Paco Kelley's Soft Point technique

[eka]

"A Paco secret...

Here’s a trick I write about often...to get soft nose and hard body cast bullets, cast them hard and hot, frosty bullets are better no matter what the experts say... drop them from the mold into water to temper....then place your bullets standing in water to their shoulder just above the top crimp groove, so the nose is exposed....take a butane torch and run it over the noses sticking out of the water...this detempers just the noses, so you in effect have a soft nose-hard body, cast bullet. It takes a little practice...but as soon as you see the bullet noses change color at all, pull the flame...or the nose will slump over...it doesn’t take much flame time, especially on small caliber bullets. Cast bullets made this way will resist fouling but will expand in any size animal....from rabbits on up."


I read the above quote from the link posted by Scrounger. That got me to thinking, do you think you could use the oven with this method. Stand the bullet in water with just the nose sticking out. Heat treat and then let air cool. I was thinking the whole bullet would probably get too hot even with the water, but what to you guys think.

Keith

[wiljen]

I am going to vote against the oven for this method as the water is going to evaporate during the process and unless your oven gets super hot it cant match the temp produced by a torch.

[jhalcott]

I tried this "paco" method after reading about it quite a few years ago. I must NOT be fast enough because the noses would slump after only a few seconds of the flame. I NEVER noticed a change in color before the slump. Gotta agree with wiljen on the oven not being a good idea.

[BABore]

Put a drop of water on the bullet nose. Its got to be a flat nose for this to work, but since these are for hunting they probably are. Play the flame along each side of the bullet and stop when the drop of water cooks off. I just did a bunch of 458 hollow points last night. They were easy cause I could fill the cavity with water.

A second, more accurate method, is to use a Tempil stick. These are available at any good welding supply. They come in various melting point ranges and are used for heat treating and welding on hardened tool steels. It goes on like a crayon and melts at a specific temperature. A Tempil stick in the 350 to 400 F range is about right for annealing the bullet nose.

If starting out with a WDWW bullet of 28-31 Bhn, the torch annealed nose will drop in hardness to almost pure lead. After a week or so it will gain hardness to a normal ACWW of 9-13. Through saturated newspaper testing and a couple deer, I've found the annealed nose bullets to act very similar to the Nosler Partition. Rapid expansion and mushrooming at high velocity, the mushroom fragments into large secondaries, and the almost pointed hardened shank penetrates straight through. At lower velocity or longer range the smaller mushroomed nose will stay intact. Since it doesn't expand as large, penetration is still good.

[Ricochet]

I've found the annealed nose bullets to act very similar to the Nosler Partition. Rapid expansion and mushrooming at high velocity, the mushroom fragments into large secondaries, and the almost pointed hardened shank penetrates straight through.
Basically what I'd expect of a hard hollowpoint.

[EMC45]

Very cool idea! I gotta try it.

[BABore]

Basically what I'd expect of a hard hollowpoint.

Nope! The testing and deer were with a stock 311041 (no HP) out of an '06 at 2,000+ fps.