#2 copper wire: the mixed scrap grade.

The Birch spec, in plain English

The trade code name for #2 copper wire is Birch: miscellaneous unalloyed copper wire, nominal 96% copper content, minimum 94% by electrolytic assay. Everything not clean enough for #1 lands here — mixed, tarnished, lightly coated — as long as the copper content holds. The spec names what must stay out: excessively leaded, tinned, or soldered wire; brass and bronze wire; excessive oil; iron and non-metallics; wire from burning containing insulation; brittle burnt wire; and hair wire — with the load reasonably free of ash.

The typical #2 pile

Mixed wire and cable ends. Tarnished wire with a heavy patina. Lightly tinned or painted wire. Stripped hair wire — fine-stranded welding lead and battery cable — which most yards buy as #2 rather than downgrading further (the ISRI text says Birch should be free of hair wire, but in practice clean stripped hair wire trades here). Small mixed cutoffs with a few connectors still on. It's the honest catch-all grade: not clean enough for #1, still overwhelmingly copper.

What pulls wire down a grade

These are the usual suspects that move wire off the top shelves: soldered joints (solder is a lead/tin alloy that contaminates the melt); tinned or plated wire (a tin coating keeps even thick bright wire out of #1); burnt or brittle wire (wire recovered by burning off insulation is oxidized and brittle); heavy green tarnish (light tarnish is #1; heavy corrosion and pitting is #2); excessive oil; steel or iron attachments (screws, connectors, staples left on); paint; and hair wire mixed into a bright load (one handful can get a whole bare-bright pile re-graded). The rule from the spec: any single excluded item can pull the entire lot down — so sort before you haul.

Why 94–96% matters

The assay is the buyer's floor: nominal 96%, minimum 94% copper by weight, tested electrolytically. It tells the buyer exactly how much actual copper is in the pound — which is what sets the grade and, ultimately, the number. #2 doesn't pretend to be pure; it promises 94% and delivers, and the whole trade knows how to price that promise.

Sorting is what moves you up

Three piles beat one. Pull the shiny, thick, clean wire aside for bare bright. Keep the clean-but-dull wire in its own #1 pile. Let the soldered, tinned, burnt, and mixed wire live in the #2 pile where it belongs. Every step up the ladder pays better — and the sorting costs you nothing but a few minutes. See the copper sorting guide for the full routine.

Keep reading the copper dictionary.

Copper Wire Dictionary — the full hub of grade-by-grade guides. #1 Copper Wire — the clean grade above #2. Insulated Copper Wire Grades — how jacketed wire grades on recovery. Sorting Copper Scrap — the pile system that moves you up.

#2 copper questions, answered.