HP boolits what is best air or water cooled?

[tayous1]

First let me tell you about the lead I'm using its range scrap and old shotgun rounds to cast with. I have been looking of mixing some tin in it or some pure lead not sure advice would be very helpful if you would care to offer. But I'd like to talk about air vs water cooled for HP boolits my first 360 HP I did were all water cooled yet I have read that water cooling makes them to hard and that they need to be air cooled then I have heard that air cooled makes them to soft and they need to be water cooled.

So I'm not sure what way to do so I come to the boolite masters here and as for your advice and wisdom!Thanks for the help!!

Sorry forgot to add what type it is a MiHec 452 230 HP mold pistol that I'm asking about I would like to be able to use these round for hunting.

[RickinTN]

It is very important to know what bullet/cartridge you are talking about. I will say just off the cuff you would be better with an air cooled bullet if you want expansion, but of course you have to get that bullet out of the barrel with accuracy and no/minimal leading. With range scrap and old shotshell pellets for your alloy you really don't know what you have to start with so really no idea of what to add to get what you want.
I know this doesn't help much but I don't think you have enough information on your lead.
Good luck,
Rick

[btroj]

What alloy how fast, and how big a hollow point?

I often use water dropping to make a lower antimony alloy harder without adding more antimony which would cause brittleness.

Think of it this way. I can water drop 50/50 wheel weights/pure and get close to the same hardness I get from straight Linotype. Linotype makes a pretty but brittle bullet. The 50/50 mix won't be at all brittle and works like a champ for hunting.

Don't think BHn, think alloy composition.

For many handgun HP applications a lead/tin mix is ideal. Expands well not brittle, but water dropping won't harden it a bit. That would require antimony. Something like 20/1 or even 30/1 works well for many experienced casters here.

The whole key is to stroke a balance between what you want the bullet to do, the bullet design, and the alloy/velocity mix. Keep these things in balance and all goes well, ignore that balance and you either get no expansion or a explosive expansion and a fragmented bullet.

[leftiye]

Water cooled or better - heat treated. Then anneal the tip (rim of hollow point). Use 300 degree Tempilaq to tell when to stop heating. Set boolits in water to retain hardness of bases.

[gray wolf]

rifle ? pistol ?

[JSnover]

Paper targets, hunting?

[jonp]

What alloy how fast, and how big a hollow point?

I often use water dropping to make a lower antimony alloy harder without adding more antimony which would cause brittleness.

Think of it this way. I can water drop 50/50 wheel weights/pure and get close to the same hardness I get from straight Linotype. Linotype makes a pretty but brittle bullet. The 50/50 mix won't be at all brittle and works like a champ for hunting.

Don't think BHn, think alloy composition.

For many handgun HP applications a lead/tin mix is ideal. Expands well not brittle, but water dropping won't harden it a bit. That would require antimony. Something like 20/1 or even 30/1 works well for many experienced casters here.

The whole key is to stroke a balance between what you want the bullet to do, the bullet design, and the alloy/velocity mix. Keep these things in balance and all goes well, ignore that balance and you either get no expansion or a explosive expansion and a fragmented bullet.

If the boolit of 50/50 is water dropped that will harden it quite a bit up to the same bhn roughly as lino as you say. Would that not defeat the purpose of a hollow point and inhibit expansion for hunting?

[runfiverun]

it doesn't really work like that.
remember the alloy composition is not 12% antimony.
it's about 2% antimony.

you will still get expansion using the manipulated alloy.

if you want things to work properly you can also go to a tin/lead or a lead/antimony alloy.
the combination of the tin/antimony makes a stronger chain of molecules within the alloy which resists deformation better.
but that's not the point of a hollow point, deformation [malleability] of the boolit is
one of the long time standards of a hollow point boolit in a handgun has been to go to a 30-1 [lead/tin] alloy and use a gas check.
or to go to a 3-5% antimony/lead alloy and swage the boolit with a gas check on the base...
what happens when you cut the ww alloy down is you cut the tin down to a manageable level and it acts more like a grain refiner than a part of the Sb,Sn chain this allows the malleability even though the alloy has been water dropped.

[btroj]

If the boolit of 50/50 is water dropped that will harden it quite a bit up to the same bhn roughly as lino as you say. Would that not defeat the purpose of a hollow point and inhibit expansion for hunting?

The hardness from water dropping tends to be more like a case hardening, not a thru hardening. Not totally accurate but it works for me. This means the water dropped bullet can be driven faster than the same alloy air cooled could be. It behaves like Linotype in the bore but like 50/50 in game.

[jonp]

The hardness from water dropping tends to be more like a case hardening, not a thru hardening. Not totally accurate but it works for me. This means the water dropped bullet can be driven faster than the same alloy air cooled could be. It behaves like Linotype in the bore but like 50/50 in game.
Ok, that makes sense. Sort of like deep frying ice cream. I had thought water dropping would harded the boolit uniformaly throughout for some reason and cant remember reading differently

[btroj]

If it did thru harden then it would be much less useful.

I like to use an almost overly soft alloy then water drop to make it shoot decent at the velocity I want. This make it possible to get a bullet I know will keep together on impact.