Boolit Nose Annealing

[BIGRED]

So i have decided i want to anneal some boolit noses in the "pan of water" method. I want to see if they mushroom better.
The 2 loads will be intended for hunting and are a 35-200-FNGC @ 1800 fps from a 35 Rem and the second will be a 45-405FNGC @ 1300-1500 fps from a 45-70. They will be powder coated and gas checked after the annealing.

So my question is:
if i want a nose that is close to pure lead hardness what overall boolit hardness can i have? if the boolit is 18bhn can i get the nose to 6-8bhn? and is there a relation of hardness drop to the amount of time annealing?
i know i have a lot of experimenting to do, and i look forward to it.


thoughts / observations?

Thanks

[MT Gianni]

You can anneal if you water dropped 12 bhn to make it 18 bhn. Anneal restores it to the former softness. You cannot take an unknown alloy of x bhn and soften it if it's original bhn was lino, mono or stereo type.
2] Pure will not quench harden, aresnic is necessary. Pure is un-alloyed and only lead in it's make up, heating and cooling it rapidly or slowly doesn't change that. See Lyman cast #3 or Verals little blue book "Jacketed performance with Cast Bullets".

[BIGRED]

Thank you,
I have done some reading and it appears i may be better off with a 20:1 lead/tin alloy. I would have the hardness that would perform well and retain the malleability of the lead.
For us powder coaters can we get to even softer BHN and not have any issues.

[a.squibload]

Seems like the PC will allow use of a softer alloy, almost like a copper jaxket.
Should probably try that first as it's less complicated.
There are some threads on 2-stage casting, soft lead for the nose then alloy
for the body.
Keep at it, you'll find the sweet spot!

[leftiye]

5% antimony, 95% lead (Magnum shot), tech of arsenic will HT to BHN 42. Yeah according to E. Harrison (NRA cast bullet manual). You can set it in water and paint the noses with 300 degree tempilaq and anneal them (melt the tempilaq). Should soften up purty good. An alloy will only soften to its' non heat treated hardness when annealed. So you need an alloy that HTs pretty well, and that is soft before HT.

[RobS]

For us powder coaters can we get to even softer BHN and not have any issues.

To a certain extent anyway until said powdercoated/alloy bullet meets its RPM threshold and accuracy deteriorates. I started out with water quenched 20 BHN WW alloy GC boolits and powder coated them but in the curing process of the paint in the oven I annealed the boolit to a softer BHN which resulted in bullet skid, leading and worsened accuracy vs my traditional lubed/GC higher BHN boolit that was shooting MOA. Granted I am pushing over 2200 fps and not at 1800 fps from a 375 H&H. I will also say though with an equal bullet hardness of the softer Powder Coated bullet in my particular scenario should it have been the same BHN with just traditional lubed GC boolit I feel the results could have been worse vs. the powder coated.

[DougGuy]

If it's only an expanding nose you are after, who is it on here I think Larry Gibson does a soft nose by pouring only the nose from a ladle in pure lead and immediately following with finishing from a bottom pour pot while everything is still plenty hot. I thought that was a cool idea.

OTOH, if you are both PC and GC, I don't see the importance in having a soft nose that will expand when you could simply cast the whole boolit in 20:1 or 50/50+2% either of which will give great expansion at way less velocity than you are shooting.

[Bigslug]

You've got a "jacket" in the form of your gas check and powder coating. Seems that you could just run a softer alloy without having to deal with differential hardness - which to me seems like REALLY over-thinking the problem.

I have been busting a lot of jugs lately with various flat-nosed (.27-.33" meplat).45-70 slugs in the weight and velocity ranges you're playing in, using alloys up to 15BHN. They're stunningly effective at displacing water without any expansion at all. Engineering them to mushroom might be an interesting exercise, but functionally, you're probably adding about ten kilotons of decorative icing on top of what is already a 30 megaton cake. Seems to me that if your nuclear warhead already has a surplus of terminal yield, the focus should be on improving the accuracy of the delivery system.

Another question that might be worth some scientific study: In many cases, a mushrooming rifle bullet is going to become a round nose of a larger diameter - yes, it's bigger across, but it's essentially streamlining itself on its way through whatever medium it's penetrating. So, sticking with our .45-70 model, we should be asking: What is more effective at destroying tissue - a soft bullet that turns itself into a .65-ish caliber round nose, or a harder, non-deforming bullet with a .30-ish caliber meplat?

[BIGRED]

Thanks for the advice everyone, yes i have already looked into and actually made some 2 part boolits.. it is really time consuming with a single cavity 45-70 mold. getting the mold hot enough to melt Slug then letting it cool then pouring harder alloy then melting again and cooling again.... tedious.

I made some (405gr 45-70) last week with range scrap and added some tin, looks to be around 10 BHN. 40:1 is right about where it is at for alloy. i PC'D & Gas checked them. while loading i noticed on a Hotter load that there wasn't enough room in case for all of the boolit. so like the jacket loading i thought the pressure from bullet seating would compress powder some. yes it did compress but it also compressed my nose and made it more squatty/rounded. needless to say i did not shoot that one. knocked the powder down 10% and all was well. I am actually going to start another post regarding this.
20-25 shots no leading, no hiccups, and barrel is shiny.
so 10BHN PC'd works just fine and is soft enough to do what i want it to do on deer & pigs. so i think i will stick to this method for now.

thanks again

[pdawg_shooter]

Why no just cast pure lead and paper patch? Works great up to about 2200fps or so.

[offshore44]

Why no just cast pure lead and paper patch? Works great up to about 2200fps or so.

Ditto that... A 405 grn boollit at anything over 1,300 fps has worked pretty well for over 130 years now. Get into the quarter bores and .30 calibers it's a somewhat different story though. 45 - 405 doesn't need a lot of speed to work, though you do need to work out boolit drop at different ranges.

[a.squibload]

...who is it on here I think Larry Gibson does a soft nose by pouring only the nose from a ladle in pure lead and immediately following with finishing from a bottom pour pot while everything is still plenty hot....

Think I remember reading that he (or someone) used a tiny ladle for the noses, maybe made from a cartridge case?
That way they're all pretty much the same, and don't have to melt a slug in the mold.
DougGuy's & Bigslug's take on this is how I would go, simpler and effective.
And maybe paperpatch, some day!

(Pass me some o' that 30-megaton cake, wouldja?) :smile: