Adding silver to the lead

[bluez]

Is there any point in adding silver to the lead? As i have heard, lead-tin-silver alloys are supposed to be very solid.

[Tracy]

Are those dang werewolves causing problems again?

Sorry, couldn't resist! :bigsmyl2:

[Freightman]

And expensive! you looked at the price of silver lately?

[Tom W.]

I saved up a bunch if little pieces of silver solder from work once and added them to my lead pot. Darn things wouldn't melt.....:groner:[smilie=b:

[beagle]

I've tried it and it definitely makes the bullets harder and they shot all right. This was with relay contacts that I salvaged from some old aircraft relays. It's not a practice I'd adhere to with today's silver prices./beagle

[376Steyr]

IIRC, the commercial casting outfit that makes a point about using silver in their alloy actually gets it as a "contaminant" in the lead they get from their foundry, where it is (or at least was) cheaper to leave the silver in the processed lead than to separate it out. That's from memory, I could be wrong.

[duck hollow pete]

Don't know, I got 50-60lbs of Stay-Brite Solder from a old transformer repair shop. One of these days I'll melt it down and add some to the mix and see what happens. One of the guys said they hadn't done that work for years,that stuff was expensive and sure did SHINE.

[felix]

Nobody, but nobody, is going to PUT silver into lead for the intent of boolits, shot back into the ground most especially, That is obvious. So, your confidence should be raised considerably in stating that the concept is by accident, or default. ... felix

[bhn22]

Silver & lead are often found together in the same mines. The idea of silver being alloyed with lead to harden the alloy is nonsense, silvers too valuable for that. It's just another trace metal in lead, and nobody deliberately adds it to a bullet that sells for ten cents.

[BLTsandwedge]

I shoot the mighty hippopotamus with bullets made of platinum. For if I use leaden ones, his hide is sure to flattenum.

[Leadmelter]

Silver prices have recovered after the Hunt brother attempt to take it over. Last time I looked, silver was over $32 and ounce. All metals on the market are being manipulated by China and good old greed. Good Luck!
Gerry

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

lead free sodier is 96% tin 2 %copper and 2% silver ir something close to that , i have added some scraps of sodier to the pot but not for the silver , but for the tin

1-2% tin helps the mold fill out

such a shame tin cans arn't tin or you could just toss a can in the pot.

[duck hollow pete]

Stay-brite web site says silver adds to the strength of the joint. Your right no one would buy silver for cast-boolits except the Lone ranger(who had his own silvermine). I came by this just before the shop was torndown. The ingot is 11x6x3 1/2 (heavy) it's mainly lead & tin (it's solder) with a small % of silver I also have a piece that was in the melting pot about 15-20lbs worth. I had no idea what it was until I had talked to one of the older shop-men, but I'm still going to add some to my 2# if for no other reason than show. What am I supposed to do with all of this stuff?

[duck hollow pete]

Stay-brite web site says silver adds to the strength of the joint. Your right no one would buy silver for cast-boolits except the Lone ranger(who had his own silvermine). I came by this just before the shop was torndown. The ingot is 11x6x3 1/2 (heavy) it's mainly lead & tin (it's solder) with a small % of silver I also have a piece that was in the melting pot about 15-20lbs worth. I had no idea what it was until I had talked to one of the older shop-men, but I'm still going to add some to my 2# if for no other reason than show. What am I supposed to do with all of this stuff?

[Glen]

Silver is supposed to affect the grain structure of lead/antimony alloys in a positive way. I haven't found any systematic study on this, but I'm sure it's out there somewhere. Personally, I don't think I'm going to be adding any silver any time soon.....

[Wayne Smith]

Stay-brite web site says silver adds to the strength of the joint. Your right no one would buy silver for cast-boolits except the Lone ranger(who had his own silvermine). I came by this just before the shop was torndown. The ingot is 11x6x3 1/2 (heavy) it's mainly lead & tin (it's solder) with a small % of silver I also have a piece that was in the melting pot about 15-20lbs worth. I had no idea what it was until I had talked to one of the older shop-men, but I'm still going to add some to my 2# if for no other reason than show. What am I supposed to do with all of this stuff?

Melt it and cast it into 1/4 or 1/2lb ingots and sell it on the swapping and selling area. I'm willing to bet it will go fast and at a good price!

[troy_mclure]

all the tin in my #2 is made from silver solder. its like .002% silver.

[bluez]

lead free sodier is 96% tin 2 %copper and 2% silver ir something close to that , i have added some scraps of sodier to the pot but not for the silver , but for the tin

1-2% tin helps the mold fill out

such a shame tin cans arn't tin or you could just toss a can in the pot.


I can get some solder with 4% silver, it doesn't contain copper but a little cobalt. Since silver based solder is more solid, i thought that it might give me a little harder bullets. But even in a lead-tin 10:1 ratio the silver content is down to only 0,4%.

Not exactly relevant, but her is mythbusters silver bullet test :

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-silver-vs-lead-bullets.html

[303Guy]

I saved up a bunch if little pieces of silver solder from work once and added them to my lead pot. Darn things wouldn't melt.....:groner:[smilie=b:You need to 'tin' them with solder first then stick them into the melt so they can dissolve.

Copper, arsenic and no doubt, silver are grain refiners and add strength without the brittleness and also enhance the heat treating properties of lead alloy. Copper won't dissolve into lead without enough tin in it. Copper requires only 0.06% to work in lead alloy and it does seem to work so why not silver? (I'm refering to scraps of silver solder salvaged from work).[smilie=1:

[Plinkster]

There was a member that posted a recipe for a hard yet malleable lead alloy here several years back. IIRC he worked for the bureau of mines and was working on an alloy for them when he stumbled on it, anywho he said he tried silver and even gold but they didn't improve the mix any. Here it is http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=822 Hope that works

[303Guy]

OK, so that link kind of puts an end to the quest for more silver in our alloy but the copper part is interesting! Apparently though, arsenic is a better grain refiner than copper. Still, copper is more available but a pain to dissolve. I wonder whether silver would make it more malleable? (Not that I have any silverware that could just 'misteriously disappear'!):wink:

[Shiloh]

Why??

Shiloh

[DukeInFlorida]

The best solution is to skip right past silver, and go for gold!
http://tech.mikeshouts.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/James-Bond-Golden-Gun-replica-544px.jpg

http://m0vie.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/themanwithegoldengun2.jpg

Oh wait.....

The guy with the gold gun LOSES!!!!

[prs]

Serendipity! My next new post was gonna be ask'n if copper was good or bad since I have seen some ingots of copper laced pewter for sale. "Gonna have to git me sum".

prs

[lbaize3]

As I sit here reading this I am stripping phone plug wire of its' insulation so I can add it to my melt. (did not want the smoke of burning insulation....)

I mentioned my need for some fine copper wire to my brother who works in the marine electronics field and he stated that he had some silver coated wire laying about. He has not had a chance to bring it to me yet, but I will use it and let you know how it works when and if I get it.

I know the copper will harden the lead some. And from what I have read here, it will allow the lead to resist becoming brittle and breaking up. I love to experiment with these things and to see how they turn out.

[Tom W.]

The copper won't hurt. I used to get lead free nickel babbit from our supplier in big ingots, and they contained a bit of copper. Made wonderful ( but light) hard bullets by itself, but I started to hoard it to mix with my WW for the tin.

[MtGun44]

What bhn22 said. It is marketing hype. Traces that cannot be economically removed, so
call it a feature.

Bill

[Char-Gar]

Silver in bullet metal is a marketing ploy and nothing more.

[JIMinPHX]

I've tried it and it definitely makes the bullets harder and they shot all right. This was with relay contacts that I salvaged from some old aircraft relays. It's not a practice I'd adhere to with today's silver prices./beagle

Relay & switch contacts are often pure silver, but the better quality ones are Silver-cadmium-oxide. The cad-ox stuff gives it better current capacity & resistance to arc erosion. Unfortunately, cadmium is not something that you want to melt in your casting pot. It has some toxicity issues. I don't know for a fact, but I would suspect that aircraft relays are probably made from the higher end stuff.

The price of silver jumped up just shy of $50/oz a few weeks ago. That was a record as far as I know. Lately, it's hovering around $35, but its been pretty volatile. I've seen 30% swings over short periods of time lately. Swings of 10% in a single day are not uncommon anymore.

Gold has been far less volatile lately & seems to have settled around $1,500 for the time being. Soros just dumped his sizable gold holdings & that seems to have stopped the upward trend in gold prices, at least for the short term while people try to figure out why he did what he did.

[JIMinPHX]

lead free sodier is 96% tin 2 %copper and 2% silver ir something close to that

Formulations for lead free solder varies quite a bit. The one that you are referring to would be called silver bearing solder where I come from. The most common lead free solder that I see here in the Phoenix area is 95% tin & 5% antimony.

[MikeS]

I have a couple of 1lb bars of lead free solder that are something like 3.5% Silver / 0.75% Copper /0.2 Antimony and the balance tin. There's a guy on eBay selling them for $10.00 each! He also has some solder that's 99.3% tin / .7% copper, and that he sells for $15.00 each. I don't think he realizes what he has, as it's listed as: "SMIC Solder bar 1 Lb No Pb # 7094 3.5Ag/0.75Cu/0.2Sb" How would those bars work in making boolits compared to the 99.3/.7 solder? One thing is the 99.3% bars are Kester and I think they're made in the USA, but the other stuff is chinese.

Maybe I should get some more of those, and make up a boolit lube using garlic just in case the vampires come back? :kidding:

[jlchucker]

Are those dang werewolves causing problems again?

Sorry, couldn't resist! :bigsmyl2:

Yup! They seem to be back! Next thing you know the Lone Ranger and Tonto will come riding in after them.