Cast boolits with Silver mix

[1Papalote]

What does silver do for cast boolits? One manufacturer mixes silver and lead.

1Papalote

[leftiye]

Harder.

[Johnch]

And a lot more $$

I have a source for silver solder scrap
It has 6-8% silver and mostly the rest is tin

I use it as my added Tin when needed

I add 1%"Tin" to WW, I dought the small % of Silver when added to the WW make any real differance
John

[HeavyMetal]

In the sales community this is called a "Sales Tool".

What it means is you have something to sell that no one else has. It doesn't have to work,it doesn't have to have value, you just need to convince the consumer he can't live without it!

Sales guys also call this a "hook" or "Smoke and Mirrors" I see it every day and refuse to particapate in these types of sales schemes.

Many sales depts. still work on PT Barnums premise that a sucker is born every minute.

As for the silver in the boolits? I know what they say it should do. I've been casting 30 plus years and never saw the need and, I'll bet, no one else will either!

[looseprojectile]

Sure can't hurt anything. Might help more in rifle boolits.
I have always thought some gold or platinum would work to prevent oxidation and make the boolits pretty. The last silver solder I bought cost twelve dollars for two very small short sticks. about a quarter of an ounce.
For now I will just stick with that which is cheap.
Be sure to relate your findings here.

Life is good

[James C. Snodgrass]

Don't forget the werewolves and vampires . [smilie=1:

[45nut]

Actually they are using tailing's from a silver mine for their alloy, silver often runs with galena in the ore and vice versa.

Sure works for a sales perspective. Oregon Trail sells lots of product. As often with commercial casters their lines are set up for production, easy to run designs that are not specific to YOUR choices.
I shot plenty of them before I started casting myself and well before the prices of today.

[JSnover]

Yeah, you can have trace elements that really don't hurt anything and it would cost too much to remove them. If the silver was added on purpose the salesmen should explain the benefit or at least make up a good lie about it.

[462]

Nothing more than a way to turn tailings into profit.

[mike in co]

Actually they are using tailing's from a silver mine for their alloy, silver often runs with galena in the ore and vice versa.

Sure works for a sales perspective. Oregon Trail sells lots of product. As often with commercial casters their lines are set up for production, easy to run designs that are not specific to YOUR choices.
I shot plenty of them before I started casting myself and well before the prices of today.

what nut said!

great for sales and its already in thier mix....they are adding nothing, including costs.

good boolits...my club use to should a lot of them when they delivered.


mike in co

[Tom W.]

I had some little bits of silver solder left from brazing carbide saw teeth, so I started to collect them. When I got a few I brought them home and threw them into my Lee bottom pour pot. They never did melt....

[44man]

Sure does not hurt anything. The problem I find with them is the sizes and boolit designs do not let a gun shoot it's best and results with them have been poor. Not because of the alloy.

[longbow]

Silver does harden the lead some but I do not know how much.

Silver is used to harden permanent lead anodes for a zinc electrowinning plant. Antimony works as well but in this case the extra corrosion resistance is what is desired.

Since the plant also produces lead, silver and antimony it is no problem.

I doubt there is a benefit for bullet alloying though. Also, not sure how much silver hardens lead compared to antimony. This mix is 0.75% so not much.

Longbow

[yodar]

In the sales community this is called a "Sales Tool".

What it means is you have something to sell that no one else has. It doesn't have to work,it doesn't have to have value, you just need to convince the consumer he can't live without it!

Sales guys also call this a "hook" or "Smoke and Mirrors" I see it every day and refuse to particapate in these types of sales schemes.

Many sales depts. still work on PT Barnums premise that a sucker is born every minute.

As for the silver in the boolits? I know what they say it should do. I've been casting 30 plus years and never saw the need and, I'll bet, no one else will either!


I served the lead mines in Missouri (Doe run, St. Joe Lead) and Rolla School of mines. In the mined lead, Silver is "in there" (like Ragu spaghetti sauce) with the lead as a contaminant.

They can only remove so much of it if it's concentration is suited to traditional purification techniques.

They cant remove it if it's composition is low to begin with, they just leave it "in there"

And as Heavy Metal says, it's there! SELL it !


yodar

[MtGun44]

45nut and yodar said it. Just a contaminant, can't reasonably remove it,
so turn it into a "feature", advertise it and claim it is BETTER that way.

I suspect the percentage is well under 1%, and makes no difference one way or
the other.

Bill

[snowtigger]

I have cast bullets with 1% added silver and some with 6% added silver. The reason? Just because I wanted to do it
The result; some VERY HARD bullets. ( They do shine up very nicely, though.)[smilie=1:

[Bret4207]

I paid a lot of money for a couple thousand of those nifty "silver boolits" several years ago. They shot terrible in every load I t tried. Pure, unadulterated advertising hype IMO.

[wallenba]

Don't forget the werewolves and vampires . [smilie=1: Ya beat me to it!

[looseprojectile]

Still have a few and I like them. They look a lot like Saeco designs. [.357 & .45]. They shot good, just not worth the money. Discounting the electricity and amortization on the moulds my boolits are free. Love those Saeco boolits.

Life is good

[leadman]

I had a young guy come over last night with some Oregon bullets that would not feed in his 1911. A 200gr SWC H&G 68 style with a real sharp front band.
He left with some of my 230gr. RN from a Lyman 4 cavity of mine.
I tested the Oregon bullet in my Saeco tester. Converted to BHN it was 15. Pretty normal for WQWW, maybe even a little softer.

[qajaq59]

I tried them a few years ago and they shot pretty well in my 30-30. But so do the lead ones that I cast myself, and they're a whole lot cheaper!!!

[Dframe]

Nothing more than a way to turn tailings into profit.
Quite correct, as THEY will tell you if you investigate their website. I've shot a ton and a half of Oregon Trail "silver Bullets" and they always performed just fine. As someone else noted though the styles and weights are limited because they want to maximize production.