Solder Sweetening?

[Dross]

Guys,

Is this solder of the appropriate type to sweeten Pure/WW lead?





(I recently acquired approx 5 Lbs. of this.)

I notice it has Antimony and Tin, which seems good to me as I understand antimony helps harden water-dropped boolits, and tin helps with mold fill-out etc..

So, if this is the right stuff, what percentages should I mix to?

Sorry for the newb-ish question, and thanks in advance!

[cbrick]

It's mostly tin but I would worry about up to 3.5% copper, could and probably would ruin castability and be counter productive to your original intent of adding tin. Also has a trace of nickel, up to 1/4 of 1%. Dunno about nickel in bullet alloy but it is just a trace.

Wouldn't be enough antimony to do you much good. If you treated this stuff as pure tin and added 2% by weight to a 20 pound pot of alloy your addition of antimony would be 5% of 4 ounces.

Could try a very small sample (don't try it on a whole pot of alloy) and see if the copper ruins it. Could be an interesting test but I'll put my money on the copper as a no-no.

Rick

[Jim]

Having spent 32 years in the pipefitting business, I've used cases of this stuff to alloy my mix. Works for me.

[Lloyd Smale]

I will work fine. When you consider its 3.5 percent copper is in a mix that your only adding about 2 percent total to the final product youll see that that ammount of copper is very small. But in the same aspect dont expect any hardening from that small ammount of antimony either.

[sundog]

Dross, no problemo as far as I can see. Felix and I have been, off and on, playing around with copper babbit. As soon as the percentage gets to high, you will know immediately. Instead of getting a nice round elastic stream, you get sheeting. That's the copper trying to freeze. When that happens, just dilute it with more alloy sans the coppered solder.

From my experience, coppered alloy makes some purdy good boolits!

[Dross]

Thanks for the advise so far guys!

When I try this stuff I'll let you guys know how it works.