casting boolits from solder drippings

[jess]

hello. i'm new to casting and i was given about 800# of solder drippings i would like to cast 357 and 9mm . i melted a sample and used tom myers tin formula and came up with 34% tin and used a.j. peacock's chart and got 45% tin. would this amount of tin be ok for boolits or harm my weapon ? i would also like to trade or sell some of the solder, would this be worth while. thank you jess

[AZ-Stew]

You're sitting on a gold mine.

Regards,

Stew

[MtGun44]

Not harmful but you should trade it at like at least 3 to 1 for wheel wts. Tin is necessary
at about 2% level for good fill out. Since tin is far more valuable than lead, it is silly
to cast up solder bullets, altho I guess they would work OK. Tin and lead alone may not
get hard enough for some applications, wheel wts has antimony for added hardness.

But for many applications the solder should work, I'm not aware of much info on using
it directly since it is worth so much as an additive. Kind of like making electrical contacts
out of solid gold. It would kinda work, but they would be soft and very expensive. Just
plating them with gold does what you need and cost a bunch less.

I'll trade you 3 lbs of wwt alloy for each pound of your solder alloy. You may find others
offering more than that, too.

You should mix it with around 23 to 25 parts wwts to 1 part solder, should give you around
the proper 2%+ Tin mix you want for good fill out.

Bill

[beagle]

Great find but it's too valuable to cast with as is. Find some x-ray sheeting, cable sheathing or stick-on WWs to alloy it with.

Sure wish I had that problem./beagle

[Tazman1602]

If you're within 500 miles of me I'll cast you five thousand bullets of your choice in trade...............

Not really, I'm not a crook.

What AZ-Stew said man, you only need about 2% tin in your mix for good bullets

[runfiverun]

40/60 sounds right for radiator solder.
a trade would be the way to go,you then would have an excellent alloy plus enough tin for good fillout and boolit integrity.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

Trade or sell . . . where do you live?

I'd buy some . . .

[SciFiJim]

Jess, I have some solder drippings on hand for solder as well. What I did is cast up about 20 lbs with a 255gr boolit mold. This yields 1/2 oz slugs to use to sweeten your alloy with later. You only need to add a couple of these to a Lee pot to help with fill out.

Like AZ-Stew said "You're sitting on a gold mine". I am also willing to trade either pure lead or clip on wheel weight ingots at 3 to 1. I could use another 20 lbs of solder.

If you to wind up trading, make sure you save enough for yourself. I made the mistake of trading away to much.

[jdgabbard]

Heck a couple of pounds of this added to some clip ons might get you close to #2 alloy... I think I'd alloy some with some pb just to get a very soft, good fill out, alloy for plinker loads in 38spl or something...