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The lumber yard tip is a very good one, i'll keep that in mind.
Do you happen to know what is the chemical make up of lead flashing ? is it close to pure lead or mixed in as alloy ?
It is pure lead. If you know any roofers or builders ask them if they have any old stuff that came off of roofs. I have picked up hundreds of pounds that way. It isn't worth much to the scrap yards because it is covered with tar and other junk.
Ahhha lead, the stuff nightmares are made off, one of the EPA's favorite metals and the shooting community's too!
Has anyone looked into it seriously?
I'm thinking about it somewhat, and purchased some basic amount to set aside to "see how it feels".
With all the (relative) craze surrounding lead, it's still available in scrap yards for 10-20 cents over spot - I just passed on a few hundred pounds for 95cents/pound of lead sheets. Mainly because I'm not sure how serious I am at this point of having a few hundred pounds set aside in ingots. (I'd have to melt it into ingots from sheets).
For the number crunching - getting them in ingots from ebay is ~$1.45/pound - considerable difference in price, well justifying doing the melting myself.
The pluses for anyone on NES are obvious, and so is the merchantability both out of and especially in SHTF scenarios, so, no further explaining needed.
If one has the room (which I do), i sincerely don't see a downside of having a few hundred pounds set aside, at least. The smallest USPS flat rate box (~6"x4") holds 12lbs of lead, so the space needed for 100's of lbs is really not much more than 3'x3'x4'.
Would anyone like to share experience/tips ?
You do not want to even try to extract the lead from batteries. It is hyper toxic and not worth the risk for such a small yield.