45 acp Water drop or not

[Blacktail 8541]

Who is water dropping their 45 acp bullets or not?
I think they should be water droped so the bullets do not skid on the shallow rifleing but was wondering if I might get better performance by leaveing them to air cool and slug up to seal the gases.
I'm not getting any leading and acceptable accuracy at this time by water dropping. I just have this nagging question as to wether or not I should be hardening them or not.
My mix is WW w/ 2.5% tin added Batches are smelted in 200 lb batches and made into 10lb ingots then resmelted as needed to 1 lb ingots.

[GP100man]

make you a trial batch & go test em !!!
its the only way& fun too!!!
if shooting the lower spectrum of 45acp i wouldnt
think they would need to be water dropped,but let (your )
pistol tell you what it likes!!!

GP100man

[leftiye]

WWs are plenty hard for ACPs air or water hardened. Size them correctly (.001 -.002" over groove diameter)to avoid gas cutting and a little softer may allow them to seal even better. Good lube, probably softer like 50/50 will complete the picture. May be more accurate.

People shoot every hardness with varying sizing, a large range of styles and weights, pushed by quite a range of powders in ACP, and a lot of these variations get good or better accuracy. Sorry to say it, but as guns vary, and there are so many variables in the ammo we make you're going to have to research and experiment if you want the best load possible. Good loads aren't that hard to produce though.

[cbrick]

Well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I use air cooled WW in the ACP and have no problems but if your not getting any leading and accuracy is acceptable why rock the boat. If in the future you should reduce the load any I would suggest giving air cooled a try. As of now I'd guess that you have enough pressure for your water dropped bullets to work properly.

Rick

[Johnch]

IMO your listed alloy of WW +2.5% tin is more than hard enough to not need to be water droped

For 99% of my pistol bullets I run 25% WW and 75% range lead with tin added as needed , resulting in a softer alloy that when sized to my bore dosn't lead at normal speeds

You are also correct a softer air cooled bullet will seal the bore better if slightly under sized

But one thing to think about
As I understand it , water droping only harden a few thousands of the outside of the bullet and as time passes it softens to the hardness of the base alloy

As you lube and size the bullet ( unless you do it within a very short period of time , like a hour or 2 ) you work soften the water hardened surface
Unless you tumble lube or pan lube and don't size



I water drop all most all my bullets , for no other reason than it is easy for me
I will do large batchs , I just did 60 - 70 lb of 158 gr .358 SWC 's
BUT after culling out the rejects , they may set around for a year or more before I lube and load them all
Allowing them to naturaly soften to base alloy hardness


So IMO if it works for you don't worry , just shoot them and enjoy

Johnch

[cbrick]

johnch, that's not quite correct. When steel alloy's are heat treated it is a surface hardening only. Lead does not react to heat treating like steel. When you heat treat (or quench, a form of heat treating) lead they are the same hardenss all the way through. You are correct that sizing will work soften the outer edges of the driving bands. Lead when "worked" gets softer and more malleable, just the opposite of steel or your brass cartridge cases, which get more brittle when worked.

As for how fast they will age soften it depends on the alloy. The higher the tin percentage (2-3% is fine) and/or the lower the antimony percentage the quicker they age soften. I ran across a box of 35 caliber rifle bullets buried in my loading bench that were 10 years old. They were marked "heat treated, 30 BHN, WW+ 2% tin. They tested 26 BHN after 10 years. Another box of 7mm bullets (also 10 years old) labeled "air cooled - 11 BHN", they tested 10 BHN after 10 years.

Rick

[Char-Gar]

I have loaded something around 100K cast bullet rounds for the 45 autopistol in the past 45 years and nothing harder than air cooled ww is needed. Extra hardness won't hurt, but you won't get anything in return for the extra effort.

[Blacktail 8541]

I don't usally get around to sizeing right away. So it can be a pain when I finally do get around to it.
I have been working up loads for a good long time now and do not normally take short cuts or ask for many opinions, but I have not been casting for that long compared to a lot of members of this board and was interested in what is working the best for the majority here.

Charger: I agree if you do not see a return for extra effort it, Why do it. In this case the extra effort is in the sizeing. It really is considerably harder to size these bullets after them sitting a couple of months.

[NVcurmudgeon]

My length of service and numbers of .45 ACP castings are close to Chargar's. At 700-900 fps, there is no need to waste time and energy heat treating, and it may be counter-productive. there are cases where too hard can cause leadng.

[Lloyd Smale]

It may not be nessisary but if your looking for altimate accuracy it might be worth a try. Ive shot mine with many differnt alloys both water dropped and air cooled and some guns have a certain prefernce and trying it is no differnt then trying a different powder or primer.

[imashooter2]

I water drop everything, it's easier than trying to keep a landing area clear when air cooling.

[Cherokee]

I AC everything, finding it no problem to have an available area. The water bucket would be a problem to me. All that means is, we can accomodiate what we want to. I have found AC to work fine up to 1500 fps in revolvers. AC works fine in all my 45 ACP's.

[Char-Gar]

Blacktail... Yep... my first try at water droping some years back, produced some 452423s that needed to be sized .003. I let them sit a couple of months and ruined my old Lyman 45 sizer in the attempt.

Ima.. I have found air cooling bullets easier and less time consuming that droping them in a bucket of water.

Loyd.. It certainly doesn't hurt for a fellow to exeriment with this and that. I have done the water drop thing and found no accuracy advantages in my guns and loads. Folks might need to prove this for themselves.

[Ricochet]

I water drop everything, it's easier than trying to keep a landing area clear when air cooling.
Yeah, it's way easier water dropping unless doing low (slow) production with a single or double cavity mould.

[Blacktail 8541]

I don't get in a real hurry when casting. I have a 4 cavity LBT mould for my 45 and only 2 cavity moulds for my other wheel guns and Single actions. So keeping a drop area clear is relativly easy. I cast for short period of times and now tend to produce 500 to 1000 bullets per session. I only cast for my handguns , no rifles as yet and probably not in the future unless I pick up an old battle rifle.

[Sundogg1911]

45 ACP is a pretty slow round. I never have seen a need to harden them. I get pretty nice accuracy just air coolin' em. i've experimented with water quenching them, but there was no noticable difference at all.
If I were you i'd give it a try. it doesnt really take any longer to do. you can see for yourself. Just because it works or doesnt work for person one doesnt mean it's a one size fits all sorta thing.

[Blacktail 8541]

I've been water dropping them up till this point. I just cast about 500 air cooled to try out.
Hope this will show at least a small improvement in accuracy. At 25 yards I like to keep soft ball size groups or better. Right now I'm shooting groups just a little bit bigger. These are shot two handed no rest.

[dk17hmr]

I water drop everything I cast, minus the 50 cal muzzleloader bullets.

I only do it because its some much easier.