I was in almost this exact situation, I posted on another board about this a few years ago. I ran into a deal through a friend of a friend.....this guys brother passes away. All his gun and reloading stuff was stored in an extra bedroom, for a little under $1000 I get everything but have to load it and haul it away (this was also where the litter boxes for all the cats in the house were kept....don't ask for details on that). We filled up a small Ranger pickup, the mud guards were scraping the ground as we left. The guns were:
Colt .45 Commander
AMT .45 Hardballer (that actually worked)
Ruger .22 Mark I (with a long 5 inch barrel)
Ruger Stainless Security Six 357
Ruger Stainless Speed Six 357
There were some other rifles and shotguns but he had sold those already.
We dumped all the reloading and other gear in my garage and it took me about six weeks to go through it. There were about 17,000 Albert swagged bullets (mostly in .45 and .38), a dozen Lee molds (some were custom ones, a Keith profile in .38 dropping at 180g), a Lee bottom pour lead pot, three presses (a Rockchucker and two Lee Turrets), a lubrisizer, a half a dozen sets of dies, extra raw lead, extra bullets of all different kinds (thousands and thousands, some he had bought some he had cast), six 5 gallon buckets of brass (mostly .38 and .45, some brand new starline stuff still in the package), 8 lbs of Bullseye, about 10,000 primers, thousand and thousands and thousand of handloads in .45 and .38, all different kinds of ammo from .22 to 5.56, pistol rugs, gun cases....even a 5lb can of Mica....it just went on and on. I ended up with half a 5 gallon bucket just full of odd loaded rounds, from .22 to .45 that I ended up just throwing away since I had no idea what they were.
I told the seller that he could get much better prices but he would have to cull through everything, clean it, organize it, take pics and put it on Craigs list for the reloading items....or at least put the pistols on gunbroker.....but he didn't want to mess with anything like that and was just looking for enough to put up a head stone for his brother and wanted the bedroom cleared out.
As leery as I am of shooting someone else's hand loads I couldn't bring myself to dump all the ammo cans of .38 and .45 reloads and have been shooting them in the strongest 357s and .45s I have (a GP100 and the Speed Six I got as part of the deal as well as a Ruger P90 for the .45). This was in Oct of 2008 and I still haven't gotten through the .38 reloads....whenever I think it's all gone I end up finding another .30 cal ammo can in the ammo room full of his reloads....I read his notes that he left in the can then pull down and recheck some of the rounds before I take them to the range and haven't had any problems so far. I have hardly touched the .45 reloads (am a little more leery of those but have shot some).
As I look back on the whole experience I wonder if that someday 40 or 50 years from now someone else will be posting a similar story.....but they'll be talking about my stash and collection after I pass on.
