60/40 solder

[Shadow83]

I am glad that I found this forum as I may have been casting wrong. I have been casting for about a year and mainly using chair weights from a dentist chair (100s of lbs) and wheel weights. I sort and clean the wheel weights and so far no leading (I am shooting 45 Colt, 9mm and .40). Recently I was gifted a 100lb coil of 60/40 military grade electronics solder (solid, no rosin core) and want to mix with my current lead. My concern is the high tin content. My logic says that it will make the mix harder which from what I can find is not a bad thing, am I correct?

[Jailer]

Gifted 100lbs??? Holy heck this should be a score thread!

Don't mix it in anything yet. Use it as needed to sweeten a pot at a time. Just unroll how much you need for a pot, clip it off and melt it in.

I thought I was doing good with my 22lbs of 60/40 that I got for very little money, you got a huge score there.

[runfiverun]

you owe whomever you got that from big time.
60 lbs of tin is enough for about 5 million years worth of casting.

[Adk Mike]

I have had a supply of 60/40 for over twenty years. I would cast it in one pound ingots. Then I use a pound or a half pound to my twenty pound lead pot mix. Your bullets will fill out better with the tin. Great Find .

[RickinTN]

About 2% tin is all that is required, if it is required, for good mold fillout. Keeping in mind that your solder is 60%tin it will only take 4,666 grains or just under 12 ounces in a 20lb pot to get this percentage. 100 pounds is probably a lifetime supply and then some for most folks. It sounds as though you were thinking of using it for it's lead content. It's far more valuable than lead. With lead at $1 pound and Tin @$10 a pound (which is probably a little low) it's worth about .40 cents a pound for lead value and about 6 dollars a pound for Tin value.
As others have said that is a great find!

PS I wouldn't cast it into anything. It's in it's easiest form to weigh and use as it is.

Rick

[shadowcaster]

Welcome brother Shadow! :-)

Gifted 100 #'s of 60/40 solder, WOW.. Great find! As said above.. Tin is expensive and is used to sweeten the pot. Tin is not much of a hardening agent. It is mostly for good mold fill out. You need antimony and arsenic to make boolits harder, and to increase hardness you can water drop or heat treat. If your boolits are casting up and shooting fine, I wouldn't add any tin at all. Add it only when you need it. Staying at 1% tin down to none at all, has worked well for me.

Shad

[Shadow83]

Thanks all. I did not reply until now since I forgot to subscribe and just saw the replies. I might be able to get another 50lb spool of the same, the place where I used to work is a military surplus dealer and a few hundred pounds of this was in a blind pallet that they bought and they are afraid of the disposal fees for the lead. I am only using about 5% solder in my pot, the majority of the remainder is wheel weights so I think I'm ok on antimony. So far I have about 2000 40 cal, 3000 9mm and about 1000 45 Colt and I have probably around 90 pounds of solder and 40 pounds of wheel weight/dentist chair lead so I should be fine. The tire shops are all too happy to give their old weights away. I have also been able to sift the berm at my local range and gain 10 or 20 pounds each time.

[Jailer]

Sounds like you've got a good thing going on there. Get as much as you can while you can from your sources.