Copper vs Brass vs Bronze: Weight & Cost Compared

I Kept Mixing These Up, So I Made a Cheat Sheet

I was pricing out some fittings for a plumbing project — maybe two years ago now — and the supplier listed copper, brass, and bronze options all on the same page. And I just stared at it. The prices were different, the weights were different, and I honestly couldn't remember which one was which or why I'd pick one over the other. I nodded along when the guy at the counter started explaining alloy compositions. I didn't understand half of it.

So I went home and did what I always do — I made a spreadsheet.

That spreadsheet eventually turned into the comparison below, and it's saved me (and a bunch of people I've shared it with) a lot of confusion. The thing is, copper, brass, and bronze look similar-ish, they're all non-ferrous, and they all get used in overlapping applications. But their weight and cost differences are real, and if you're buying material by the pound or the foot, those differences add up fast.

The Quick Comparison Table

Here's the cheat sheet. I've rounded these to practical numbers because nobody needs four decimal places when they're standing at a supply counter trying to do math on their phone.

Property	Copper (C110)	Brass (C360)	Bronze (C932)
Density (lb/in³)	0.323	0.307	0.319
Density (g/cm³)	8.94	8.50	8.83
Approx. price per lb (raw bar stock)	4 – 7	3 – 5	5 – 9
Corrosion resistance	Excellent	Good	Excellent
Machinability	Fair	Excellent	Good
Common uses	Electrical, plumbing	Fittings, valves, decorative	Bearings, bushings, marine
Color	Reddish-orange	Yellowish-gold	Dark reddish-brown

A couple things jump out. Brass is the lightest of the three — not by a huge margin, but enough that it matters on a big order. And bronze tends to be the most expensive, which surprised me at first until I realized it's basically copper plus tin (and sometimes other stuff), and that tin isn't cheap.

Copper sits in the middle price-wise for raw stock, but it fluctuates a lot with commodity markets. Like, a lot. I've seen copper bar stock swing 30% in a single year.

How to Calculate the Weight of a Piece You're Buying

This is where it gets practical. Say you need a bronze bushing and the supplier lists it by the piece but you want to sanity-check the weight (maybe for shipping, maybe because you're suspicious of the quote). Here's the formula for a solid round bar or rod:

Let me walk through a real example. I needed a 2-inch diameter bronze rod, 12 inches long. So the radius is 1 inch.

Weight = 3.14159 × (1)² × 12 × 0.319

Weight = 3.14159 × 1 × 12 × 0.319

Weight = about 12.02 lbs

That's roughly 12 pounds for a one-foot piece of 2-inch bronze rod. And at, say, 7 per pound for that particular alloy, you're looking at around 84 just for the material. Now imagine you need ten of them — that's 840 in bronze alone, and about 120 pounds of metal showing up on a pallet. These numbers matter when you're budgeting a project!

If that same rod were brass instead of bronze, the weight drops to about 11.56 lbs (using 0.307 density), and the cost might be closer to 46 – 58 at brass pricing. So yeah, the metal you pick changes your budget by a meaningful amount.

You can skip all this manual math with our

— just plug in the dimensions and alloy and it spits out the weight instantly.

When to Actually Use Each One

Copper is the go-to for anything electrical. Its conductivity is basically the benchmark — everything else gets compared to copper. It's also great for plumbing (obviously), and it has this natural antimicrobial thing going on, which is why you see it in hospitals and food processing. But it's soft. Like, really soft. You can scratch it with a key.

Brass is copper plus zinc, and that zinc makes it harder and way easier to machine. If you need to cut threads or drill holes, brass is your friend. Plumbers love it for fittings and valves. Decorative hardware is almost always brass. And it's the cheapest of the three, which doesn't hurt.

Bronze is the heavy-duty option.

It's copper plus tin (mostly), and it's what you want for bearings, bushings, marine hardware, and anything that needs to handle friction or saltwater. It's harder than brass, more corrosion-resistant in harsh environments, and it wears beautifully over time. But you pay for all that — bronze bar stock can run 5 to 9 per pound depending on the specific alloy and how much you're buying.

I've seen people use brass where they should've used bronze (a marine application, for instance) and it corroded within a year. That was an expensive lesson — replacing all those fittings cost way more than just buying bronze in the first place. If you're working near saltwater or high-friction situations, don't cheap out.

For figuring out how different metals compare in specific shapes, our

is handy, and there's also a

if you're dealing with hollow sections. If you're comparing costs across a whole project, the

can help you figure out which supplier is actually giving you the better deal per pound. And for converting between metric and imperial (because suppliers never seem to agree on units), there's a

that handles all of it.

A Few Things People Always Get Wrong

Brass and bronze are not interchangeable. I hear this constantly. "It's all copper alloy, what's the difference?" The difference is zinc vs. tin, and that changes the hardness, the corrosion profile, and the price. They're different metals for different jobs.

Also, "copper" at the hardware store is almost never pure copper. Most copper fittings are actually a copper alloy of some kind — they just call it copper because that's close enough for plumbing. If you need actual C110 pure copper (for electrical bus bars or something), you usually have to order it specifically.

And one more thing — scrap values are totally different for each. Copper scrap is worth the most, brass is in the middle, and bronze varies wildly depending on the alloy. If you're doing a big job and generating a lot of cutoffs, it's worth separating them. I once tossed a bunch of bronze turnings in with brass scrap and the scrapyard paid me the brass rate for all of it. Lost probably 40 or 50 bucks on that one, which still annoys me.

For sheet or plate calculations, our

handles the math, and if you're working with steel alongside these copper alloys, the

is right there too.

Is bronze always heavier than brass?

In most common alloys, yes — bronze (around 0.319 lb/in³) is denser than brass (around 0.307 lb/in³). But there are specialty alloys on both sides that can flip this. For the standard stuff you'd buy at a metals supplier, bronze will be heavier by roughly 4%.

Why is bronze more expensive than copper if copper is the main ingredient?

Tin. Bronze is mostly copper, but the tin that's added to make it bronze costs more per pound than copper does. Plus, bronze alloys often include other elements like phosphorus or aluminum, and the alloying process itself adds cost. So even though copper is the base, the finished bronze product ends up pricier.

Can I use brass for outdoor marine applications?

You can, but you probably shouldn't. Brass is susceptible to dezincification in saltwater — basically the zinc leaches out and you're left with a weak, porous mess. Bronze (specifically silicon bronze or manganese bronze) is the standard choice for marine hardware. It'll cost more upfront but it won't fall apart on you in two seasons.