Alloy Ive read about and the benifits

[country gent]

Ive read several times of silver being added to lead for alloies for bullets in old accounts the only ratio Ive seen listed in these accounts was a silver dime to 20 lbs lead in a old account. I believe that silver acts as tin in an alloy making it flow and fill out better. My question is what other benefits would there possibly be? any detriments? at the above rate 1 ounce or so would do 100 lbs of lead. Thank you for your help here.

[Morgan61]

With a melting point of 1763 degrees, how would you get the silver mixed in?

[runfiverun]

stirring would do it.
antimony melts at 1600 or so but it stirs in just fine.

you are correct about silver adding both a flow ability and a hardness to the lead alloy.
it works somewhere in between copper and Tin.

[Dusty Bannister]

Thanks R5R, I have been wondering if there was any value to silver as a hardener. I have some solder with a few percent silver but did not think that would add much to the hardness. Especially if only adding a few percent of the solder equal to 2-3% tin.

[centershot]

Soooo.......if I add 2 or three American quarter dollars to a 20# pot of alloy and stir, stir, stir, I would be adding trace amounts of silver and copper to the melt, yes? If that pot contained Lyman # 2, what would the addition of copper and silver do for me? I'm thinking rifle applications here.

[CastingFool]

Centershot, the gov't stopped minting silver quarters in 1965, although they did have a special run in 1976 for the bicentennial.

[GhostHawk]

I suspect even one of the new sandwich quarters being more copper than silver would still help.

I have a pretty good sized bag of pre 64 dimes. I can afford to throw a dime in a 10 lb batch of alloy. See how it behaves.

[ioon44]

Coin silver is 90% silver and 10% copper, I have a small piece of 98% silver I might try to mix it in to a 20 lb pot to see if it would actually mix in.

[Pb Burner]

Wouldn't you have to melt the silver dime, then add molten silver into the molten lead while stirring? I wouldn't think the dime would melt at all at normal lead casting temps.

[Green Frog]

Tradition has it that the buffalo hunters would throw a dime (which WAS mostly silver back then) into their pot of otherwise about pure lead as it melted over their campfire. I can neither confirm nor refute this, but it IS the story I've been told. Has anybody else heard this?

Froggie

PS Of course the Lone Ranger had his bullets cast in pure silver, but according to the old story on TV he had an old miner he had rescued doing that for him... must be true, I saw it on the TV!

[Dusty Bannister]

The silver does not melt nor does the antimony, at normal casting temps. It will dissolve over time. This requires stirring. I have some of the high tin content solder that also contains some silver and copper so the melting is already done. I just need to blend in what I want to add with the usual melt. Sometimes those silver dimes are worth a lot more than face value. Think before you destroy.

[mdi]

Well, I don't doubt any of the posters so far, as I'm not a metallurgist, but it isn't logical. If one metal melts at 1,000 degrees higher than another metal, how will the high melting point metal "stir into" the low melting point metal? Will it chemically dissolve? Without powderizing the silver how could it possibly alloy with lead if it does not melt? Seems like you'd just get a hot dime...

[fredj338]

Any silver in an alloy, like Oregon Trail, is gonna be trace at best. As noted, too hard to get it to blend with lead & costly for little to no gain, unless you are hunting werewolves.
Drop a chunk of antimony into a 700deg lead pot & stir it, see if it ever actually melts.

[country gent]

Lymans cast bullet manual list silver as an alloy to lead at a low percentage ( sounds like a little goes a long ways here). A small amount wouldn't be hard to melt with a propane torch in the ladle and add in to the molten metal while fluxing. In a hot ladle it shouldn't take long for it to melt while the wood chips are charring then add the silver and paraffin and stir good. I'm curious here and may give it a try at 1 ounce to 100lbs rate. Ive heard the read the accounts of the silver dime added to pure lead ( actually had an old timer tell me to do it when I started and was having problems getting good fill out) it was a dime to a 20 lb pot. Ive read about from accounts of some of the top shutzen shooters. so 5 dimes to 100lbs. I'm not sure theres any silver in the newer coins now copper and nickel now I think.

[OuchHot!]

You do not have to get the silver molten to get it into a solution that has a high solubility for it. The enthalpy of solution and the entropy gain drives the dissolution of the silver. It is perfectly logical.

[HangFireW8]

Grinding up the silver hastens the process... More surface area.

-HF

[308Jeff]

You do not have to get the silver molten to get it into a solution that has a high solubility for it. The enthalpy of solution and the entropy gain drives the dissolution of the silver. It is perfectly logical.

Learn something new on here, every single day. I love this place.

[z28z34man]

There is absolutely no silver in modern US circulated coinage. It is copper and nickel bonded together under extreme pressure.

[BNE]

Think of alloying as dissolving. (Similar, for explanatory purposes.)

Table sugar melts at 295F. Your coffee is something less than 212F, yet sugar will readily dissolve or "alloy" with your coffee.

The Silver / Lead eutectic (Lowest melting mixture.) is 2.27%Ag and 97.73%Pb. This mixture melts at 578.7F

SO if you have a pot of molten lead, Silver will dissolve or alloy with it.


Silver acts to toughen the lead. It would work better than Tin in this regard.....I think. I hope to study this in more detail someday.

[snowtigger]

I made some 6% silver boolits. I got tired of reading all the reasons it wouldn't work, so I dropped a >999 fine silver ingot into a pot at full temp (about 1100 degrees). Actually, I seem to remember it was 1070, but it was all the pot had to give.
After a while I noticed the corners were beginning to round off, so i waited and finally the ingot disappeared. I don't remember the exact amount, but I do remember it figured out to be 6%.
I cast (casted?) 100 of them. They sure were purty. I tried one of them in the really scientific method ( I put them on an anvil and hit them with a 3lb hammer). They deformed really well without any obvious signs of fracturing. The rest , I diluted to 1% and made some more. They also withstood the hammer test. The 6% models shine up really well and look real nice in a gun belt.
PS: I am now ready for werewolves.
I don't know why I did this. I just always wanted some "Lone Ranger Bullets". If I remember right, they cast well somewhere below 800 degrees. Hope this helps...