What is ya'lls favorite alloy? 30-1. 25-1 or what do you think of 20-1. I ask because I have a bunch of 20-1. Can I use it to make 32-40 bullets?
Marsh

Marsh,
  What I've found over the years, and many others have to, is that 1-25 seems to work well in most calibers considering the MV's we're using in Schuetzen.

  But my .38/55 likes 1-20 best so if I had a lot laying around I'd go ahead and use it.

  There is one other thing you can do. Can't help you here, but some on here can tell you how much Lead to add to a specific amount of 1-20 to get 1-25, or any other alloy that you finally determine works best in your gun. Brent comes to mind as he helped me with this a while back on a bunch of 1-30 I wanted to convert over to 1-25.

PETE

I have been using 20-1 in my 32-40 with great success! 

I sure would give it a try if I were you!!

Just for the record, I mix batches of pure lead to pure tin at a ration of 25# lead to 1# tin.  I try to keep ingots of this on hand and just melt these known ingots to start a casting session.  All of this reminds me, though that I am running low and have to mix up some more. 

GF

Marsh
I also have used a Hoch base pour I got from CPA and a nose pour as well. I hope that you didn't give up after trying only 25 bullets if it was a new mold? I remember it took a while before both were broke in to cast excellent bullets. I use both 20:1 and 25:1 in my Hoch molds for my CPA 32/40. Both alloy mixes have shot well in my rifle, and I'm still trying to determine which mix is better; as I can't tell any difference when shooting either one in my particular rifle.
Bob

Marsh
Try raising the temp to above 800. I cast at 875, at that temp I cast about 10 to get the mould up to temp. them I can cast till my back starts to scream. Nose pour moulds need a hotter alloy than base pour.
40 Rod

Marsh
I agree with you that there is a broad range of "Right" tempers that shoot well in schuetzen. The work is in finding the right combination of Mould, Temper Lube, and powder. that work in your gun. The broader and shallower the lands the harder the bullet temper wants to be. Its pretty subjective as to what is a "good" load. 
How ever on the subject of antimony I remain firm as far as bullets go there is nothing good that happens when it is added to a alloy. The only reason that it is used is that it is a cheap way to harden lead. When you add antimony you loose ductility. The alloy becomes more brittle and crumbly. At extream hardness small pieces tear off. Also in casting it goes through a slushey stage that increases voids as the metal cools. 
Try an experiment take a bullet cast in linotype and a lead:tin bullet of the same size. Crush them in a vise take them out and examin them with a magnifying glass or loop. Then tell me which you want to shoot.

40 Rod

40_Rod,
  I'm not sure I can entirely agree with your summation that Antimony in a bullet is not good.

  Probably a majority of the shooters in the CBA would also disagree. Many of them like to take wheel wgt.'s and thru quenching and annealing like to get their bullets as hard as it is possible to get them. I'd hate think of how many Lino and wheel wgt. bullets I've shot..... with higher velocities and far better accuracy than we can get with plain base bullets.

  Your test of squeezing a Lino bullet in a vice to show how it fractures is true but I don't think it really reflects what happens to such a bullet under internal forces on ignition. The confines of the barrel keep these bullets from "spreading" out such as happens in a vice. I have dug out many a Lino bullet from the bank that was broken in two, but I didn't notice any extra holes in the target, so would assume this happened on impact. Many of these bullets have also been recovered that were bent or distorted, altho they didn't have the mushroom look that Tin/Lead bullets do. In fact many look like they could have used again.

  Personally I've found that the alloy you use will be dependent on caliber and the velocity you plan on shooting it at. Schuetzen calibers and their MV's seem to shoot best with some kind of Tin/Lead alloy. But once you get up into the 1800 fps + range then you need an alloy harder than you can achieve with a Tin/Lead one. The only reason for this is to keep the nose of the bullet from slumping and making for a lop-sided bullet which wouldn't give any accuracy at all.

PETE

Marsh,
  This thing about BP causing more obduration than smokeless seems to be pretty well excepted. I'm going to say I'm not to sure. Looking at pressure curves of both powders they don't seem all that far apart where it counts..... At ignition.

  I don't ever recall seeing an experiment where bore sized bullets were shot into a sawdust box with both black and smokeless to see if both expand the bullet to groove size. We know black will, but will smokeless? Interesting thought!

  Getting on a roll here! 

  Personally I could never figure out why some people seem to think that a bore sized bullet is as accurate as a bullet slightly over groove size. A bore size bullet has to obdurate to fill the grooves and seal off the powder gases, and in so doing what guarantee is there that it will bump up evenly? In the old days there were reasons for using bore sized bullets, but from all the target shooting articles I've seen it appears as tho they used bullets of groove size.

  A bullet, for best accuracy, has to fit the bore properly and be hard enuf so that the shock of ignition doesn't completely pass thru the bullet and deform the nose. This would apply whether the powder was black or smokeless. So whether black or smokeless produces more obduration is kind of moot since a proper sized bullet will actually size down slightly, unless of course it's breech seated. But even then we only seat the bullet out so that it engraves to about halfway into the bottom band so some of it will be sized down.

  Your thoughts!?

PETE

40_Rod,
  In your message you started a new paragraph with the comment "However on the subject of Antimony" when you mentioned Antimony so I figured that you were delving into another area of cast bullet alloying.

  I will agree that alloys with Antimony in them MIGHT not be applicable for Schuezten. Haven't tried that but have shot a lot of mono and Lino bullets that were paper patched, as I mentioned in my reply to Marsh. Possibly this might protect the base of the bullets in such a manner that the edge of the base won't "chip", but I doubt it.

  I'll stand by my assessment of your "test" of Lino bullets.

  I also don't know of anyone having done experiments with Lino bullets in plain base bullets, but have shot Lino in gas checked bullets without the gas checks with some success. Possibly someone ought to try shooting Lino PB bullets. Never know what might happen. Wouldn't recommend it in an old original soft steel barrel, but there are plenty of Schuetzen barrels out there of modern steels that would handle it.

  Plus maybe cranking the MV's up too. Some of the problem with soft PB bullets is that you can't get the MV's up to where they might be able to handle conditions better. Don't know of any rule says we have to use tin/Lead alloys, and no rule limiting MV. Might be time to think outside the box!

PETE