BNH on factory lead bullets ?

[milprileb]

Speer and others sell lead bullets for pistols.

Does anyone know the BNH hardlness value of such factory
made lead bullets in 9mm and 45acp?

Just curious what hardness their alloy is.

Thank you in advance.

[ku4hx]

Good question; be interested to see the numbers. I know many years ago those from the major ammo firms were swaged which meant they were very soft. But I've been casting so long I haven't even considered them for over 40+ years.

Maybe the big factories have switched to harder cast but Speer still advertises theirs as "cold formed" which requires a softish alloy.

[milprileb]

I lost track myself but I used to think they were all swaged
and although they shot well in 1968 in 45acp , I have no idea how
well they would do in 9mm.

[fishnbob]

I just checked a batch of 250gr cast boolits that I picked up at a Gun Show, sold by Georgia Arms and they checked 22.7 BHN with a Lee Hardness Tester. That's pretty hard for a .45 Colt and that's what I bought them for but with that hardness they could stand the pressures of a .45 ACP. Don't ya think?
I just looked at them closely and they were cast, not swaged. You can see the mold lines on the nose and the sprue cut on the base. Ain't no telling what is in the lead, maybe lino? I'll have to fire some and see how it comes out.

[milprileb]

Ought to be okay for 45acp. However those are cast bullets and I was hoping to hear about Speer and other makers swaged commercial lead bullets and how hard they are.

[MtGun44]

I have not shot any of the Speer 200 SWCs that I used to buy in bulk in many years but they
used to be very, very soft - probably pure lead. They were swaged and coated with a waxy
black lube all over. They were some of the most accurate boolits I ever used in my .45 ACP
guns, but were an odd shortnosed shape. Switched to comm cast H&G 68 clones 30 yrs ago
and never looked back.
Current (or at least in the last few years) Hornady boolits are very soft, too but don't seem to
be anywhere near as soft as the old Speers. I'd guess maybe 8-10 BHN but have not
measured them.

Most comm cast use a alloy with a lot of antimony and are around 15-18, too hard in my
opinion for a lot of applications. Then you can get some of the really hard heat treated comm stuff
that is 22-24 BHN. I have purchased and made boolits this hard many times and only found
them to work well a relatively small percentage of the times I have tried them. IME, these
super hard boolits have no discernible advantage and seem to be FAR more difficult to find
a gun and load that they work well with than std wwts air cooled at around 12 BHN.

Some are huge proponents of water dropping everything and shoot super hard boolits all the
time. To each his own. I feel like I have explored that end of things well enough that I don't
care to go there any more. I shoot AC wwts and range recovery lead. The range lead often
runs in the 8 BHN range, yet a good boolit design, with a good lube and properly fitted, they will
absolutely run at full .44 mag and .357 mag velocities in many different guns with no leading
buildup. No need for GCs in pistols EVER, in my experience. Folks will disagree with that one,
too. Do they work - of course. But I don't think you ever HAVE TO have them in pistols.

I think where the Speer and Hornady commercial boolits will fail is that they have thin layers
of some kind of tumble-on lube, but no grooves or no real lube quantity. These seem to work
about like Lee mule snot (Liquid Alox) TL system. Can work fine in moderate "stress" applications
but often fails if the lube system is stressed up. The Hornady system has a knurled surface,
so it holds a bit more of their dry waxy white system, but I do not try to run them at high
velocities, just for <1000 fps loads, and even then, not so much anymore as I have increased
my mold supply and can make about anything I want now.

Two exceptions: Federal 180 Cast Core .357 Mag and 240 (?) Cast Core .44 mag. These are
cast, seem fairly hard and are EXTREMELY accurate loads in most (but not all) of my guns. They
are LBT style and probably are using normal lube - but they are so expensive that I have never
shot too many or pulled one down. GREAT loads if one cannot cast and load their own.

Bill

[williamwaco]

I just checked a batch of 250gr cast boolits that I picked up at a Gun Show, sold by Georgia Arms and they checked 22.7 BHN with a Lee Hardness Tester. That's pretty hard for a .45 Colt and that's what I bought them for but with that hardness they could stand the pressures of a .45 ACP. Don't ya think?
I just looked at them closely and they were cast, not swaged. You can see the mold lines on the nose and the sprue cut on the base. Ain't no telling what is in the lead, maybe lino? I'll have to fire some and see how it comes out.


You are kidding right?

BNH 10 is plenty hard for either one.

Elmer Keith and Smith and Wesson developed the .44Magnum with 1/16 tin lead at BNH 11.

I regularly use BNH 9-10 in both .357 and .44 mags. AND .45acp. ( don't have a .45 Colt.)


BNH 22.7 is probably pure Linotype and it is way too hard for ANY (normal) handgun bullet.

Being too hard doesn't mean you shouldn't use them.
It just means that you paid for a very expensive alloy you don't need.


Oh yes, nearly forgot

Sellier & Bellot .38 Special factory wad cutters measure exactly in the middle of the BNH 6 range.



.

[Rocky Raab]

I have both Speer (quite old) and new Hornady swaged bullets on hand, but have never had a hardness tester. But both are much easier to indent with any sort of tool than either my home-cast or commercial-cast bullets.

Commercial casters seem to be in a contest to offer the hardest bullets. That's for two reasons: harder bullets hip better, and because there are lots of uninformed folks out there who believe harder is better. Most commercial bullets run BHN 20, and Oregon Trail brags that theirs are at least BHN 25. They'd be perfect if we all shot them in monster magnums.

BTW, if you actually read his writings, when Saint Elmer talked about "hard-cast" bullets, he was taking about anything harder than his normal 1-20 or even 1-30 bullets. What he called "hard" was probably about BHN 12.

On the gas check issue, the one place where they DO have a place in handguns is in magnums like the .357. Above about 1,200 fps or so they do serve an anti-leading purpose. But below the pressures needed to reach that speed? No.

(You typed faster than I did, william!)

[williamwaco]

Commercial casters seem to be in a contest to offer the hardest bullets. That's for two reasons: harder bullets ship better, and because there are lots of uninformed folks out there who believe harder is better. Most commercial bullets run BHN 20, and Oregon Trail brags that theirs are at least BHN 25. They'd be perfect if we all shot them in monster magnums.

BTW, if you actually read his writings, when Saint Elmer talked about "hard-cast" bullets, he was taking about anything harder than his normal 1-20 or even 1-30 bullets. What he called "hard" was probably about BHN 12.

On the gas check issue, the one place where they DO have a place in handguns is in magnums like the .357.Above about 1,200 fps or so they do serve an anti-leading purpose. But below the pressures needed to reach that speed? No.

(You typed faster than I did, william!)

Sorry, I didn't type faster than ANYONE ( How many people do you know who failed their college typing class?) I must have started earlier.


Agree completely.

Disagree respectfully.

I Recently bought my first gas check mold to "play around". It was the Lee C358-158-SWC .

I have fired quite a few of them since about July. They are cast of a mixture of range lead and Linotype calibrated to BNH 14.

I have recorded 27 five shot groups at 25 yards. Smallest 0.28", Largest 1.31 inches. Average 0.86 inches. These are from a Thompson Contender over a stiff load of Accurate No.9 at 1575 fps. ( 12 inch bbl. ) ( same load with no check about .75 larger groups, no leading.)

The same load produces slightly over 1700 fps in my Winchester 92 and shoots sub 2 inch at 50 yards with factory sights.

No leading in either.

[Rocky Raab]

Heck, I never even took a typing class. Didn't think a pilot would need to type, silly me! Still write with two pretty fast fingers.

Great results there, pard. Allow me to elaborate a bit on what I said about GCs and leading. If a plain-base bullet is developing leading issues for any of a number of reasons, a gas check MAY help alleviate the problem. One of the more common instances of leading is running an otherwise suitable bullet at higher speeds than it can handle, and a gas check often does cure that.

Your bullets are probably sized right, lubed right, and - in short - loaded right. In a revolver, your results may have been different vis-a-vis leading, and if so, the gas check might help.

Does that two-finger-typed version come closer to your experience?

[Shooter6br]

Uncle Elmer used i beleive 1-16 alloy even for HP magnum without GC About 11 to 12 BHN . i use 20-1 for moderated speed 900-1100 I shoot 45acp. 41 mag. 32 mag, 45-70. Lyman #2 for rifle with GC (7.62x39mm 160 g lee) Got 85 lbs of water pipe It came out to 20-1 in hardness( as do airgun pellets) i add some chilled shot to harden up it needed

[Boerrancher]

One of the issues that I think happens quite often especially with folks who are new to shooting cast boolits, is they get confused between hardness and toughness. I have had cases where in the same rifle a hard boolit 18+ BHN would lead really bad, where in the same rifle with the same powder charge a soft tough boolit of around 9 BHN, sized and lubed the same wouldn't lead up. I shoot a 50/50 mix of WW and pure, and if I need to I will add tin to the mix in order to get a nice fill out with crisp edges on the boolit. The amount of Tin will vary slightly from mold to mold, but all in all it makes a great boolit that will mushroom out on game and varmints, and is still tough enough to be pushed with a gas check at 2,300 fps out of a 30 cal rifle.

I know each person has their own way of doing things and finding what works best for them. To answer the initial question, I don't know what the hardness is of the Speer lead bullets, but some of them that I have looked at, look like they are pure lead which will still work for most any 9mm, 45acp, or 45LC. If you have a good boolit fit to the bore and cylinder for the 45LC if it is a revolver, pushing them to 1,100 fps is no issue. The biggest problem you will have will be over sized or undersized bores.

Best wishes,

Joe

[Horace]

Two old boxes of SPEER swaged 430/240 grain and 452/200 grain saco 5/ bhn 8.
Horace

[Bret4207]

Speer and others sell lead bullets for pistols.

Does anyone know the BNH hardlness value of such factory
made lead bullets in 9mm and 45acp?

Just curious what hardness their alloy is.

Thank you in advance.

What does it matter? If you don't know what they are made up of (single,binary or tertiary alloys or maybe 4 or 5 or 6 part alloys) then you are going to know what exactly? Stop worrying about BHN!!!!