Boolit hardening

[Thumbcocker]

Two questions:


1.) Will fresh cast boolits continue to harden if they are sized and lubed?

2.) Can fresh cast boolits be sized, lubed, and loaded and still harden in the cases?

I have a batch of boolits cast up Friday and would like to lube and load them. I will not be shooting them for several more days but I will have time to load them this weekend.

Alloy is acww.

Thanks.

[Harry O]

My experience is that hardened lead/tin/antimony bullets (those dropped into a tub of cold water directly from the mould) don't harden immediately. I make a point of sizing and lubing them immediately after casting. It is much easier to do right away than waiting until after they harden ( I have tried it both ways).

I have not done a check to see if they would have hardened more if I had not sized them first. However, I do know that they do continue to harden after being sized (it usually takes a week or two to get to maximum hardness).

I have no idea if they would harden in the bullet case, but I don't see why not. The bullet doesn't know if it is in a box waiting to be loaded or in a case after being loaded.

[williamwaco]

The hardening is a function of time and is not related to any other factor.

It also has nothing to do with whether you can or should or should not load them.

Here is my rule:

If they are cool enough you can hold them in your bare hand, they are ready to size, lubricate, load, and shoot.

[462]

In addition to age-hardening, boolits cast of wheel weights (antimonial lead) will grow fatter, over time.

Last week, I was loading some Lyman 429421's that were cast, air cooled, sized and lubed about two-years-ago. A dummy round would not chamber, and the boolits had to be re-sized.

I don't know the minimum amount of time for the fattening process to take place.

[madsenshooter]

Minimum fattening time depends on the nutrient content of the feed, or lack thereof.

[357shooter]

Here's a chart from a test on sizing changes for 357 magnum 158 (maybe 168) grain bullets. The blue line is unsized and unlubed. The green line is lubed and sized, hope this is helpful:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XKBsGvtLtMY/TVcFC_ncuoI/AAAAAAAAABU/YQG-df12QOk/s1600/Week4ofaging.png

[Three44s]

First there was "age hardening" ...............

................ now, there is "age fattening"?


Oh well ........... if it was easy, everybody would be doing it!

(Personally, I've got that age fattening down to a SCIENCE!!)


I believe I have read that the hardening runs to about 2 weeks ..............?


Three 44s

[cbrick]

1.) Will fresh cast boolits continue to harden if they are sized and lubed?

2.) Can fresh cast boolits be sized, lubed, and loaded and still harden in the cases? Thanks.

Yes, size, lube & load them. Sitting in a box or in a cartridge case won't change the metallurgy, they will still age harden the same.

It's the percentage of antimony in the alloy that will determine the time/harden curve. A 2% Sb alloy will age harden much slower than a 6% Sb alloy.

Last April I cast 500 RCBS 35 caliber 180 Gr silhouette bullets, after casting they were sized/checked without lube and then convection oven heat treated. As I am ready to use them they get lubed in a die .001" larger than the die that sized them. They have not grown any amount in this time worth noting, if at all it's a matter of a tenth or two.

Rick

[geargnasher]

Two questions:


1.) Will fresh cast boolits continue to harden if they are sized and lubed? Yes, provided they contain at least a small quantity of antimony.

2.) Can fresh cast boolits be sized, lubed, and loaded and still harden in the cases? Yes, can and will. Something else they'll do, like 462 pointed out, is grow as they age.

I have a batch of boolits cast up Friday and would like to lube and load them. I will not be shooting them for several more days but I will have time to load them this weekend.

Alloy is acww.

Thanks.

ACWW usually take at least a week to get to 90% of their full hardness, and about 95% after two weeks. After a couple of weeks they usually stop growing, too, seems to be related to the age-hardening process.

Things that could be a problem with sizing and loading "green" boolits are primarily chambering problems down the road and possibly leading issues if the soft, "green" boolits are swaged undersized by the brass as they are seated.

Gear

[44man]

ACWW usually take at least a week to get to 90% of their full hardness, and about 95% after two weeks. After a couple of weeks they usually stop growing, too, seems to be related to the age-hardening process.

Things that could be a problem with sizing and loading "green" boolits are primarily chambering problems down the road and possibly leading issues if the soft, "green" boolits are swaged undersized by the brass as they are seated.

Gear
Correct! [smilie=s:
My .476" boolits will expand to .478" with time. I have to size again and it has no affect on accuracy. I never load "green" boolits. I water drop to speed hardening and growth. It does me no good to size right away.
Bill Ferguson says to size within 1/2 hour of casting but it does nothing about expansion.
Soft, just cast can be sized by brass but I can't see lead expansion pushing brass open.
I cast, let the boolits age and then lube and size but I size at the very least to fit the gun.

[cbrick]

ACWW usually take at least a week to get to 90% of their full hardness, and about 95% after two weeks. Gear

Can't say that as an across the board all inclusive statement. The time curve is completely dependent on the Sb percentage. If you have exactly the same Pb/Sb/Sn alloy for each casting session you could make a blanket statement about the time/hardening curve. Many casters don't have the same alloy two casting session in row. For most cast bullet shooting such as low pressure/velocity short range shooting it's not really all that important to know an exact age/harden curve. As pressure/velocity, distance and the need for accuracy increase it can become increasingly important to know and understand the time curve if you wish to repeat good groups.

I have an alloy that air cooled or HT reaches it's limit in about three days. As WW becomes harder to impossible to get I will be using more and more of this alloy. That alloy is 6 BHN Pb that I currently have about 800 pounds of, Roto Metals Super Hard and 2% tin. A WW clone with a consistent and known Sb percentage of 3%.

If you want a known age/harden time curve you must have a consistent Sb percentage. 3% or 4% Sb will give you a known age/harden curve of about 3 days, lower Sb such as I suspect most current WW of about 2% or even less will up the aging time to about 2 weeks. I use 2% Sb as a max assumption for todays WW based on testing the age/harden curve.

Rick

[geargnasher]

It wasn't an "all inclusive" statement. I said "usually" and "at least". I've been using all manner of COWW for years and there has always been a big difference between the 3-day hardness and the seven-day hardness.

The timeline of age hardening also has a whole lot to do with the presence and content of grain refiners. Arsenic, sulfur, copper, etc are grain refiners and their presence will drastically affect the timeline/total amount of hardness reached, and the amount of hardness added by heat treating.

Thumbcocker asked about ACWW, and even modern weights take at least a week, two is better, to be shootable at my house.

Gear

[cbrick]

Thumbcocker asked about ACWW, and even modern weights take at least a week, two is better, to be shootable at my house. Gear

No, especially modern WW. That's why I said this . . .


I use 2% Sb as a max assumption for todays WW based on testing the age/harden curve. Rick

Arsenic as a grain refiner will be present in WW, a good deal of other possible grain refiners such as copper should be removed with fluxing with sawdust. Any other grain refiner such as sulpher should have but minor effects beyond the As.

This leaves the primary cause of variation in the age/hardening curve the percentage of Sb. Think back to the good old days when any WW alloy would reach peak hardness in 2 or 3 days. Yep, the good old days when the percentage of Sb in WW was much higher.

Rick

[ColColt]

Assuming all this, I have a box of 255 gr loaded rounds for the 45 Colt I loaded probably 20 years ago. I sold that particular 45 but still have some loaded rounds. sized to .454", they must now be .458".

[geargnasher]

Assuming all this, I have a box of 255 gr loaded rounds for the 45 Colt I loaded probably 20 years ago. I sold that particular 45 but still have some loaded rounds. sized to .454", they must now be .458".

Umm, not so much. A .45 with about 2-3% antimony will only grow a half-thousandth to a thousandth over a two-three week time period, and the growth stops about the same time the hardening stabilizes.

Gear

[44man]

Umm, not so much. A .45 with about 2-3% antimony will only grow a half-thousandth to a thousandth over a two-three week time period, and the growth stops about the same time the hardening stabilizes.

Gear
True, they won't expand that much and brass will prevent it anyway. Smaller calibers expand less then larger.

[918v]

So how hard will air cooled wheel weight boolits get in two weeks? More specifically, how hard are they straight out of the mold vs two weeks later?

[918v]

I mean do they come out BHN 8 and then harden to 12, or do they come out BHN 12 and then get harder still?

[Char-Gar]

Thumbcocker... I did some tests years ago on cast bullets. I tested their hardness on the day of casting and every day there after for four weeks. I found they reached their max hardness well before the three weeks were up.

I also measured straight WW, WW plus 1.25% tin, and WW plus 2.50 tin. I found higher the tin content the less they hardened with age. The tin added to the initial hardness of the bullets a small but measurable amount. The age hardening added a maximum of 2 points Bhn the alloy.

I don't size and lube my bullets until I am ready to load them, so I can't say anything about the effect of sizing, but I strongly expect that bullets that are sized shortly after being cast will age harden just like the ones that were not sized.

I also did not measure the bullets for age expansion and it didn't matter to me as I sized just before loading.

I also would expect bullets to age harden whether or not they loaded in cases.

While age-hardening can be measured, I have not found the difference to be significant in terms of accuracy or anything else import. There can be significant differences in accuracy produced by various alloys, but I have not found age hardening to be an issue.

I just don't cast, load and shoot on the same day. I let the bullets rest for at least a week or two before I use them. For me age hardening is more a theoretical than practical issue.

918V... There is so much difference in initial hardness of WW that there is really no way to predict, what the bullet will measure as cast or after hardening. There are some ball park numbers but you are talking some very specific numbers. I would expect age hardening to add half or less to your numbers above. i.e. Bhn 8 hardened to 9 or 10.

This is as close as I can get to on point answers to your questions.

Good shooting...

[918v]

Yes, but when we're talking about the ballpark hardness of WW, is that measured straight out of the mold, or after they are fully hardened.

[cbrick]

I mean do they come out BHN 8 and then harden to 12, or do they come out BHN 12 and then get harder still?

My WW are about 9 as cast (I don't measure many as cast bullets though), will age to 12 BHN. I have several lots of WW (800 Pounds) blended together for a single uniform batch of alloy, I get very little variation in the aged hardness.

I gave up trying to measure age softening, it does happen but to a far less degree than many believe and it takes years.

Rick

[Char-Gar]

Yes, but when we're talking about the ballpark hardness of WW, is that measured straight out of the mold, or after they are fully hardened.

Wheel weight metal comes from different foundries at different times made from different alloys. so there would be ball park numbers for fresh cast WW bullets. The exact hardness of any batch of ww can't be predicted in very specific terms. We make an alloy from many different wheel weights and the final hardness would depend on the make up of the batch we melt and alloy. Bh 8 is a good average number. Please note the word AVERAGE.

I would expect Bh 7 to Bh. 10 to be a reasonable ball partk, and those individual numbers would increase with age 2bh. or less with age.

The batch of straight WW I tested from Bh. 8 fresh cast and hardned to Bh. 10.

As always read my disclaimer.

[Char-Gar]

In line with my simple minded approach to this stuff, I feel that age hardening, softening, expanding and contracting is as Shakespeare says... "Much ado about nothing. It is fun to talk about, but that is about all the importance it has. It won't show up on the target.

[cbrick]

918v, what are you shooting? I really believe that too much is made of this for a large part of cast bullet shooting. In cartridges such as my 44 Special, 45 Colt etc I see little to no difference in casting, loading and shooting air cooled WW and the same rounds that didn't get fired for several months.

Your asking questions that could have consequences in long range accuracy and higher velocity/pressure rounds. I don’t think it will pay dividends getting too carried away with normal rounds. For most cast bullet shooting simply knowing general alloy hardness such as 10-11-12 for a given load so that it could be duplicated next month, next year would suffice.

On the other hand, a good understanding of the metallurgy of bullet alloys is always worthwhile, knowledge is golden. Just use common sense and don’t try to pick the fly poop out of the pepper barrel for low velocity/pressure short range loads. If you work up an accurate load for a 45 ACP and know that the alloy BHN was 10 my money is on the fact that next year the same load will shoot the same if 9 or 12 BHN alloy is used.

Rick

[cbrick]

Wheel weight metal comes from different foundries at different times made from different alloys. so there would be ball park numbers for fresh cast WW bullets.

Exactly!

Wheel weight bullet metal is a scrap alloy. Period. It is not made originaly at the factory from an exact recipe of virgin metals. It is made by the mfg from scrap alloys such as old WW, batteries and who knows what else. A mfg next batch of WW will vary from their own last batch.

It is for this fact of a bullet casters life that once I got to 800 pounds of WW from many sources that I blended it all together into a single uniform batch.

If all I shot was low velocity short range loads this would have been a complete waste of time, I shoot long range accuracy loads and an alloy that is consistent and repeatable in a quantity large enough to last me for several years was needed.

Rick

[44man]

I just measured some older water dropped WW boolits and they run 20 to 22 BHN on the LBT tester.
Those I cast this morning are 16 to 17 BHN.
You can see the difference between all of our metals.
I wanted a harder alloy to test and found an ingot someone gave me. It was very hard and might be lino. I added it to about 10# left in the pot. I had to turn down the heat and they are still a little frosted but look real good. The funny thing is they test at 14-15 BHN. I have to see what they do after a week.

[Sonnypie]

"It is for this fact of a bullet casters life that once I got to 800 pounds..."

OH MY GOODNESS RICK!
That sounds like some really radical old age fattening. :shock:

:bigsmyl2: :kidding:

My boolits git hard in a matter of seconds. Then I open the mold and drop them out. :rolleyes:
Personally, I'm NOT a metallurgist. So I take all alloy's with a grain of salt. Rock salt.
In other words, not many can say with any certainty just what is flowing into the mold.
All the palaver makes for good board chatter. But the bottom line is very few are actually pouring with a high degree of absolute purity.
I bet my Rotometals Lyman #2 alloy even has a percentage of variable to it. ;-)

PS: I have a Lee Bullet tester in route. Just so I can see what my boolits are doing.
(I sure hope none get to 800 pounds...)

Watch out for Gearnasher. He'll sick his wife on you. :holysheep :takinWiz:
ROTFLMAO! [smilie=l:

[918v]

cbrick,

I'm shooting 38 Special and 45 ACP. The reason I'm asking is I want my bullets soft. I don't want them to harden past 12 BHN.

[Char-Gar]

If you are using air cool ww they won't get to 12 even after many moons out of the mold.

[Bret4207]

Boy, there's more truth in this thread that ought to be listened to than I've seen in a long time. Youse guys better not let the mainstream gun media find out you're spreading truth or they'll turn you into Obamas 1800 LIAR! line.

[largom]

I have many pounds of very old WW which are much harder than my newer WW. I shoot mostly rifle's and my allot is 55% Pb with 45% WW and 1-2 % tin [by weight]. The hardening of this alloy stops after 4 weeks at about 11 BHN. All boolits are air cooled. As stated by others, the hardening of your alloy will vary but should stabilize by 4 weeks.

Larry

[Mrs.Geargnasher]

"Watch out for Gearnasher. He'll sick his wife on you."

It's "Sic" by the way.

[MtGun44]

I'm in total agreement with what cbrick has been writing in this thread.

Well said, sir.

As to wwt hardness - most of mine measures 12-14 BHN on my LBT meter. I disagree with
the "won't get to 12 even after many moons" comment. It does not match with my
experience of seeing 12-14 all the time for a lot of different batches of wwts from different
sources.

I have seen range scrap at 8 BHN and wwts at 12-14 perform exactly the same in loads up
to full hot magnums in .357 and .44 mag. NO difference is seen, IME. I'm sure the impact
effects will be different, but a paper target tells no difference.


Bill

[JIMinPHX]

Sizing them will "work soften" them a little & may delay the age hardening a little, but they will harden over time if they have enough of the right materials in them.

[44man]

I measured mine after 12 hours and get 22 to 25 BHN on the WW boolits. The alloy I added what I think is lino was 17.
This morning the WW ones are still 22 to 25 and the other is up to about 19.
I can not understand! [smilie=1: The lead I added is so hard it can't be even smudged with a thumb nail and tinks when dropped. I have no idea what it is.
Why do my WW boolits reach full hard in 12 hours?

[cbrick]

I can not understand! [smilie=1: The lead I added is so hard it can't be even smudged with a thumb nail and tinks when dropped. I have no idea what it is.

Why do my WW boolits reach full hard in 12 hours?

Hard alloy that "tinks" when dropped and is hardened in 12 hours?

Sure sounds like a high Sb alloy to me. A 6% Sb alloy will age harden much faster than a 2% Sb alloy. WW at an assumed 2% could well take a week plus to reach it's max hardness. Add the lino that you mentioned in an earlier post increasing the Sb enough and your alloy could well be near max in a day.

Years ago I did an experiment with WW alloy and an alloy that I knew was lower in Sb, I oven heat treated both looking for 18 BHN. They both reached 18 BHN, the difference being the time it took to get there. The WW alloy tested 18 in a couple of days, the other alloy did reach 18 . . . in two weeks.

Rick

[44man]

What confuses me is the WW boolits are harder, faster, then the other stuff but I will let them age to see what I get.
Also that my WW metal is so much harder then what many of you have.
SHEEESH, some are near pure lead! :o Just how do we recommend any boolit????? How can anyone duplicate what someone else gets?
Even some store bought alloys seem softer.
I have Double Tap boolits here that only measure 15 BHN. They shoot great but why are my boolits harder?
Cast is mass confusion! :kidding:

[williamwaco]

Assuming all this, I have a box of 255 gr loaded rounds for the 45 Colt I loaded probably 20 years ago. I sold that particular 45 but still have some loaded rounds. sized to .454", they must now be .458".



Nope.

If they are not crimped so heavy that the case will resize them, I will bet if you extract one, it will measure very close to .454.

I have a small stash of H&G #51s that I cast in May of 1972. They were sized with a .357 Lyman die at that time. Actual (average) diameter was .3573. ( I assume everyone knows that they are not truely round so a single measurement doesn't really tell you much.)

When I started reading these comments about age "fattening" of cast bullets, I didn't believe it, so I dug them out of the supply cabinet. Guess what they measured in May of 2011?

Yep, you guessed it. .3572. And yes, it was the same micrometer. And it was 39 years to the month. And no, I didn't forget the exact date they were cast. They were cast the same week my first daughter was born.

The average was computed by taking three different readings around each of six bullets and averaging them. ( Average of 18 readings. ) Obviously, the 2011 sample was not the same bullets I measured in 1972.

[Sonnypie]

It's "Sic" by the way.

"Keep an eye on him, Bonnie."

:wink: :lol:

[Bret4207]

It's "Sic" by the way.

Jeeze, I didn't even know there WAS a Mrs. Geargnasher, much less that she posted here and had a sense of humor!:mrgreen:

[jandbn]

I don’t know if this has been discussed before, so with regards to a boolit “fattening”, let’s say some air cooled clip on wheel weight boolits are cast. Then ‘life’ interrupts and they are forgotten about for more than a few months and for one reason or another, it is decided to oven heat treat them. After heat treating these that have already fattened up once, will the boolits get even fatter than what they were just prior to the heat treating? Basically what I am asking is if a boolit can have two ‘growth spurts’ if a boolit is heat treated months after the initial casting.

As far as “fattening” goes, after those oven hardened boolits have aged, would there be any size difference as to whether the boolits were initially water dropped or air cooled?

[cbrick]

jandbn, best answer is a question.

What are you shooting? I ask because odds are that you don't need to harden them, I shoot air cooled Clip-on WW to 2,000 fps in my rifles and most of my handguns use the same alloy.

Don't fall for the "hardcast" hype, it'll cause more problems than it will solve.

Rick

[jandbn]

Rick,

My question right now is more hypothetical than anything. I have a 45 Bisley but doubt I will ever be surpassing 1400 fps so heat treating will likely not happen. I am just getting into pouring my own, have an inquiring mind, and I'm just looking to satisfy my curiosity. As much as I like boolits, I can fore see trying cast in a rifle at some point in the future.

[GaryN]

Rick, when you say you blended 800 lbs. how did you do that? Do you have a pot that big?

[cbrick]

Gary, no, my pot holds 100 pounds and I did it the real PITA way. All of the clip-on WW was already in 5 pound ingots, I filled the pot and started making new 5 pound ingots and keeping the pot filled with all the other ingots, I kept cycling through the ingots until all of them had been remelted and blended with the others three times. PITA may be too mild a term. It took a very long boring afternoon but once done there is enough to last me quite some time. Doubt I would ever do it again but once finished I was glad I have that much alloy that's as uniform as that.

Rick

[44man]

I think we should all head over to Rick's with all of our lead! :mrgreen:
We could keep him busy for a year or so. :drinks:

[cbrick]

I think we should all head over to Rick's with all of our lead! :mrgreen: We could keep him busy for a year or so. :drinks:

Sure thing, :mrgreen: just drop it off, I'll give ya a call when it's ready to be picked up.

Rick

[44man]

Sure thing, :mrgreen: just drop it off, I'll give ya a call when it's ready to be picked up.

Rick
[smilie=l: How much would disappear?
OK, guys, what good is BHN? I just checked the alloy I made with that unknown ingot. IT IS HARD and not a smudge from a fingernail. Boolits clink and clang when I put them in my hand. They are harder to push through a Lee die. Yet they test at only 22 BHN this morning.
I loaded 30 rounds for the .500 JRH to test.
Just how many of us actually have harder boolits then BHN says they are? Is there a flaw in the measurement system?
I am confused because I know they are harder then the WW boolits and I can't measure it.

[Char-Gar]

22 Bhn is the same hardness as Linotype, which is to say as hard or harder than any bullet needs to be.

Unless I need the extra antimony in Linotype to fill out a mold or add a little girth , I have never found a use for any bullet harder than old Lyman No. 2 which runs 15-16 BHN.

[cbrick]

22 Bhn is the same hardness as Linotype, which is to say as hard or harder than any bullet needs to be.

Yep!

Great minds think alike. :drinks:
More failure shooting cast from new casters and purchasers of commercial cast from being to hard as from failing to understand how to simply make the bullet fit the firearm. A proper fit can even help cover up the ill effects of being too hard.

Rick

[geargnasher]

22 Bhn is the same hardness as Linotype, which is to say as hard or harder than any bullet needs to be.

Unless I need the extra antimony in Linotype to fill out a mold or add a little girth , I have never found a use for any bullet harder than old Lyman No. 2 which runs 15-16 BHN.

Maybe not for you, but it's really, REALLY difficult to argue with the groups 44Man gets out his hard boolits. When someone shows up and starts posting consistent sub-moa groups at 100 yards with revolvers using Lyman #2 I'll be impressed even more. I'm a firm believer in soft boolits, in fact I shoot them as soft as the purpose allows most of the time, but I opened my mind up to the possiblity of harder boolits for target shooting, and after having done it both ways at 100 yards with revolvers I learned two things: Bhn 20 or better serves most high-end-power revolver accuracy the best, and boolits without a step from the nose to the body diameter shoot the best at long range. But somebody's been telling us all that for years. :coffee:

Gear

[cbrick]

Well Gear, I am also a proponent of softer bullets. Perhaps it would be better stated as "anti Hardcast". Heat treating however does have it's place.

Several years I really wanted to know what shot best in my top end revolver match loads so I set about finding out. I shot 5 shot 150m groups over and over again, in fact I shot 5 shot groups for a year and a half. Every load was as identical as I could make them changing only the bullets BHN via convection oven heat treating. All powder was from the same 8 pounder, all primers from the same case (lot number), all alloy from the same batch. Most of the tests were repeated several times to see if they would repeat.

What I learned was that my revolver shoots it's best with clip-on WW +2% tin @ 18 BHN at 1550 fps. Softer alloy would cost velocity and open up groups but just a bit actually. As hardness increaed from 18 grouping deteriorated and repeating any groups became more difficult.

Bullets without a step from nose to shoulder shot the best? Not really, I shoot the RCBS 180 gr 35 cal silhouette and it has a step (front driving band) and shoots long range very, very well.

So you'll be impressed with Lyman #2 hardness and a front driving band? I'm doing both. [smilie=s: Never say never.

Rick

[RobS]

I suppose to each his own……….besides without the difference we could all very well be bored with life here on the forum :) On this side of the street I've seen the variance in testing WW alloy and antimony alloyed lead that from batch to batch gave different hardness readings and characteristics. I’ve seen age hardening at different rates and boolit growth that happens within a particular BHN that does not occur from another alloy of similar metallurgy and BHN. A person can minimize variables considerably by taking note to the specifics. However, unless a person is working with certified virgin materials though there is going to be the differences we all see.

Also as many of us here agree each gun reacts differently to a particular load pushed down the tube. I've shot Keith SWC's, WFN's, LFN's, RN's and have alloyed hard/tough flat meplat boolits, soft bubble gum HP's, and everything between and in the end I've managed to find certain loads that work very well for certain guns and other loads that can be shot in multiple guns without fuss. Like many, I have my preference to boolit design and alloy hardness but in the end it is what performs the best that I use. What I do for one gun may not work very well for another and how I do things may very well not work for someone else simply due to the multiple variables in play. Tinkering, experimenting, testing, playing whatever a person wants to call it is the common ground here for most of us on the forum and this mentality is what makes this forum go full circle.
:drinks:

[Gohon]

One poster stated that "If you are using air cool ww they won't get to 12 even after many moons out of the mold." Yet my WW air cooled casts usually average 11-11.5 dropped from the mold and 12-13 after several weeks. The only difference between the two is the time of year I casted and the ambient temperature they were air cooled at.

Another poster stated "The hardening is a function of time and is not related to any other factor." Yet, I've cast using the same alloy as above except I water dropped the cast and checked BHN withing a few hours and they came to 17.5 BHN.

Some claim hard is better...some claim softer is better. Personally I'm in the latter group

Conclusion........there are no hard and fast rules when casting.

[44man]

Two reasons I wanted the harder boolits. First, I only have or had I should say, two of the unknown ingots and wanted to get rid of them after looking at them for years! [smilie=1:
Then I want to shoot one, clean and so on just to smooth the bore. If they do OK I have enough left for some PB 45-70 boolits with a hard base and a soft nose.
I have an idea for a setup so I can pour with a good blend without the parting line. If it works I will post it.
I checked some boolits this morning and these are 20 BHN average and my WW boolits are 22. Strange because these boolits seem to be harder then the WW ones.
I guess it is not possible to know an alloy by BHN testing. I prefer tough to take rifling instead of hard anyway.

[white eagle]

First there was "age hardening" ...............

................ now, there is "age fattening"?


Oh well ........... if it was easy, everybody would be doing it!

(Personally, I've got that age fattening down to a SCIENCE!!)


I believe I have read that the hardening runs to about 2 weeks ..............?


Three 44s

I went to the same class :lovebooli

[44man]

OK, I went down and shot 10 shots at 50 yards with the funny boolits. I started with a clean bore and cleaned between each shot. Pain in the neck pulling the cylinder and having to get everything in position for the next shot. I found some streaks of lead but they wiped out with one patch and Hoppe's. I then brushed good and wiped the bore.
Skeeters drove me nuts, sweat was pouring and my glasses fogged up for every shot. I just wanted out of there! :twisted:
This JRH is sighted dead on at 50 but they hit low left and I won't know if it was the clean bore or alloy until I really shoot more. I wasn't trying to shoot a group and the rest was always changing but they shot OK. 10 shots won't do much but it is a start.

[Frank]

44man:

OK, I went down and shot 10 shots at 50 yards with the funny boolits. I started with a clean bore and cleaned between each shot. Pain in the neck pulling the cylinder and having to get everything in position for the next shot. I found some streaks of lead but they wiped out with one patch and Hoppe's. I then brushed good and wiped the bore.
Skeeters drove me nuts, sweat was pouring and my glasses fogged up for every shot. I just wanted out of there!
This JRH is sighted dead on at 50 but they hit low left and I won't know if it was the clean bore or alloy until I really shoot more. I wasn't trying to shoot a group and the rest was always changing but they shot OK. 10 shots won't do much but it is a start.

That's what I did much of the day in the heat. Yuk. Shoot and clean. Rifle shooters thought I was crazy. What are you doing that for? Is that a new barrel? No, I've got 2,000 rounds through it. I'm firelapping. Why don't you use sand?

I did 18 rounds, and got lead on each land near the throat. But like you said, with Hoppes, 1 patch and it is out. I was using the Lee bullet. I ran out of Hoppes and switched to Marvel Mystery Oil (Cheap). Leading got worse after each shot with that oil. It was obviously removing the lube, so an increase in friction. Then I switched back to Hoppes and shot 5. I need to check the bore to see how it doing. Maybe it got smoother.

[JohnH]

Been a while since I've been posting here, my attention has been focused on other things, but still flinging lead every chance I get. About two years ago I bought a Contender, with it among other things was a Super 14 30 Herrett Barrel that had been chopped to 10 inches and topped with a Burris 7x pistol scope.

Sometime back I quit worrying about hardness and aging, fattening and shinking and a multitude of other complications because I wanted to simpify my life. That means I get some metal and make something as close to WW as I can. Yes, I cut lino 2 to 1 with lead. I'll take shot and lead sheathing and lino and mix 'em up, and I'm known to take bunches of commercial cast that folk have given me and cut it 1 to 1 with lead. In essense, I shoot GOK metal (God Only Knows) Friend got us a Lyman 311008 cause he got a Ruger Blackhawk in 30 Carbine and I keep us a few hundred boolits on hand to load and shoot up on a whims notice. For those who don't know this is a plain base boolit of about 115 grains with a flat point that I've found to shoot well in any 30 cal I've driven it from so long as velocity is kept at 1400 or less.

My favorite load with this boolit is 7 grains Unique or Green Dot and a large pistol primer in the 30 Herrett. From a rest at 92 yards this load shoots 2 1/2" groups monotonously. Nothing many would even write about, but it's fun. Lots of fun. I have a swinging target (read Hunter Pistol Silhoutte pig) that I bang away at. The barrel, the chambering, the boolit and load all say "Whatcha doin' here son?" But it works and has proven to be remarkably consistant over time. Did I bother to say I don't even weigh sort boolits? If it's got a bad base it's out, otherwise I train it. (Yes I recycle my backstop lead too!)

The metal surely aint scientific, I'm known to cast one day and shoot the next (as often as not), my methods are generally "the way to get to bang with the least amount of energy spent" (meaning I do things like not even bother tumbleing brass as I'll shoot a batch of ten cases till the neck splits and just toss that case out and rotate in a new one...I have my own backyard range so I don't have to load big lots to take to a range)

I'm not recommending my methods. What I am saying is that casting, cast boolits and reasonable results for the efforts are fairly forgiving. I do the bulk of my shooting between 800 and 1600 fps. I've never been disappointed with the results I got from simple ACWW wearing a gas check and felix lube at 2000 fps. I'm certainly not posting to disparage in any way those who seek a higher level of understanding, accuracy and performance from their efforts. In fact, it was reading all this kind of stuff over about a two and a half year period of time and then experimenting with some of these in and outs and higher levels of performance, that helped me find my place with cast boolits...

I'm a plinker. I'll spend a saturday or sunday or sometimes all weekend plinking with cast I made during the week(s) previous. I may plink with the 30 Herrett for a while then a 1911 for while then a 30-30 for a while, a 357 the next day... whatever suits my fancy at the time.

I'm just saying that for all the energy we spend sometimes trying to get a better understanding and reach higher levels of whatever we are reaching for, don't forget to keep it simple. There is no real magic to all this. A decent metal for the task (be clear what your task is), err to soft if unsure and work up if need be, a good fit, a good lube. A decent barrel. A good rest. Trigger control. Spend time working offhand. Don't forget to breath. Don't sweat the small stuff. It's mostly small stuff.

[462]

Gohon wrote: "One poster stated that "If you are using air cool ww they won't get to 12 even after many moons out of the mold." Yet my WW air cooled casts usually average 11-11.5 dropped from the mold and 12-13 after several weeks."

This afternoon, I cast some air-cooled 311466's using straight wheel weights. They tested 12.5, a few hours later.

[44man]

Gohon wrote: "One poster stated that "If you are using air cool ww they won't get to 12 even after many moons out of the mold." Yet my WW air cooled casts usually average 11-11.5 dropped from the mold and 12-13 after several weeks."

This afternoon, I cast some air-cooled 311466's using straight wheel weights. They tested 12.5, a few hours later.
That is where we are at. We all have different lead.
I don't like the mix I made, it leads worse then WW's but it seems to wipe right out. Some of my guns are shot for 2 years without cleaning and lead is a few slivers or none at all.
Even though I have found some lead in the new .500 JRH, it has not shot worse the more it was shot.
It must be alloy, some will lead and some won't even at the same BHN.

[Frank]

These is the result after cleaning and 5 shots.
http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/picture.php?albumid=123&pictureid=4289

[Char-Gar]

One poster stated that "If you are using air cool ww they won't get to 12 even after many moons out of the mold." Yet my WW air cooled casts usually average 11-11.5 dropped from the mold and 12-13 after several weeks. The only difference between the two is the time of year I casted and the ambient temperature they were air cooled at.

Another poster stated "The hardening is a function of time and is not related to any other factor." Yet, I've cast using the same alloy as above except I water dropped the cast and checked BHN withing a few hours and they came to 17.5 BHN.

Some claim hard is better...some claim softer is better. Personally I'm in the latter group

Conclusion........there are no hard and fast rules when casting.

Bear in mind, my response was to a fellow who asked about his 8 Bhn WW hardening to 12 Bhn. That was the context. I also said, ww metal varied as it came from different foundries, at different times and were mixed with other WWs from all over the place.

When you mix a bunch of WWs you never know what you will end up with.

There are some rules, well principals at least, to cast bullet shooting. However there are so many variables, that folks often get different and sometimes contradiction results. This is part of the frustration and fun of cast bullet shooting. It is nigh on to impossible to predict what the results will be until you try something. However, once you have determined what your alloy, with your lube, with your powder, with your primers, sized the way you size them will do in your rifle, the results can be replicated, providing you don't change any of the variables. If one of these variables are changed then all bets are off.

I belong to the school of ..."Try it and see how it works for you. Let your rifle/pistol be your teacher." This of course if if you are not trying to do something obviously dangerous or overtly foolish. We do see a little of both of those here.

We also have a fair amount of folks coming here that want guaranteed results before they pull the trigger. That notion is a non-starter.

[44man]

Chargar, that was said as good as it can get! [smilie=w: