HI IM NEW HERE , IM HOPING SOME OF YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE OLD VETERAN CASTERS CAN HELP ME OUT. WENT TO THE PLUMBING SUPPLY STORE TO FIND SOME SOLDER TO SWEETEN WW METAL, PROBLEM IS THEY HAVE MANY TYPES, MOSTLY W/LEAD OR LEAD FREE. THEY DO NOT LIST CONTENTS SO WHAT DO I BUY? WHAT IS CONTENT OF DIFFERENT TYPES? HOW MUCH DO I ADD TO WW MELT. STORE EMPLOYEES WERE NOT HELPFULL, I GUESS I SHOULD'NT HAVE TOLD THEM IM A POSTAL EMPLOYEE WHO WANTS TO MAKE BULLETS.

Had to chuckle at the fear inspierd by a boolit-making postman! <GGG>

Dif'rent strokes, as they say. I use the 50-50 bar solder (equal parts tin and lead) and melt it into the same ingots as my wheelweights. Then I just add one halftin ingot to 10 wheelweight ingots in the pot. That's prolly pretty rich in tin (1:20, or 5%), but the ratio is easy to vary, no weighting and such.

The solder I have is 95 tin-3.0 antimony-the rest ??.There are to many different types,

I use the 95/5 percent lead free solder, where the 95 % is tin and the 5% is silver. Home Depot carries it. I add a three foot piece for 10 pounds of cleaned wheel weights. When I remelt the sprues for a second time, I freshen the WW's up with an 18" piece of the 95/5 solder. You really don't need more than 2 percent tin anyway to get a decent cast.
FWIW, my alloy is 10 pounds of WW, one pound of linotype, 1/3 cup of chilled bird shot and the three foot piece of solder. makes a 14 BHN boolit as is and will oven treat to 30-31 BHN.
Paul B.

50-50 Is equal parts tin & lead, 95-5 is 95%tin & 5% Antimony. Be careful with the lead free however, unless you can be given its contents. Some guy behind the counter that knows enough to be dangerous will tell you it's 95-5. It may well be 95% tin but the other 5% can be a bunch of "maycontains". including copper etc. Lead free solder that contains 95% tin & 95-5 are not usually the same thing. Ron.D

USARO4 (04?) -

You're going to add something to wheelweigths for a reason. People usually add a little tin for castability (fills out easier) or antimony for hardness.

See how straight wheelweights cast. Then choose to add other metal to make a specific alloy and compare the two. Take notes. How do they cast - looks, heavy or lighter, CONSISTANCY in weight. How to they shoot - group size, leading, mushrooming qualities for hunting?

USAR04

Where in Middle Tennessee?
You may want to talk to a radiator shop for their solder/repair tank collection. I think their solder is fairly consistent in content.

Depending on how they cast the straight WWs may well serve your purpose!

LouisB

I use the lead-free solder from Home Creepo. I did go to the manufacturer's website and found that it was 95% tin, with minor amounts of other metals-copper, antimony, silver, and fortunately no zinc. For our purposes treat it as pure tin. I add 140 gr. with each 1 Lb. ingot of wheelweight metal to add 2% tin to my alloy. After doing a little trial and error weighing, it is easy to cut the solder in 10" lengths if memory serves. Your mileage may vary. HTH, curmudgeon

That touch of copper in the 95-5 can be a very good thing. Felix and I made up several batches of range scrap, WWs, and stuff, and enriched it with babbit he had that had copper. Ten pound ingots ring like a bell when dropped on concrete floor. Makes some really TOUGH boolits, but the downside is pour castability (read fill mould fill out) when copper is too high percentage. If you get it 'just right' it makes some fantastic boolits. You can tell if copper is too high because it 'sheets' when poured rather than flowing in a stream. I know that when I get a mis 'just right' it will pour a stream like an elastic string. sundog

Yes, that's right. Sheeting is caused by the copper coming out of the alloy and freezing far too fast. It looks like an envolope over the lead, if you will. If by mistake you got some mix a little too high in copper in a down pour, the problem will exhibit itself by gumming up the spout after several boolit cycles. You constantly have to clean the spount out with a paper clip. If this happens, cut the copper percentage in half, and retry. But first, look for sheeting when pouring the mix back and forth between a couple of pans/pots. ... felix

Is there any purpose in including copper in an alloy around 13-14 BHN. I remember from a previous discussion that there may be & that it may give the boolit a little extra toughness. I still want the alloy to remain expandable. This topic led me to call "AIM" the company that produces the lead free solder that I use. The fellow there told me their lead free is 97% tin & 3% copper. If I used this for my source of tin, there would only be a decimal of 1% copper, is this enough to do any good, or do I need more. Ron.D

I don't view this as a hardness issue as much as a resilience issue - how much a boolit can resist sheering by rifling. The more it resists, the faster it can be pushed accurately, as long as it is otherwise properly fitted. Necessary for all applications? Not. One specific that immediately comes to mind is the issue Swede bbl with a very fast twist. Most cast boolits are limited to about 1550-1600 fps. It's just the nature of the beast. sundog

THANKS FOR ALL THE GOOD REPLIES, I THINK IM POINTED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION NOW. I MANAGED TO SCORE 700LB OF HOSPITAL XRAY LEAD SHIELDING, TALK ABOUT AN EARLY XMAS! SEEMS TO BE PURE LEAD BY SCRATCH TESTING IT. IVE ORDERED A HARDNESS TESTER FROM CABINE THAT SHOULD REALLY HELP MY XPERIMENTS. I NEED TO WORK OUT AN ALLOY USING THE HOSP LEAD W/O USING UP ALL MY PRECIOUS LINOTYPE. SEEMS LIKE THE 95/5 SOLDER AND SOME WW MIGHT BE THE AMSWER. BY THE WAY, TCLOUIS IM LOCATED NEAR SPRINGFIELD TN WHERE YOU AT?

The above messages contain new concepts for me; inclusion of silver and cooper in bullet alloys to improve bullets characteristics, thoughness for example.

I would like to know if there is an specific component or alloy to reduce bullet ripping produced by rifling lands, for handguns, at low speeds.
The objective is to shoot plain cast bullets without lube, without gas checks, without fillers, through 5 inches barrels. It is for 9mm, .40S&W and .38Super calibers.

My best results are 20 shoots whith acceptable leading and accuracy, by using 13/14HBN alloy which produces good obturation.
Following shoots produce heavy leading and severe accuracy degradation.
Bullet sizing diameter was already fitted to barrel diameter to eliminate gas cutting.

I am learning about casting bullets, all my knowledge consists of; add pure lead for lowering hardness or linotype for increasing it,add tin to improve flow and mould filling.

I use range scraps (range backstop lead) as raw material and pure lead , but I could work with pure lead, linotype, solder bars,etc. to develope specific alloys.

I will thank your help, any guideline you can give me on this subject.

BA Shooter