Garbage MIG wire..any choices left?

Thought I'd asked this a while back,but can't find my post,so here it is. Welding a trailer hitch for a buddy on Saturday,and used the last of a 10 lb spool of Lincoln .030 steel wire. Had bought some Weldcote a few months ago at the suggestion of the local welding supplier. The old guy there apologized for Chinese wire,but led me to believe I didn't have a choice anymore.
Switched out to the new spool,noticed it wasn't wound as tight as I would have liked,looked a little sloppy. A 10 pound spool of shit. Birdnested after running about 2 feet,so we cut off a helluva lot of it to get to a good end. This shit doesn't even sound right. Won't feed evenly,welds like shit,spatters in whole new ways.
This is with a nice big Miller machine that's performed perfectly for years.
My buddy was watching/holding while I welded... he asked me why I kept stopping in the middle. I told him it would stop feeding wire,wasn't me,then resume.
Not sure this shit is even 100% steel. I've never had wire behave like this. You can look at my welds and tell which were done with the old spool of Lincoln,and which were the Weldcote shit. It's not been wet,wasn't unwrapped until we got ready to use it.
After I bought it,I googled USA MIG wire,and didn't get much of an answer. Still didn't expect it to suck this bad.
Any choices left?

 

Seems that is talked about on welding forums. Some like ESAB and some like Lincoln even though they acknowledge that a lot of it is made in china.

 

Seems like everything is going to china.

 

For some reason, welding wire gets treated like hot dogs.
All the weird left over crap nobody wants gets made into welding wire or hotdogs.

I've got no idea how long 10 lbs of 0.030 is or 0.023 but the whole freaking thing needs to be consistent size, no small or oval flat spots, and wound without kinks. If its not your feed gets screwy. The feed is such an important part of mig welding and a screwy feed makes screwy welds. Makes no difference on machine or experience of the operator, poor feed makes for poor welds.

Garbage on the parent metal is going to mess up the welds for sure. Garbage in the wire should be fucking illegal.

 

I've always had great luck with Forney brand. An american company,Been in business since 1932. Although it still doesn't mean it's not Chinese wire.

 

Been using Forney through my Miller. Happy happy happy.

 

Any of the "big name" suppliers. You get what you pay for as usual...

 

Lincoln wire works for me!

 

You can get Lincoln wire from homedepot

Jake

 

Yeah,I know. I trusted the old guy at the biggest welding supplier in the area. Main reason I went ahead and bought the Weldcote,besides his opinion,was that all the other steel wire they sold was also made in China.
All the other "big name" stuff I've looked at was Chinese,too.
Not intended to be a Chinese rant,just an inferior,shitty product rant.

 

Make sure the problem isn't the liner on your whip. I had the same problem thought it was shitty wire after three spools that all did the same thing I replaced the liner and problem solved.

 

I used to use Ltec wire..it was good..can't find it now

 

i order mine from weldingcity.com.... they have an evilbay store also.
i cant say where the stuff comes from (us or china) but i know its always worked great!

 

For the last two years I've been using ESAB Easy Grind..ER70S6.. I get it at National Welders store here in town

 

Dunno where it's made but i like the Blue Demon wire.

 

I bought a roll of Lincoln wire and it works fine. As far as I know you can still buy good quality name brand wire from most of the major welding supply dealers.

 

I buy ESAB wire at the local rural king store, I like it better than the Lincoln wire I was buying.

 

I use the Lincoln stuff too, but once (when I was in a pinch),out of desperation I bought some at Harbor Freight for a quick job, and it worked well (wihch completely surprised me)-that doesn't mean that I switched, but I was surprised that it worked so well-

 

i run NS wire, costs more, i like that it's copper free and never plugs the liner.

 

Ltec/Lindie was bought up by ESAB years ago.

 

Wait until there are many customers in the store, throw the leftover spool on the counter and say "this Chinese shit sucks, where the manager" as long as you let them sell you crap, thats what they'll push on you.

 

I keep a roll of Hf in case I run out late on a weekend. Usually I run a 10 lb lincoln, in a Hobart 135. I do thin gauge stuff.

 

I bought a spool of HF .025 just to see if it's any good. To my surprise it does nicely on 16-20 ga. but I found it's made in Italy , go figure. I've used ESAB before and it was really nice wire , just trying to find it is another story.

 

I Like Hobart and ESAB easy grind

 

I tried some off brand stuff and it bird nested, also was getting rusty right out of the wrapper. Since then I have been using Hobart wire and have been happy with it.

 

Good point. I've had a similar problem in the past. It could also be from having the wire feeder set to the wrong diameter wire. Test the wire feed by making a couple of loops in the cable, pull the trigger and make sure the wire feeds smooth, no jumps or pauses of the wire exiting the gun.

 

makeing birds nests mean your feed roller tension is to much, you should be able to stop the wire at the tip and the rollers should slip, if you have been running copper coated wire i'll bet your liner is coated with it inside, i have used thinner and air to clean liners, takes some time but will work for awhile.

 

The Lincoln wire is usually fine, sounds like somebody along the way dropped your roll of wire......that will cause the same problems as you are having -just like when the liner is sticky in the leads......
Just return it where ya buy wire and tell em it has been dropped.
after they eat a couple rolls they tell the help to lay it down easy....

 

I've found the AirGas "house brand" (Radnor) wire to be pretty good.

Bob

 

The copper flash coating on Mig wire is there to enhance the conductivity of the electrical pickup when the wire passes through the contact tip and has nothing to do with plugging liners.

Plugged liners come from dirty wire or dust on the wire. A wire wiping felt applied to the wire will solve the problem for the most part.