Looking at a Facebook Marketplace ad for lead for casting Boolits. Is there too much antimony in this alloy? 2% tin, 6% antimony, 92% lead.
Looking at a Facebook Marketplace ad for lead for casting Boolits. Is there too much antimony in this alloy? 2% tin, 6% antimony, 92% lead.
Check on a new thread in 'Lead and Lead Alloys'. hc18flyer
Larry Gibson
“Deficient observation is merely a form of ignorance and responsible for the many morbid notions and foolish ideas prevailing.”
― Nikola Tesla
You’re describing hardball alloy, often used by commercial cast bullet manufacturers. Rumor has it that, like rubbery, tasteless tomatoes bred to ship well without becoming tomato sauce in transit, the alloy is used to avoid having bulk bullets getting dinged up in shipping.
It works fine. It also works fine cut 1:1 with pure lead. Some, like the very experienced Mr. Gibson, appreciate the characteristics of a “balanced” alloy containing 1:1 ratios of Sb and Sn, but I think it sort of depends on what you cast and how you plan on using it (I paper punch generously sized targets with pistols at close range, for instance, so my alloy has few demands on it).
No, it's not too much with a BHN of 16. It's classic hardball lead, and the choice for high velocity rifle boolits, as well as handguns. That is also the alloy used in commercial boolits, so it's a good choice, unless you specifically want or need a softer BHN for expansion. 9mm and 10mm, plus rifles are high velocity (1100+fps), whereas .40 and .45 are slightly slower.
Psalms 91
The old timers hated antimony as they felt the non-symmetrical grain of the stuff could cause accelerated barrel wear. i think if you cut it with 25-50% lead you would have a really good alloy for most applications. OTOH, plenty of people purchased "hardball" alloy and used it for everything.
[The Montana Gianni] Front sight and squeeze
If I had this alloy, I would cast 9mm and 40 with it. Then to reduce the antinomy in the alloy, I'd find pure lead to dilute the percentage.
I use hardball with SOWW’s. Basically, 5.25lbs hardball to 7# SOWW’s. Give me 11.3 BHN and shows some expansion in soft berm. I get good fillout in the molds.
SN 1% SB 2.57% PB 96.4%
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |