silver soldering?

[Ivanhoe]

Two related questions;

1) Does silver solder, or other low-temp solder, do a good job of sticking to stainless steel?

2) Can aluminum alloy sight bases be soldered onto steel or stainless steel receivers? Seems like that would be a more secure fastening method, compared to base screws that back out from vibration...

 

[George Stringer]

Ivanhoe, yes silver solder will work on stainless but I'd use steel bases for this. I've never attempted to solder aluminum. For aluminum I'd either drill and tap or use epoxy. George

 

[Ivanhoe]

thanx George. an aluminum-to-steel soldering scenario that came to mind is the Springfield Scout Mount for the M1A rifle. if my information is correct, it is a clamp-on alloy mount which grasps the fat part of the barrel just forward of the receiver. I have heard that those mounts are prone (pardon the pun) to loosening, thus the possibility of soldering came to mind. I dunno if there's enough meat on an M1A bbl to drill & tap base holes. I don't think I'd have the guts to epoxy a mount, due to the difficulty of removing it.

for normal 2-piece bases on bolt-action rifles, then it sounds like stainless bases soldered to a stainless action is the way to go.

 

[johnwill]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ivanhoe:
Two related questions;

1) Does silver solder, or other low-temp solder, do a good job of sticking to stainless steel?

2) Can aluminum alloy sight bases be soldered onto steel or stainless steel receivers? Seems like that would be a more secure fastening method, compared to base screws that back out from vibration...

[/quote]

While you may get silver solder to stick to stainless, it won't have much strength. You can't solder or weld aluminum to steel at all, at least with any common equipment. If you have base screws backing out, you need to invest in some LockTite, not silver solder.

 

[cmore]

aluminum cannot be soldered with either lead or silver solder in my experience.there are some aluminum solders , but so far as i know, they only work on aluminum. epoxy or screws will probably work best for the job you describe.