NO. 4 T pads

can any one tell me what kind of soder to use when mounting the pads
thanks Rhys

I would assume that a plain lead/tin solder was used. I think I would use something like Brownells' Allstate 430. Strong, lower temperature, clean.

I would be tempted to try the paste low melting point silver solder from Brownell's on a new installation.It's easy to use;comes in a syringe.On an L42A1 I have with loose pads I got by with just heating up the old solder and tightening the screws.Still holding.
New member effective a few minutes ago.

Use silver solder, don't use lead, it is not strong enough. How are you aligning up the pads?

Pete

There are higher strength, low temperature solders. Most true silver solders require red heat to flow properly. Don't know if that would be a good idea.

Silver Solder should be used with temperature indicating flux. When the flux changes, it it hot enough to melt the silver solder.

Pete

Yes. And the temperature is still well over 1000 degrees F, for any true silver solder. Silvaloy 355 flows at 1205 degrees. Hot enough to affect any tempering or finish. There are silver bearing solders that melt at much lower temperatures. No. 4 receivers are induction hardened at critical points like the locking abutments. The rear pad is very close to the left lower locking surface.
I suspect that the solder originally used was an unsophisticated lead/tin solder.

Perhaps the original sniper rifle pads were put on with low temperature soft solder for a reason??

Hi All,

The original pads were solderd with tin. The solder isn't used to bond them to the reciever but to avoid any "rocking around" of the pads on the screws when the gun is fired. In other words: the screws take the load when the rifle is fired.
Tin is also user friendly, you don't need to heat the iron to extreme temperatures (and weaken the metal).

I can also tell you that the guys at Holand and Holand or REL didn't line the pads up in any way.
They just drilled the holes, taped the thread and put the UNFINNISHED pads on to the reciever. After that they solderd them. Then they simply placed the reciever in an jig/rig an machined the last part of the pads to finish them.
In the last stage (after checking) they parkerized the complete rifle again.

Use good quality soft solder as mentioned by a few folks here already. NEVER use silver solder to attach the scope base pads. Make sure you use new screws when making the repair as the old ones take a beating and when the whole thing finally shoots loose, it's time to replace them.