Team, a few months ago at an open air flea market/swap meet in Versailles, MO. (Jacob's Cave, for those of you familiar with the area), I picked up several ingots of solder (50/50, 60/40 and 70/30). Question; if I were to homogenize this stuff, is there a formula of some kind that would indicate the final mix/alloy? How much chilled or magnum shot (antimony) would I need to make close to WW alloy? If no Sb, could it be used as is in a muzzle loader or low velocity calibers (.45 ACP)?
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Based upon tin content the ingots are worth $5-7/lb. I think a trade would probably net you the most casting alloy.
IMO, it would be a waste to used shot to harden this solder. Shot is $2-3lb.
If you have shot and solder on hand, feel free to mix for your use, but both individally are worth more as solder and shot than the ww alloy you are trying to reproduce.
If those are marked factory ingots of solder that you might ever want to sell, sell them as is, since folks like the content verification that’s stamped right on the ingot.
If you intend to only use them yourself and really want just one tin alloy, then go ahead and melt them together. Assuming the first number in each stamp is always tin, the formula is:
0.5 x the weight of the melted 50/50, plus
0.6 x the weight of the melted 60/40, plus
0.7 x the weight of the melted 70/30, which gives the total weight of tin in the melt.
The total weight of tin in the melt divided by the total weight of all the ingots in the melt x 100 gives the percentage of tin in the mix just made. 100 - the tin percentage gives the percentage of lead in the melt.
BK7saum is right: it’d take a lot of shot to make a zero Sb content alloy like your solder into the ~3% Sb equivalent of WW. It’s also a waste of tin. Easier to sell part of what you have and use the proceeds for a bit of Rotometals SuperHard and pure lead.
Use the lead alloy calculator in the sticky section to formulate a WW equivalent alloy. You will need some linotype or monotype for Sb... will be much more economical than melting shot.
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