melted into blocks and all odd shapes. So now I need to have each piece analyzed to see what they actually are.

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Yes, I am going to put it up for sale in the Swapping and Selling forum, not on Evil-Bay. The proceeds will go to the widow, not in my pocket. I hadn't considered leaving it in its original form, thought I'd melt it and make ingots but it makes sense to leave it as is, certainly saves me a ton of work! Thanks for the tip!

All that wasted ammo...if I croak tonight, all of my reloads are all bagged and marked. My family and friends will shoot it with confidence, I believe.
Nice haul on the lead, indeed!

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Originally Posted by centershot

but it makes sense to leave it as is, certainly saves me a ton of work!

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I used to work with guys younger than my kids.
I'd often tell them,
"Don't make extra work for yourself..... There's plenty of other people more than glad to do that for you".

Of the few things I've run on S&S- I look up to see what they're going for on other sites.
Then run them here for about 75% of that.
Everything I've sold turned pretty fast and guys seemed to be glad to get it.

I agree with ed. dont melt it down. I personally keep all my alloys just as I got them until I'm ready to melt a batch of ingots this way I can never again get my alloys mixed up and there is never any question of what I'm putting in the pot

How do you know the ammo is NG? If he was a shop and loaded it, it’s probably good. Pull some down and see what it might be.

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Originally Posted by Martin Luber

How do you know the ammo is NG? If he was a shop and loaded it, it’s probably good. Pull some down and see what it might be.

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Yeah, I can weigh the charges but who knows what the powder is?

Probably good but unmarked and no idea what it is. I agree it is "probably good" but I would not put it in my gun and pull the trigger! How do you know he didn't load some proof loads for someone? Not likely but you just don't know.

Nice haul.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Martin Luber

How do you know the ammo is NG? If he was a shop and loaded it, it’s probably good. Pull some down and see what it might be.

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It's never a good idea to use someone else's reloads.
Too many variables that can and will cause a kaboom.
I would imagine those rounds wound up in a bucket for the "Someday" disposal".

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Originally Posted by pworley1

Nice haul.

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Yes. Nice haul indeed.

Thats a nice haul! Sorry for the loss of your friend!

Like the others, I would leave that bar solder in its original form. But I probably would melt those rolls all together and make ingots. I did that with a bunch of odd rolls and sent BNE a sample to test. It was messy, as some of the rolls were rosin core and a few were acid core.

As far as the odd lead goes be your own judge. I would sort through it and melt it into batches of like material and cast it into ingots. But thats just me.

Well, I just spent to much time & energy hammering lead pipe into kinda' flat bars and packed 50 lbs. into a MFRB. And that is all that will fit, and it takes judicious packing to get it in there. At this point I'm convinced it would be easier to melt the pipes and pour them into ingots. That, or just cut them to length and pack 40 lbs. into a MFRB. Or, I can put more weight into a LFRB but the cost of shipping goes up too. So, 40 lb. MFRB's?

Melted and cast into ingots would probably be easier. But some people like it in its original form.