help with solder

[xd45forever]

My girlfriend operates a thrift store and sometimes she gets boxes with old tools and such and quite often an old roll of solder. She recently gave me 3 rolls of plum safe silver bearing solder does anyone know its composition ? Can it be used to make alloy? Usually its marked like 95\5 but this has nothing I hate to pitch it it was FREE!! And I have no other use for it.

[bangerjim]

It IS an alloy!

Solder is usually 50/50 or 60/40. ( Sn/Pb listed.)

The silver will give you nothing but braggin rights. The Sn is what you are after, and there has to be some in there. Too bad it's not marked.

Use is as any solder. I would assume at least 50/50.

3 rolls doesn't get get you far......but it is free.

bangerjim

[Beagle333]

Definitely don't pitch it.... it is great stuff! It'll make sharp corners on your bases and lube grooves, and complete fill-out of the thin nose of HPs, and just make your boolits look good!

[fastfire]

AND............... the Silver is best for Vampires:bigsmyl2:

[GhostHawk]

Agreed, you have yourself some evil vampire killing potential there.

Not sure how much hardness it will add, but I'm thinking its a fair bit harder than pure lead.

[xd45forever]

Great to know! Than guys! I'm kind of a rookie at this started out casting 45acp with coww's had great luck with it so I'm starting to cast for my 308 and m1 and playing around with different alloys.I don't post much because almost everything a guy needs to know is in the stickies! Gawd I love this forum!!! Thank you one and all!

[xd45forever]

I thought silver was for werewolf slaying!!?? Lol

[cainttype]

You can do a Specific Gravity test on what you have to determine the tin content.
If more comes up regularly, you can save up to melt larger batches and use the same SG test to stockpile a number of ingots for future use.
There's plenty of info on determining SG with a search here.

[Garyshome]

NO! silver is for killing werewolves! Commonly used by a Masked Man on a white horse!

[RogerDat]

The lowest lead/tin solder I can think of is 70/30 so for unknown lead roll solder. Silver solder seems like it is all over the place on composition of the alloy, at least according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solder Do a find for Ag on that page.

[Zymurgy50]

"Water safe" silver bearing solder contains NO lead. Most of the water safe solder is 95-97% tin, 3-5% antimony and .5-1% silver. Treat this as pure tin for alloying boolit metal.

Please note that this is not "silver solder", which melts at a much higher temperature,,, but silver "bearing" solder.

[bangerjim]

Yes.......the REAL silver solder I use requires a good hot MAPP or oxy acetylene/propane flame to use it properly. Much higher temps and the stuff is in either sheet form or thin HARD wire.

Silver-bearing solder is more of a marketing ploy than actually anything really useful!

banger

[Defcon-One]

"Water safe" silver bearing solder contains NO lead. Most of the water safe solder is 95-97% tin, 3-5% antimony and .5-1% silver. Treat this as pure tin for alloying boolit metal.

Please note that this is not "silver solder", which melts at a much higher temperature,,, but silver "bearing" solder.


Sounds like it is really just a high quality PEWTER! I agree, use it as you would pure Tin. Both you and the bullets will never know the difference.

[RogerDat]

Water safe seems like it would be the most common "silver" solder, anyone doing copper pipes for water lines would use it.

[xd45forever]

Great thanx again guys ! I cast some 30 cal for my 308 with straight coww and they seem too hard thinking about cutting the coww 50/50 with pure lead and add a little of this solder to help fill out. Wdyt??

[Ken in Iowa]

Great thanx again guys ! I cast some 30 cal for my 308 with straight coww and they seem too hard thinking about cutting the coww 50/50 with pure lead and add a little of this solder to help fill out. Wdyt??

That is a fine idea. I found half a pound of similar solder and plan on doing the same thing.

Use a lead alloy calculator to make the math easy. It won't take much solder to get you 2% tin content.

[Yodogsandman]

NO! silver is for killing werewolves! Commonly used by a Masked Man on a white horse!

I thought "Silver" was the horses name. As in "High, Ho, Silver,...Away......"

[Jeffrey]

"Silver bearing solder" is a high strength low temperature (450*) solder used primarily for refrigeration applications. One of the most commonly sold varieties is Harris Staybrite. It generally runs about twice the cost of 95 5. Look up MSDS for Harris Staybrite to get an idea of its composition. Or you can just treat it like tin.

[Cowboy_Dan]

I thought "Silver" was the horses name. As in "High, Ho, Silver,...Away......"

I recently read a reference to this in a LASC article. The Lone Ranger did use silver bullets cast from silver in his mine hideout. However, the author of the article was not abe to cast with silver alloy as it required too much heat to melt.

[RogerDat]

I should add that I have seen bar solder that was 90% lead and only 10% tin but if I found any lead/tin based solder at a garage sale I would buy it if the price was right. Free rolls from girl friend seems like a very good price.