bullet hardness, leading, sizing

[mongoose33]

I'm relatively new to casting (started last summer) and have recently bought a Star for resizing and lubing.

I'm using Carnauba Red as the lube.

Was out Monday night shooting steel with my 9mm semiautos, and the boolits generally hit the target when I did what I was supposed to do. However, I had several comments as to how smoky my rounds were, shooting my cast boolits. And they were. Good thing the wind was from behind.

Carnauba Red is supposed to be low-smoke, but man, it's smoky. So many have had great luck with it that I'm presuming there's an issue on my part in bullet hardness or sizing or SOMETHING. The rounds are decently accurate when I do my part.

I am using Lyman #2, water-quenched. Last night I re-measured hardness (Cabine Tree instrument), and I'm getting a BHN with them of 23. I'm running 4.4 grains of WST powder under 128-grain boolits. Accurate mold is dropping them. They come out about .357 or .3575, and I'm sizing them to .356.

I'm thinking the boolits are too hard. I'm getting residue on the front of the boolit when I size (Beagle333 thinks I'm leaving lead residue behind in the sizing die which is caught by the following boolit, and I think he's right). I also had some leading, which also suggests a too-hard boolit (could suggest other things too).

So, a few questions:

1. if the boolit is too hard I presume it won't obturate properly and I may be getting blow-by which is smoking the lube. Reasonable presumption or am I off my rocker?

2. How do you produce alloy that results in a lower BHN? I could just air-drop them onto a towel, I suppose, but most seem to do water-quenching.

3. Is the powder partly responsible for this? Is there a better powder that won't produce as much smoke when combined with lube?

I've read and re-read the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, and looked all over, and I can't really find a lot on water quenching. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

[dondiego]

Load the boolits at the diameter they drop from the mold and see what happens. Powder is a big contributor to smoke but does it really mater? Have never used WST so can't comment there.

[EDK]

FWIW I'd get my alloy down to about 12 BH to start. Alloy your mix with pure lead or ? to get it softer. Water drop does harden a bit, BUT you are wiping off the hard surface when you size. After you experiment with alloy, which I think is the problem, you can try a different powder or heavier charge.
I had a LYMAN and a RCBS lubricator/sizer before the STAR. Great machine BUT definitely has a learning curve.

Heresy here. BUY some lead bullets similar to yours and load them with your load. See how they perform.

[tazman]

Depending on your groove diameter, you may be sizing them a bit too small. As dondiego suggested, try loading them as cast as long as they will fit in your chamber. Most people size for 9mm at .357 or .358.
WST normally burns very cleanly, without smoke so I doubt the powder is your issue.
I water drop my 9mm boolits and have no trouble with leading or accuracy and have not noticed any smoke issues even though I tumble lube with X-lox. I size to .358 for my Beretta barrels.

[MBTcustom]

Mongoose33, I admire your educated questions!
Personally, I think your bullets are just fine on hardness. Your powder is just fine as well.
However, I suspect you are sizing your bullets down way too small. You really want to run your bullets .002 over groove diameter if at all possible.
I would suggest you run a simple experiment to determine if this is the problem or not. Finger lube your bullets and load them as cast. If they dry cycle in your pistol, then go shoot them and observe if your smoking issue is reduced.

That said, cast bullets are just smokier than jacketed. There is no way to get completely away from it, although, if you were observeing heavy smoke while shooting outdoors, that certainly doesn't seem right.

[popper]

I tried 4.0 of WST with a 130 gr RNFP in 4 9's, 3 XDs & XD (+ a 165 gr XD 40SW). These were HiTek coated. All leaded at the muzzle. 3% Sb H.T.'d. HP38 doesn't lead, after 4-500 rnds. I think the powder is too fast for your alloy. You could try AC and wait a week or more before loading them. If you have pure, I'd cut it 50/50 with the #2, try AC or WD. SIL gave a pistol day at the indoor range as a prize for his B.S. troop contest. He complained that he get a keyhole every once in a while from his XD, Glock & XDs. I told him it would hurt the bad guy just as much if not more. At 7 yds, keyhole was at same POI as good ones. He got the 400 or so rnds for free, quit the whine. Ticked me the range wouldn't let him save brass. You have to make sure the case is sized properly all the length of the seated boolit, else the base band will get resized by the case. 9mm cases are usually designed for 115 gr FMJ so case dimensions vary greatly. Also watch out for the H.S. that has the built-in step inside the case, IIRC, AM? Oh, all but the Glock take 0.357 size fine, I guess the Glock worked, isn't mine.
edit: 9mm load was 4.0gr, not 4.5. 4.5 was for the 40SW. Sorry.

[runfiverun]

smoke is quite often nothing more than powder blow-bye I see many jacketed loads that smoke. [hint]

23 bhn? that's hard.
harder than most of my rifle boolits.

[mongoose33]

I've run some more boolits through the sizer, this time at .357 instead of .356, and I'll try W231 (same as HP38) and AA#7 as well as WST with these, and see what happens.

If I get lucky tomorrow I may be able to get out to shoot tomorrow evening.

[44man]

I would not worry about the hardness. Guys are correct about sizing, if they chamber, leave as cast. CR and the powder you have usually do not smoke so I guess blow by from a small boolit.
Powder will smoke if it does not burn properly so work on holding it back better. I shoot all of my revolvers with a case full of 296 and BHN of 20-22 with no smoke but I don't really size, I use the die to remove excess lube and rarely touch lead with the die. I lap Lee dies to what I want.
The nine is a pretty high pressure little bugger so if you soften too much, you can skid a boolit.
Good fit will aid burn.
My worst is the .44 with groove size boolits, accurate but I get sooty brass and even lube on brass and as I go to larger boolits, cases are cleaner.
Keep us up to date with your experiments.

[cajun shooter]

Mongoose33, I see some good answers to your problem but the biggest ones you have is bullet fit to the bore and bullet hardness. You stated that you have read the Lyman Cast Handbook, have you also taken time to read the book "FROM INGOT TO TARGET"? It was written by Glen Fryxell and Robert Applegate and is on the sticky section offered for free to everyone. It's the best book that I've ever read on the subject and to be able to have it for free is great. It's about 170 pages of information that even old casters may find interesting to read.
I downloaded and printed my copy out, then placed it in a 3 ring binder for future use.
I don't know who started you or for what reason you have decided to do water dropping on all of your bullets but it is not needed. I have been casting since 1970 and have never water dropped a single bullet. I never cast for any gun until the bore has been slugged so that I may fit my bullets to it.
I shoot the 44wcf cartridge with BP in my guns for SASS matches. The bores of my rifle and two revolvers slugged at .4275, so I had my Accurate Molds made to drop a .430 bullet. I size and lube my bullets to .002 above bore which has me shooting .429 bullets.
My alloy is 20-1 and I've never had one streak of leading in any gun.
Use a lower BHN alloy such as what is referred to as Lyman #2 at 15 BHN or even lower and I think you will see a huge difference. Your lube choice of Carnauba Red is good and is fine for use at 9mm velocities. Later David

[44man]

BP is different and even pure can be shot. The nine is NOT shot with BP. Hard is better in the nine because of the pressures. Pressure rise is instant, not the slow push.
But even a Minie' ball in a musket is not accurate unless the ball fits. No gun has ever shot good with the obturation junk. You will NOT shoot 1 to 20 in a nine, forget it.

[MtGun44]

No need for those iron hard boolits, but if they fitted correctly they
should be fine. .001 to .002 over groove diameter should be the goal.

[303Guy]

When I had a 9mm I shot 125gr boolits of soft lead, that being range lead. They shot pretty well even though they were not the best quality and there was undoubtedly case sizing.

[tazman]

I use water dropped range scrap in my 9mm. I don't get any case sizing. I don't get leading either. I size my boolits .002 over groove and don't have to worry about it.
Lube is White Label X-Lox. Yes, I get some smoke but as long as they group well, I don't care about the smoke.

[44man]

I will go along with "smoke means nothing" if you hit the target. Most TL stuff will smoke more. Alox does burn with the low flash point.

[sigep1764]

Fit is mostly what's important with a good lube. Mtgun said to go softer in my 9mm rounds. I went as soft as 2 to 1 pure lead and wheel weights and they worked just fine, as long as you can get them to not swage down in the case.

[gloob]

Bigger and softer bullets might help. Bigger expander might help. Bumping up your charge might help. But depending how your barrel is cut, you might be stuck with smoke. (See Runfiverun's post). I have the feeling choice of lube is overrated, and that would be the last thing on my checklist.


I went as soft as 2 to 1 pure lead and wheel weights and they worked just fine, as long as you can get them to not swage down in the case
Amen. I don't know how many times I have read that 9mm needs a hard alloy. The fact that the cases and dies suck for cast bullets seems to be the main reason loading cast in 9mm is tricky. I'm gonna throw 40SW in that boat, too.

[Tar Heel]

Straight Lyman #2 or WW metal will work fine at 9mm velocities. I use NRA Alox lube and size to .356 inches. I have found AA#7 to be an IDEAL propellant with the 9mm and cast bullets.

[Newboy]

I use 40:1 alloy, really soft for my 9mm IDPA loads. I do powder coat. Size is key, and a proper expander.

[BenW]

No gun has ever shot good with the obturation junk. You will NOT shoot 1 to 20 in a nine, forget it.

I have shot 10mm with 25-1 alloy. The throat was just 0.401 and the muzzle was 0.402. Obturation does work, and helps with less than ideal barrel geometry. Some guns are happier with harder boolits, but many guns are fine wih softer.

20-1 alloy was used quite a bit in 357 and 44 mag. Elmer Keith's favorite boolit was from an alloy not that much harder at 16-1 (~12bhn). I don't see 9mm inherently needing a harder alloy. Some 9's need harder, but it's not because of the pressures involved. Something else is wrong and has to be accounted for with harder alloys.

-Ben

[runfiverun]

barrel configuration.

the gun maker decides on your barrels land and groove designation, look down a 44 mag lever guns barrel sometime.
you might see 6 lands and grooves [shallow] 4-5 taller lands, 12 bumps, 9 sumthins that ain't quite rounded over but aren't square either.
and then check the throats on them, you'll wonder why there aren't bore riding designs and molds cut to 437 diameter.

all you can do is diagnose the information you have on hand and make an educated [umm experienced] decision on what to do to solve the issue.

[mongoose33]

I got out today to try some of the above theories. Spoiler: smoky as ever.

I have been reading Glen Fryxell's stuff and he noted how a too-hard alloy will not obturate if pressure is not high enough. I did some calculations and lo and behold, my 23 Brinell bullets are, according to the formula, too hard to obturate.

Aha I said (I really said it). So I casted up three different alloys to try, much softer, ranging from 9 to about 13. Those will obturate for sure, and way cut down the smoke, I said to myself.

Nope.

I tried three different powders to go along with the three alloys, WST, W231, and AA#7.

WST left the barrel the cleanest, by far. Still smoky, though, and good accuracy.

W231 had excellent accuracy; however, it resulted in barrel leading and deposits that were terrible. Smoke wasn't terrible, but not great.

AA#7 left a lot of debris in the barrel but no deposits. However, smokier than usual, but I found a load that was remarkably accurate--8 out of 10 holes touching at 8 yards, and the other two shots a half inch to the left.


So where do I go from here? I can try larger bullets yet (these were sized at .357), but given how soft the alloys were compared to the 23 Brinell bullets, I have my doubts.

I may have a chance tomorrow to do some more experimenting, see if I can nail some of this down.

[BenW]

The increase in accuracy with a certain load sounds like the "sweet spot" for that alloy/powder/gun. Did you stay with the Carnauba Red? Some lubes will smoke more than others. The couple of beeswax based ones I've tried have smoked a bit. The lube on commercial cast didn't nearly as much.

Beeswax has a variety of carbon chains of many lengths. You're pretty much guaranteed to have a couple in there that will smoke. Overheat some beeswax and you'll see how bad it is. Parrafin and other select waxes don't seem to char and smoke so easily, but the variety of carbon chains in beeswax that causes it to smoke so bad also are what make it so great as a base for lube.

[mongoose33]

The increase in accuracy with a certain load sounds like the "sweet spot" for that alloy/powder/gun. Did you stay with the Carnauba Red? Some lubes will smoke more than others. The couple of beeswax based ones I've tried have smoked a bit. The lube on commercial cast didn't nearly as much.

Beeswax has a variety of carbon chains of many lengths. You're pretty much guaranteed to have a couple in there that will smoke. Overheat some beeswax and you'll see how bad it is. Parrafin and other select waxes don't seem to char and smoke so easily, but the variety of carbon chains in beeswax that causes it to smoke so bad also are what make it so great as a base for lube.

Yes, I am still using C-Red. If I can just get the smoke down to a dull roar, it'll be fine for shooting outside. Inside, I may have to go w/ (gasp) FMJ or perhaps start playing around w/ PowderCoating.

[DougGuy]

If you want to go bigger with the boolit and run into the lands or the throat don't want to plunk your load, I can help with that. As others have said, sizing the boolit to .357" will help, and might be able to go to .358" with good results. I would not water drop. BHN 23 is likely too hard and causing leading and if it doesn't obturate, contributes to the smoke as well.