Bullet Metal

[Johnw...ski]

It's time to go get some more lead. As long as I am healthy I have a near endless supply here. One of my other hobbies is scuba diving and I have a spot where there are lots of sinkers. The surf kind of collects them in depressions in the rocks, sort of like the theory of gold panning. Anyway, when you find a spot, and there are many, you usually end up with 20 to 50 or more pounds.

So, sinkers are what I have been using for my latest bullets. As I have noted on other threads I have been casting .458 cal bullets and am getting a lot of weight variation. I usually melt the sinkers and throw a few pounds of 50/50 solder in
in an attempt to harden the lead up and then cast ingots. Then I will weigh the first few bullets I cast if they are too light I will add pure lead to the pot and if they ere too heavy I add more tin. My question is if I get a hardness tester, would that be a more reliable way to chack the quality of my bullit metal?
Any recomendations on a hardness tester?

Thanks,

John

[felix]

Your best bet is to make a hundred boolits out of each alloy for scrutiny. Call each alloy flavor a batch. For each batch in progress, weigh the 1st 10. If any one signifies a grain difference from the first one, change either the casting technique or the alloy itself. Once you have the selected 10, then go ahead and finish the batch, making sure the first and last measure the same after the restart. Now, go out and shoot any 10 of each batch for final record, and then come back and tell us which final alloy is acceptable to you. All in all, a hardness tester gives no indication of what is going on until you know which batch does what, and you are now intending to duplicate a good batch.

Use the other 90 in a batch to develop the final load for that batch before using the last 10 in the batch for record. ... felix

[Johnw...ski]

Your best bet is to make a hundred boolits out of each alloy for scrutiny. Call each alloy flavor a batch. For each batch in progress, weigh the 1st 10. If any one signifies a grain difference from the first one, change either the casting technique or the alloy itself. Once you have the selected 10, then go ahead and finish the batch, making sure the first and last measure the same after the restart. Now, go out and shoot any 10 of each batch for final record, and then come back and tell us which final alloy is acceptable to you. All in all, a hardness tester gives no indication of what is going on until you know which batch does what, and you are now intending to duplicate a good batch.

Use the other 90 in a batch to develop the final load for that batch before using the last 10 in the batch for record. ... felix

Hi Felix,
Well I have never had a problem with leading so I guess the hardness is taking care of itself.
John