Hi,
I wasn't sure if this should go in the alloys forum or BPCR forum. I decided on BPCR as it is more relevant here. There was a similar thread some years ago I found via google, but it was wheel weights specific so I decided to open this one to get people's opinions.
I read in few places that one should avoid antimony in their black powder cartridge boolits because antimony "leads the bore with black powder", but I nhaven't actually observed this with properly sized boolits. With tin prices as they are and after reading opinions of the mountain molds owner that antimony alloys supposedly are easier to cast reliably I decided to give them a try. I had few ingots I bought long time ago that were around BHN 20 and they were supposed to contain only antimony and lead. I added 30% of them and the rest of lead to create an alloy that is around BHN 10. That alloy cast really well and didn't form any dross during an hour long casting session. I only had time to shoot 10 of the resulting boolits, but I haven't noticed any leading and accuracy was pretty good.
I'm planning to do a better comparison between the 1:20 alloy and this BHN 10 antimony alloy in few weeks. In the meantime I wanted to ask the forum if anyone knows where did this opinion originate that antimony leads the bore and is there any truth to it?