Antimony shot and Lead shot- Shotshell Components

Lead became the choice metal for firearm projectiles – pretty much about the same time firearms were invented. Lead is dense and an excellent carrier of energy. Lead is malleable - it conforms. In larger slugs, this malleability delivers punch.

Lead pellets are classified by their alloy content. Antimony is a brittle flaky, crystalline metal. It looks like a raw coal with a bluish whitish metallic hue. Antimony is toxic. Lead, when alloyed with antimony, becomes a better pellet. Modern drop shot is alloyed about .5% antimony. With antimony, hardness is relative to the percentage of antimony added, and antimony improves surface tension, creating a rounder pellet.

Chilled shot is about 98 percent lead and has an antimony content from about .5% to around 2%. Magnum shot has between 3% and 6% antimony added depending on size. Smaller pellets have higher percentages while larger sizes have smaller percentages. It's hard to nail the exact antimony content, as manufactures purchase their ingots in pre-alloyed lots. Secondly, when rejected pellets are remelted the antimony content is altered. So, in order to have an exact reading, we would have to exclude all the rejects. To keep prices reasonable there's a bit of "guesstimation" based on pellet hardness.

As you can see, chilled lead is generally softer and more susceptible to deformation. For this reason, we limit our use of chilled shot to spreader loads and close-range sporting shots when "flier" pellets can actually work to the shooters advantage. For hunting, always use magnum or plated shot.

BPI warehouses the very best brands of lead shot. This is extra hard, high quality, high antimony AMERICAN MADE lead shot. BPI's chilled lead all feature the highest 2% antimony. Magnum lead #6 and #9 are 4% antimony, sized #7, 7-1/2, 8 and 8-1/2 are 6%.