Antimony/Tin

[DonH]

Will antimony separate from tin when melted? I have a quantity of what was supposed to be pure tin in ingot form. Using the "tin" in blending alloys (lead/tin) and checking hardness leads me to believe the ingots to be tin/antimony alloy. Most of my CB rifle shooting is done with lead/tin boolits. The cost tin to replace what I have is what prompts the question.

[felix]

Don, the rule to remember in our home applications is to try it and see. Mix up some and cast some boolits taking care as to not shake, stir the pot until EMPTY. Take an hour break when the pot is HALF full. Measure the weight of the first GOOD boolits to the last GOOD boolits. If the same weight, then OK, the mixture is kosher over the duration. This technique is standard practice around here no matter what is in the pot. Some materials, like copper, will require constant stirring to keep any kind of acceptable composition. And, there can be many other elemental combinations that can cause boolit inconsistency. ... felix

[Buckshot]

.................A way to tell if it's pure tin, or a very high tin percentage is to cast a long slender bar. Say pour some in a piece of angle iron. When cool, bend it over something and you should get a faint 'squeal' or tin cry.

The Lyman Cast Bullet manual has a graph showing the solidification points of the 3 common ingredients of boolit alloy (Lead, Tin, Antimony). Antimony cyrstalizes out during cooling at a higher temp then tin. While the melt is cooling, checking with your thermometer when you see crystilization features on the surface will tell you if the tin is contaminated with antimony.

................Buckshot