60/40 fry

[COREY]

I like my cowoker :)! I came to work yesterday to find a bag on my desk; it had 10 one pound bars in it marked 60/40 FRY on them. This is alos the same cowokrer that handed me a dutch oven that he was not using when he heard I needed something to smelt in.

I di some searching on the net and from what I can find, this is solder used for stained glass windows. One question I have is it useable to mix with wheel wieght s like 50/50 to make #2 alloy? Also, is it 60% tin and 40% lead, or the other way around? I was just going to change the proportion of 60/40 to get the proper tin in it if it is useable.

[high standard 40]

60/40 solder is 60% tin and 40% lead. Great score there.

[Willbird]

50/50 would be a major waste of tin, #2 is 5-5-90. #2 was honestly derived from having a plentiful supply of Linotype avail I think, not many people see it as the holy grail any more. 5% tin even is about 2x what you really need in a tin-antimony-lead alloy.

Bill

[cajun shooter]

As Willbird said with all his wisdom; 5% tin is a lot to use. What do you plan on doing with the bullets? If you are shooting metal plates then a mix of 2 1/2 % is plenty. Use your tin wisely. Once it has helped you with mold fillout and hardness any more that you add is a waste, as it does not improve.

[Ancesthntr]

I would agree with what the others have said about not wasting tin. Use 1/2 pound of them and 19 1/2# of WW lead in a pot, and that should be enough (because WW lead already has some tin in it). This way you'll have added 60% x 0.5# = 0.3# of tin to the mixture. Assuming that the WW are 1% tin already, you will have upped the tin percentage to (19.5# x 0.01) + 0.3# = 0.495# = 2.475%. Your 10 pounds of solder will last for 20 pot fulls of 20# each of WW lead, and I don't care how much you cast, that is a lot of shooting. Maybe, for the sake your convenience, you cast all 10 of those bars into 1/2# ingots.

BTW, you owe your co-worker a couple of beers. Damn, 10 pounds of solder and a D.O. for zilch!

[captaint]

Ances - Sounds good to me. I just bought 6 lbs of pewter last week and I was going to melt it into 1/2# ingots to add to my 20# pot. I think pewter is minimum 85% tin. Whaddya think? Mike

[markinalpine]

...Hell! :twisted:
You owe him a steak dinner. :drinks: And some adult beverages of his choice.
Mark :mrgreen:

[Ancesthntr]

captaint - do the math. This solder at 60% is good in 1/2# doses to bring the tin content up to about 2.5% (assuming 1% tin in the WWs); the same weight of 85% tin will bring it up higher.

Maybe what you do is: 1) make smaller ingots of the pewter; or 2) mix the pewter with a enough pure lead to dilute the tin content to 60%, so that you can then add 1/2# ingots of the new mixture to a 20# pot to get your 2.5% tin content.

[runfiverun]

2.5% is still about 1.5% more than you will ever need for fillout.

[COREY]

What will add to the hardness? I ask since I would like to use the alloy to cast bullets for a 357 magnum load for my rifle and revolver. I am not planning on pushing them super fast, but I would like not to have excessive leading either.