Thanks for all the reply's , the reason for my initial post was because Russ Weber advised me in an email not to use a harder alloy than 25-1 in his breech seater which I had posted back to him as it was defective. I guess he thought I may have tried to load a really hard bullet, actually it was 20-1 mix.
Mike.

Schuetzendave wrote on Mar 31^st, 2016 at 11:29am:


Use 30:1 in my Stevens Pope for offhand because 20:1 is quite a bit harder to BS.  the 20 shoots a little better so I use it on the bench.  Somewhere, I read that Pope suggested 15:1. I never tried it because I'm afraid the bullet base will deform BS it.

Dave
Lead / Tin Alloys will soften over time

Alloys that contain antimony will harden 

40 Rod

Some years back I bought 1200 lbs of Gov certified lead, left over stuff to be used for radiation containment room.  Purest stuff you can get.  Nice stuff.
And only use pure tin and alloy a 25-1 alloy.

Just to see if there was a difference i ran some 30-1 and it shot in the same group.
I highly doubt the rifles know what is going through it, unless you tell them  shhhhh.

In my 38/56 I'm using a 20-1 mix, as the bullet is a Paul Jones tapered spitzer I thought there was a possibility that the nose was slumping and causing a loss of accuracy. Suspecting this I cast up a batch of bullets using Lyman #2 alloy which is supposed to have a hardness of 15 bn.
On the target there was no discernible difference in accuracy so my slumping theory was shot.  I intend to try 25-1 in a future batch of bullets using a more blunt nosed bullet from a Lyman mould that I have to see how that performs.
Mike.

Oneatatime thank you for your valued input it is nice to see that to someone has an understanding of nose slump. Most believe the bullet they seat comes out the barrel exactly the same as when it went in and nothing could be further from the truth. It goes through physical changes just by bumping up to fill the grooves while also shortening in length during the process as one example.

Mike B I tested alloys containing antimony in varying degrees for a year and non of them would provide the same consistent good results on the target as the 16-1. There is just something about adding antimony to a breach seated bullet that just does not quite work out for the better and I have no clue why? All I do know is I gave it my best shot and the time and effort to make work as I had high hopes of finding that magical combination.

JLouis