Wheel Weights

[giz189]

Most of my bullet making has been for black powder guns. Can I use straight wheel weights for my 41 mag or do I need a harder alloy? I was just foolin' around with some alloy today (ww) and I thought I would see if it could be made into a harder alloy with linotype. I had 6 pounds ww and 2 lbs linotype, and the boolits tested softer with a hardness tester than they did straight ww. What hardness on the BHN scale can I shoot up to what velocity without leading?

[Willbird]

If you either heat treat them after casting,

or drop from the mold into cool water (run mold hot, bullets frosty)

they will get as hard as woodpecker lips. In my opinion they should fit the throats, others hold differant opinions.

for grins air cool some and water drop some of same aloy, wait 2 days, and put them nose to nose in a bench vise, apply pressure, the differance is amazing. With my wheelweights and my indoor range lead 50/50 still seems to get just as hard when water dropped.

Bill

[BruceB]

giz, sir;

Unhardened wheelweight alloy is the ONLY alloy I use these days for my revolvers (.38, .357, .41 and .44). It handles speeds up to 1500 fps or so very nicely, with excellent accuracy and no leading, as long as the bullets fit the revolver reasonably well.

Not only is the straight WW amply hard for the job, it also holds together well on impact, and will bump up in diameter to some degree, if driven hard enough, to fill throats and bores.

For autoloading pistols, 9mm and .45, I usually water-drop the bullets from the mould, but this is just to enable somewhat-better feeding performance. I often doubt that the added hardness is necessary, but it's a habit I've fallen into in the last few years. Again, the autopeestol boolits are also straight WW alloy, which hardens-up very nicely by water-quenching from the mould.

Save your linotype for rifle bullets, I'd say. Go with unhardened WW for a trial run in your shortguns, and see what you think. I don't concern myself at all with BHN, and have never owned a hardness tester in forty years of casting. Cast 'em, load 'em and shoot 'em.

[giz189]

Willbird, I did that. Only thing is I haven't waited two days yet. Boolitts are still in bucket of cool water, and some are lying on bench. I will check them Sunday. Thanks for the info.

[giz189]

BruceB, what kind of lube do you use and prefer?

[BruceB]

giz;

Lately I've been using Felix lube on all my smokeless loads, this lube having been made by the two masters their ownselves (Felix and Sundog) in the massive Mother of All Melts a year or so back. I'm starting to run low on that batch now, but with fifty pounds of beeswax on hand I have a feeling I'm about to leap into the uncharted waters of lube manufacture.

Apart from Felix lube, I'm using SPG in blackpowder loads, and for many years have been quite happy with NRA 50/50 alox-beeswax. I expect that SPG will soon be replaced with a new personal concoction, and alox 50/50 is now available rather inexpensively from one of our own here at Cast Boolits.

BTW, when I said that I didn't concern myself with BHN, I did NOT mean that I pay no attention to bullet hardness. I just keep it simple. Using straight WW for the vast majority of what I cast, I use three hardnesses:

-straight, air-cooled un-hardened;

-water-dropped from the mould;

-oven heat-treated at +/-450 degrees for an hour and then water-quenched.

These three degrees of hardness are ample for what I need and want, and since I do rather large batches of boolits, I don't concern myself overmuch with minor variations from batch-to-batch. For the most part, handgun and blackpowder bullets are unhardened, and most of my rifle bullets are water-dropped while casting.

It works for me.

[lar45]

Giz, if you'd like a free sample of 50-50 Alox lube, just drop me an email with your address. idahobronco@aol.com
This should work for all your pistol needs. I used to use Javalina brand 50-50 before I started makeing my own.
Midway has quite a variety of lubes if your in the mood to experiment.
Dan at www.mountainmolds.com says Rooster Red is about the best he has shot and gets higher velocities in his 357 with it compared to 50-50 Alox.

I shoot plain WW in my 357, 44, 45, 454, 470NE. I usually just water drop them as I'm too lazy to oven treat them.

[Willbird]

I like water dropping them too because for me they are easier to handle that way, they can go all in one place til I stop to take a breather,

Bill

[Buckshot]

...........Giz189, Something isn't right. I have to assume here, for illustraitons sake. We'll assume WW at 11 bhn and lino at 22 bhn. Your 6x11 (WW) and 2x22 (lino) add up to 110. Divided by 8 lbs you get about 13 something bhn. While not a bunch different and it probably wouldn't make much of a difference in the load you were shooting, the mix IS harder, at least on paper. The only reason I can think is that your pure test WW slugs were aged and the mix wasn't. Using my numbers for example, 2bhn ain't much, but it IS a difference.

There are variables to be considered. Very simply you can look at it this way. Straight WW will take you to X velocity before something bad happens. Bad= poor accuracy or leading. Go to a GC design with WW and you will be able to go to X+ velocity, before bad things happen. What these 'X' spots are can depend upon several things.

For the most part, WW alloy is pretty snazzy stuff for most normal pistol/rifle boolit designs in the area we do most of our shooting.

..............Buckshot

[Shuz]

Wheel weights make an excellent handgun boolit alloy. Over the years I've found that if I add 1% tin to wheel weights, many of the moulds I use like 429215 and 429303 will "fill out" better. However, straight ww's work very well with most moulds. Save your linotype alloy for rifle velocities

[Maven]

giz189, Let me add to the excellent advice above: As already mentioned, there is a linear relationship between chamber pressure and Brinell Hardness (BHN). If you contact the Cast Bullet Assoc. re back-issues of their journal ("Fouling Shot"), see if you can find #131, which has a one page article on this subject ("Still More on Chamber Pressure & Brinell Hardness" by Steve Hurst). Barring that, PM me your address and I can mail you a copy. Along with BruceB, Shuz, et al, I too no longer heat-treat my revolver and rifle CB's and have experienced few [leading] problems. Moreover, as far as revolvers are concerned, CB's that are too hard, e.g. many commercial-cast brands, may not obturate (expand) enough to fit the cylinder throats & forcing cone resulting in diminished accuracy and leading (Yes and it's counterintuitive as well!). Wheelweights, posssibly with 1% Sn added to improve casting, and a good lube work very well indeed.

[giz189]

Thanks for all the help guys...The alloy getting softer still has me puzzled though./ Like you say though it may need to just age a day or three. Thanks again.