My antimony finally arrived

BattleRife said:
Not true, neither Canada nor Australia is a significant contributor to world supply. From the US Geological Society mineral profile:




Melting point of pure Sb is 630°C, which is in the range of barely achieveable, maybe, for the Lee pots I have worked with. Not sure how other brands will manage. You may need a contraption of your own building.
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630°C is over 1100°F. I doubt a naptha stove will reach that high. It is also well above the temperature that the lead will start emitting dangerous vapours. That starts around 900°F.

Back when The Antomony Man was still around, he sold special fluxes that helped alloy it properly.

Auggie D.
 
wce323078 said:
I seem to remember being told or I read it somewhere that pure Antimony takes a lot more heat to melt then lead or ww. So I am wondering how you are melting it and adding to the lead? When I was casting for pistols we used Babbitt for the Antimony The hard part was getting the proper spec for the ratios in the Babbitt. Plus it had tin and lead in it as well. lot of math involved. Plus the Babbitt was easy to come by where we were.
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The Babbitt that I have used is usually mostly Tin with small amounts of Antimony and Copper.
 
handofzeus said:
I'll keep it on the 'chunky' side then! I also have full respirator and skin coverage and will be using less than a 1/4 teaspoonful at a time.
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To get a meaningful increase in hardness over pure lead you need to have minimum 1%-2% antimony. In other words, the antimony you bought is only enough to treat 10-20 lbs of alloy and it will still be a soft alloy.

If you want to heat treat or water drop to increase hardness you need a bit of arsenic in the alloy. Arsenic is found in coww and hardened shot but not in pure lead or pure antimony.

Melting the antimony one teaspoon at a time is going to be quite an exercise and might not work. I haven't tried it, but my understanding is that you need to have the lead melting pot at 1100 degF so the antimony can dissolve into it. Simply adding a teaspoon of 1100F liquid antimony to the 700F lead won't work well from what I've read.

I think if I were going to go down this road I would buy something that already has alloyed antimony in it, which will more easily dissolve into lead.

Put a WTB ad on the EE, somebody will sell you some lead/antimony alloy that will be easier to use.
 
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If you were closer to Calgary I have quite a bit of Lino type I could sell you for a reasonable price. I think putting an WTB ad for linotype will yield you quite a bit of responses.
 
Rieber said:
What about adding tungsten powder to your lead mix. Any point to doing that?
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Why try to reinvent the wheel?
Just buy some lino type for a few bucks and harden your scrap lead with that, it's a proven concept.
Don't want to have tungsten powder going through my barrel at high speed..
 
bertn said:
Why try to reinvent the wheel?
Just buy some lino type for a few bucks and harden your scrap lead with that, it's a proven concept.
Don't want to have tungsten powder going through my barrel at high speed..
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Oh crap, I didn't even think of the effects of tungsten scouring the out the barrel with every shot. Okay - that ends that thought in a hurry.
 
Rieber said:
What about adding tungsten powder to your lead mix. Any point to doing that?
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with the melting point of tungsten being over 3000 degrees, your not going to even get it into a molten state that will alloy with the lead. All you will wind up with is an abrasive that you don't want to be shooting down your bore
 
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