Playing w/LEE hardness tester questions

[corvette8n]

My Lee tester came yesterday so I tried a bullet and a couple of ignots.
Here are my findings
a piece of lino read at 36bhn
my WW mix came in at 13.5bhn
smelted lead pipe was softer than 8bhn which is the lowest the chart reads.

My questions is what bhn is optimal for hunting bullets.
Does the caliber of the bullet matter concerning bhn?.
in other words should a .308 cal and .45 cal hunting bullet have the same bhn? :-D

[jhalcott]

It will take you several tries to get the Lee tester down right. Lino SHOULD be~ 20 BHN, WW is around 12-14, PURE lead is 5BHN. Lyman alloy should be about 16BHN. Velocity is a bit more important than diameter where BHN is concerned.
Pistol bullets going 1000 fps do not have to be as hard as the SAME bullet going 1500+. Those big 45-70 slugs only need to be made of a 1 to 20 (tin to lead) alloy. Many people use WW+ 2% tin for hunting. I prefer an alloy closer to Lyman#2 at 16 bhn. I am SURE you will get other replies with some what different choices.

[454PB]

Your readings seem a little high. Are you using it exactly as the instruction say? Some of my letter form linotype tests as high as 28 BHN, but 36 is really up there.

You'll get a lot of opinions on ideal hardness. I use straight WW's for 90% of my shooting, but I add about 25% linotype for high pressure loads in my .454 Casulls, and as hard as 50/50 WW to linotype for rifle boolits fired over 1500 fps. Others have reported boolit failure using too hard an alloy, but I've never seen it.