A little silver to harder boolits?

[Ancesthntr]

Would it make any sense to put a little silver into the caster to harden up the boolits? Note, I do NOT want to make 100% or some other high percentage of silver - we're talking miniscule, like 0.1%. For example, in a 20-lb pot (approx. 9100 grams) add in 4 90% silver dimes (9 grams of pure silver, 1 gram of copper). This would be almost exactly 0.1% silver. Would that do anything substantive to the mixture? Would the gain in hardness be worth it (after all, those 4 dimes are worth about $3.50 at $12/oz. silver).

I know that hardness can be easily increased with heat-treating, dropping boolits in water or adding antimony (which is priced by the pound, not the ounce), or with antimony and one of the other methods...but I'm still curious.

Thanks, in advance, for any answers.

EDIT: Great typing, eh? I meant to say "...hardEN boolits?" But the question remains.

[docone31]

How would you get the silver into the lead?
Some do indeed alloy silver into the melt.
Perhaps a solder with silver in it that is low temp.

[OBXPilgrim]

Wikipedia shows the silver melting point at 1763.2°F and copper at 1984.32 °F.

I think you'd make an expense flux if you dropped them in - and one that wouldn't work good at that.

[GabbyM]

copper does the ame thing cheeper. Lead free solder has some copper i it. Not much but it does make harder bullets that tin alone. In the real world you get your tin where and when you can find it. If it has a bit of silver or copper in it all the etter.

[eli]

Some metals will melt at lower temperatures into other metals than if melted on their own. U.S. silver coins have been used before in lead bullet alloys, however IIRC, an article on the subject had a Silver Dollar going into 10 pounds of lead, which is about 24 grams silver content.

[geargnasher]

What is the compostion of "silver bearing solder" I keep seeing for about 20 bucks a pound?
Maybe it could be used in small quantity and I know it melts at a reasonable temp.
I normally just use antimony ingots or Magnum shot to harden my alloys unless I'm hunting Werewolves :mrgreen: :Fire:

[trevj]

Funny you should ask.

I was just looking at the MSDS sheets for the Bernz-O-Matic brand stuff, to see if it was any use to me.

The most clearly defined one showed less than 1 percent silver, 3-4 percent copper, remainder tin.

Want to make any bets on how much is actually in it? I'd bet it is a small enough amount to be of no consequence, other than to look good on the label.

Cheers
Trev

[HangFireW8]

Funny you should ask.

I was just looking at the MSDS sheets for the Bernz-O-Matic brand stuff, to see if it was any use to me.

The most clearly defined one showed less than 1 percent silver, 3-4 percent copper, remainder tin.

Want to make any bets on how much is actually in it? I'd bet it is a small enough amount to be of no consequence, other than to look good on the label.


The MSDS for Stay-Brite says about 3.5% silver. I just picked up a couple pounds, along with a bunch of lead-free (95% tin 5% antimony) and a lot of 60/40.

-HF

[odoh]

Doesn't Oregon Trails/LazerCast claim to add silver in their cast bullets?

[beagle]

I was tinkering around once with a couple of Mercury dimes and my lead pot. I'd take one and dip it in, pull it out and peel off the lead to look at the image created. Did this several times and my dime came out half gone so I dropped it in and it melted. Added several pieces of scrap silver and they melted so silver will melt and alloy with what we normally use.

That lot was pretty hard. I had no way of scientifically measuring the hardness back in those days but it seemed to me that it made that batch harder.

As has been pointed out, there are easier ways to toughen and harden lead and cheaper too./beagle

[trevj]

Some metals will be dissolved into other molten mixtures, at far lower temperatures than they will melt at.

I know that stirring molten Aluminum with a copper rod will leave you with fairly high copper content aluminum alloy! :)

Cheers
Trev

[dwtim]

Arsenic is very effective when used in conjunction with WQ, easier to find, and much cheaper.

[fredj338]

Heat treating WW alloy would be far cheaper & more effective.

[shotman]

Zinc WW will get you a hard boolit. Dont try many in a Lee/aluminum mold. It will make a nice solid block. Guess how I know?

[Limey]

Hi ho Silver away!.....the Lone Ranger lives!......

.....that masked man alway's shot silver bullets...........and he never missed so they gotta be good!.....

...(I guess I am showing my age now as I bet lot's of younger shooters will never have heard of the Lone Ranger......)


Safe shooting,

Limey

[1Shirt]

I guess my big question is why screw around with silver. Just water drop whatever alloy you use and you will probably have all the hardness you want.
I melted a silver dime in a pot way back because of some article I read in a gun mag. Blts shot ok, but no better than without the dime, so I figured it was a waste of a dime. To each his own I guess.
1Shirt!:coffee::coffee: