Does antimony make lead harder?

Antimony (Sb) is an element that is blended in with metals such as lead to create different alloys. The same holds true for the use of antimony in structural parts, 6 percent of antimony will really strengthen the part and, when some tin is blended as well, this can help based on your design.

What lead is best for casting bullets?

Pure lead is the softest and is usually used for muzzle loaders and such whereas lead with antimony and tin is used for much harder bullets. Linotype is an old type of lead mixed with antimony and tin for the letters they used to print newspapers back in the day.

Why don’t we use steel for bullets?

Iron is too brittle and too hard to make a good projectile. Bullets ended up with a lead or steel core surrounded by a softer outer jacket to prevent fouling or erosion by the harder steel. By erosion, the lands of the rifling can be worn down over time by firing a lot of rounds through the barrel.

What type of metal is used for bullets?

Most pistol bullets are made of a lead-antimony alloy encased in a soft brass or copper-plated soft steel jacket. In rifle and machine-gun bullets, a soft core of lead is encased in a harder jacket of steel or cupronickel. Armour-piercing bullets have a hardened-steel inner core.

Is antimony used for bullets?

Antimony, in combination with tin, act together to form an alloy with lead, making bullets harder, and less prone to shaving off lead residue inside a barrel’s rifling, which results in increasingly degraded accuracy.

Is antimony soft or hard?

Antimony is a semi-metal element that comes in both a powdered form as well as a hard and brittle metal.

Can you make copper bullets?

Bullets can be made of one material such as solid lead, copper or a powdered metal mixture, or they may be “jacketed”, meaning the core material is covered by a “skin” normally made of relatively thin copper or brass alloy. Both jacketed and non-jacketed bullets can be swaged easily with Corbin tools.

What is hard cast ammo?

Hard cast bullets can be formulated of numerous alloy mixes (antimony, silver, tin, etc) containing some lead, but the alloys make the bullet much harder than pure lead. Most hard cast bullets will have a Brinell hardness # of 11 to 30 and as such are several times harder than lead.

Are Copper bullets good?

With copper, there is no loss of weight, and even wider wound cavities with increased velocities, so a comparable choice is to use 110 gr bullets. The benefit to the shooter will be lighter recoil and thus more accurate shots. With the 308 Winchester, the popular lead core bullet is 150 grains or larger.

How is a bullet propelled?

The spark from the primer ignites the gunpowder. Gas converted from the burning powder rapidly expands in the cartridge. The expanding gas forces the bullet out of the cartridge and down the barrel with great speed. The rifling in the barrel causes the bullet to spin as it travels out of the barrel.

Is antimony used in paints?

Many other antimony compounds find use in the ceramics and glass industries as glazes, paints and pigments, primarily the sulphides, oxides, antimony trichloride and sodium antimonate. The brilliant yellow colour of antimony oxide means it is used as a pigment in paints, rubbers, plastics, etc.