Adding antimony to wheel weights??

[Steve E]

I got in a .45 caliber Lyman mold for my .45 Colt castings, it is mold #452490 which is suppossed to throw a 255 gr bullet at .454 but with WW it is understandibly undersized, around .452.
I melted up 9.5 lbs of wheel weights and .5 lb of antimony in one batch and the next batch I tried 9 lb of wheel weight with 1 lb of antimony and they both came out at .451 to .452.
It is on it's way back to Lyman right now with a sample of bullets. With the alloy mentioned Lyman said it should have thrown a .454 bullet. I tried casting at 700* all the way up to about 850* and they still came out the same but a little frosted at the upper temps.
Shouldn't antimony make the bullets come out a little larger? What is antimony made up of?
Thanks for any info.

Steve E...................

[Echo]

Well - antimony is antimony - an element, and I doubt if that much antimony would make much difference in the diameter of the cast boolit. The mold casts somewhat under spec...

[454PB]

Steve, are you sure it was 100% antimony? Adding 10% antimony should have swelled it up .002" and lightened the boolit about 5%. I add 25% monotype to wheel weight alloy, and it increases the diameter about .001". Perhaps the antimony didn't alloy with the WW alloy.

[Steve E]

I feel kinda stupid, I can't remember if he told me it was Linotype or Antimony, I've been callingit Antimony but it could be Lino. I know it is very shiney and has more of a ring to it than lead when you tap it on something. It's OK to go ahead and laugh at me.
Anybody have a method to tell what it is for the dummy to use?


Steve E...........

[snaggdit]

I have some pure (99%) crystalline antimony, and it doesn't like to alloy with ww. I know it has a higher melting point, but was under the impression it sublimates while in melted lead. Some seems to go in, but I end up with slag after fluxing. I just remove what didn't join in.

[44man]

You will measure smaller right after casting too. It takes time for a boolit with antimony to expand. Always let them age a while before measuring. Water dropping will speed it up a little.
If you had pure antimony you need special flux sold by the Metal Man. Antimony will melt in at 600* with the flux and he cautions not to go over that temp.

[Steve E]

Does anyone have a method to tell if the stuff I have is Lino or Antimony, as mentioned above it is in small ingots(about the size of Lee ingots) and they have a higher ring than lead when tapped on something and is also very shiney.

Steve E...........

[Calehedron]

If its in an ingot form it is most likely Linotype. Raw antimony is rough chunks, fines, and dust. Melt it! Lino melts at 474* and turns solid at 473* i believe. Its eutectic, melts and solidifies 1 degree apart.

[Steve E]

I believe it to be linotype now, from the description Calehedron gave me.

Steve E........

[454PB]

OK, Steve. You are probably trying to conserve your supply of linotype, but try mixing up a small batch of 50/50 WW and linotype. You'll see an increase in diameter and reduction in weight.

[southpaw]

try scratching it with a nail or a knife. lino will scratch and I doubt that you will be able to scratch antimony very much. sounds like you have lino tho.

[sleeper1428]

If the metal you're adding to your melt is reasonably pure antimony then it's not going to go into solution without the addition of a special alloying flux formulated just for that purpose and therefore you can probably figure that your metal is actually Lino or Mono. That special flux is a zinc/ammonium chloride mixture and is reasonably toxic so it should only be used outside where there is plenty of room for the fumes to blow away. This flux used to be sold under the name of Alloyer's Flux by a company named Leading Edge Tool Supply (LETS) but unfortunately that company has been out of business for quite some time. They also sold pulverized antimony which worked beautifully with that Alloyer's Flux. I was fortunate enough to have purchased well over 100lbs of pulverized antimony and plenty of Alloyer's Flux before they went out of business and I also picked up over 80lbs of tin at prices that were around 3-4 dollars/lb - as compared to the 10-14 dollars/lb that is the going price these days. The only company that now supplies anything like that flux is the Zaclon Corporation that sells a zinc/ammonium chloride flux by the name of 'Kleanrol'. Unfortunately, they only sell it in fairly large amounts - 50lbs is their minimum order as I recall - so about the only way it would be feasible for an individual boolit caster to order it would be if he could get some friends to go in on the purchase of a container.

sleeper1428

[shotman]

welding supply stores have the flux as does brownells. Antimony melts at higher temp around 750 and needs some tin added to bond it to the lead.

[sleeper1428]

The flux that is sold by Brownells is unlikely to be what you want in order to allow elemental antimony to be added to a lead/tin mixture. Antimony has a melting point of 1167F which is well above the temperatures that most common lead melting pots will achieve. Thus the need for a special flux (zinc/ammonium chlorice) that will allow the antimony to melt at a temperature of around 700F to 750F. The flux sold by Brownell's and many other sites is either Marvelux or something similar and is meant to be used to flux a melt that already has antimony alloyed into the mix. Check with Bill Ferguson, the 'Antimony Man', and he can give you all the particulars.

sleeper1428

[KYCaster]

A "special flux" is not necessary to add Sb to your alloy and the process works very well at typical smelting temps.

44Man and I have both posted our methods here more than once. The last time was a couple of months ago. Try a search, it should be easy to find.

The differences between his method and mine are basicly the temps...mine is somewhat lower...and the flux...he uses The Antimony Man's (Bill Ferguson), and I use boolit lube. Both seem to work OK.

Jerry