Howdy
Am interested in anyone who has had experiance with any kind of addition of silver to a cast alloy. Am also interested in any one with experiance in shooting any cast bullets with silver content in 30 cal rifles at vol above 1600 fps. Thanks in advance to all who reply to this thread.
Paul

Hunting vampires are you?

The only people that I know of that advertises the use of silver in their bullet alloy is the Oregon Trail Bullet Company 1-800-811-0548. You might give them a call and ask them about the advantages in using silver. They just might get friendly and tell you how it's done.

Not interested in vampires, but if there is an outbreak of them, would be willing to become interested in hunting them.
Will probably give OT a call. On one of the other forums, I had a reply that said that he has tried OT bullets at med vols and had appreciable leading. Would like to hear from others who have tried these bullets with or with out sucess regarding leading. Am more curious than I am interested.
Paul

By the way - there are always trace amounts of silver in lead ore. Probably all of our cast bullets have a bit, even if we don't realize it.

I have used several calibers in the Oregon Trail bullets that I bought several years ago before starting to cast my own. Just recently bought a hardness tester and tested a couple of them and they were 17 1/2bhn. I used all mine at pretty fast velocities and they did Ok. I don't think they would be that good for plinking or target shooting (slow).

I would agree that maybe all lead has trace silver in it but I bet that Oregon Trail's bullets have quite a bit of antimony in them to make them hard as they tend to shatter on thick steel targets. All of them I've used were for handgun calibers, xcept the 30/30 gas check bullets, and I used them at max powder loadings,except the 30/30, without much if any leading.

Bill

I, too was interested in silver bullets. I looked for information everywhere I could think of. No luck.
Finally I decided to try it anyway. My lead pot will go to almost 1100 degrees, near the boiling point of lead.
I added .999 puire silver to the lead. It took quite a while to melt the silver, but it did melt. I ended up with 6% silver and 94% wheelweights. I don't know exactly how hard the bullets are, but they are HARD. They survived the very unsientific (hammer test). I put them on the anvil and pounded them with a two pound hammer. They deformed, but did not shatter.
They poured best for me at about 800 degrees. They shoot very well indeed. There was no evidence of leading, but i always use gas checks.
I used a Lee 310 gr mold. I don't remember what the velocity was at the moment, and am not near my notes, but they were pushed to the max for my Ruger SRH. They are for bear defense, after all. Good luck. I had a lot of fun with this project. Load them in nickel cases. They look really good in a black cowboy rig.

I made a batch of bullets from wheelweights and a one pound roll of 60/38/2 lead tin silver solder, casted a bunch of 333 gr. 452651 bullets from it and never noticed a difference.

Granted that amount of silver is rather small compared to adding a .999 pure 1 troy ounce ingot to the pot, but jeeze! how much did that batch of bullets cost?

I, too was interested in silver bullets. I looked for information everywhere I could think of. No luck.
Finally I decided to try it anyway. My lead pot will go to almost 1100 degrees, near the boiling point of lead.
I added .999 puire silver to the lead. It took quite a while to melt the silver, but it did melt. I ended up with 6% silver and 94% wheelweights. I don't know exactly how hard the bullets are, but they are HARD. They survived the very unsientific (hammer test). I put them on the anvil and pounded them with a two pound hammer. They deformed, but did not shatter.
They poured best for me at about 800 degrees. They shoot very well indeed. There was no evidence of leading, but i always use gas checks.
I used a Lee 310 gr mold. I don't remember what the velocity was at the moment, and am not near my notes, but they were pushed to the max for my Ruger SRH. They are for bear defense, after all. Good luck. I had a lot of fun with this project. Load them in nickel cases. They look really good in a black cowboy rig.

Thanks Snowtigger, Got to give credit for your expirement, and If I can find a small amount of silver at a reasonable price may give it a shot myself. Leave it to an Alaskan to have the answer to my question. Wish I had never left the Fariabanck area. Was there (Eielson) when the pipeline went through. Now am an intrenched lower 48'er and have a grandkid in Ne. that I just have to be around. Paul

I made a batch of bullets from wheelweights and a one pound roll of 60/38/2 lead tin silver solder, casted a bunch of 333 gr. 452651 bullets from it and never noticed a difference.

Granted that amount of silver is rather small compared to adding a .999 pure 1 troy ounce ingot to the pot, but jeeze! how much did that batch of bullets cost?

I used a total of four ounces of silver in 5 lbs of melt. I don't know how much they cost. How can you put a price on something you have wanted to do for half your life. Now I have Lone Ranger bullets!!!

Thanks Snowtigger, Got to give credit for your expirement, and If I can find a small amount of silver at a reasonable price may give it a shot myself. Leave it to an Alaskan to have the answer to my question. Wish I had never left the Fariabanck area. Was there (Eielson) when the pipeline went through. Now am an intrenched lower 48'er and have a grandkid in Ne. that I just have to be around. Paul
Eielson is still going strong. Fairbanks is much improved since the pipeline days.
I know what you mean by being tied to the grandkids, most of mine were here for the weekend. I couldn't get Grandma out of here with a team of mules. She would give them a lesson in stubbornness that would have them hiding their heads in shame.
The experiment was fun. I didn't know if it would work or not. Everything I read indicated I did not have enough heat. So, i finally just tried it anyway. It took a long time for the silver to melt. Try not to boil your lead, it can't possibly be good for you. Do it outside!! Good luck. Roger

I had the bright idea of making silver bullets a few years ago. A vendor I used to use sent me a troy ounce silver coin that said merry christmas several years in a row. Silver is currently about 7.50 an ounce and back then in 99 or so was 4.50. I was going to make cuff links out of the classic kieth 429421 mold by putting aluminum foil between the blocks and filling with silver. I put the three ounces of silver into my lee pro 20 and came back in a 1/2 hour or so to check. The pot was glowing red and the rounds had not melted, I thought oh no I am going to ruin my pot not enough in there to soak up the heat, so I threw in some lead, I figured I would let the coins float to the top and skim them. Well they melted. (now I know that silver and lead are very close in density) Interestingly pure silver I know now melts at somewhere around 1700 F but alloys and even as my experiance and the other gents shows, pure silver ingot with lead will melt at much lower temp as well. My silver/ww mix water dropped was about 24 bhn. I shot them all so I don't know if they age softened. One of them put a hole in a large pig.

I also tried the silver and WW alloy. I had about 2% silver. It came out hard, and was able to be heat treated. I hollow pointed some of my 775 grain 12 gauge bullets with it. The result was strange, The bullets acted like a nosler partition. The nose fragmented, and the base continued like a wadcutter. The cost was nothing, because I got a few # for free. I think it helps the mold fill, and helps hardness also.
Greg

Howdy
Am interested in anyone who has had experiance with any kind of addition of silver to a cast alloy. Am also interested in any one with experiance in shooting any cast bullets with silver content in 30 cal rifles at vol above 1600 fps. Thanks in advance to all who reply to this thread.
Paul
In The Modern American Rifle, 1892, Gould recommends putting a silver dime in a pot of alloy to make the bullets shiny.
In 1983 at the Coors match in Golden CO, Barry Darr claimed to add silver to the mix. Many followed his lead, I could never get the coin to melt.
joe b.

I found some lead free solder for almost nothing at a yard sale, about 3 lbs. While not pure silver, had a fair percentage of it. Put one lb in a 20 lb pot and the bullets came out very nice, shiny, filled out and hard. Used the rest in smaller increments with similar results, seemed to improve the castability of th lead.

Being a tight-fisted Scrooge I tuck any silver I come across in the safe.
I've found, what appears to be a good substitute for silver, babbit metal. I've come across two varieties of babbit. Being of a scientific bent I call them red babbit and blue babbit, since that's the color they add to WW alloy.
The red babbit seems to be the harder of the two. At the local scrap metal dealers place I purchased 50 or so pounds of the babbit at $2.00 per. From my experience these two alloys mixed with WW would make a great substitute for armour piercing projectiles.
Jim

I miked some slugs that I cast from WW with 1%Tin, and 1% Silver. They are larger than slugs cast from any other alloy. They measure .742"-.743" while linotype is at .741-.742", and WW with 2% Tin is at .739"-740". I guess you could use this alloy to bump up the diameter of bullets for oversize bores. I found it because I was worried that I did not have a proper bullet to shoot in my new barrel. I stumbled on it, and it should work. The bullets come out hard, and the nose shatters if you Hollow point it. Greg

Though you guys might get a kick out of my silver hoard. Deceided I needed some money around that was worth something more than because someone says it is worth something. (not a Greenspan fan)