Hardness Help! [Archive]

ProudOkie

11-13-2016, 12:33 AM

Hey there. I have just passed about a year reloading, have not bought a hardess tester. made a newb mistake now i have 4 batches and i forgot what the alloy is...does anyone have a hardness tester that doesnt mind testing 4 boolits for me?

dtknowles

11-13-2016, 01:01 AM

rancher1913

11-13-2016, 10:13 AM

you could do the pencil test, should be close enough.

runfiverun

11-13-2016, 12:46 PM

this is why I big batch my alloy.

dtknowles

11-13-2016, 01:23 PM

I know that we all use a indenting hardness tester. I wonder if that is measuring the right property of our alloys?

Has anyone measured other material properties of the alloys we use? Tensile strength, toughness, ductility, etc.

Tim

popper

11-13-2016, 01:57 PM

Has anyone measured other material properties of the alloys we use? Tensile strength, toughness, ductility, etc.
There is a machine made in England that will plot a curve of stress/strain (so you can calculate all the other numbers) but I can't afford it.

Oklahoma Rebel

11-13-2016, 04:35 PM

hello fellow okie! Welcome to the sight! BNE will measure the alloy , 1 alloy for 1lb of lead, that's if he still does it, I also have 2 alloys I want him to check a lyman#2 I made and one other that might be 4.3%tin 1.9%sb. now mind you, this is not just a hardness test, but a scan that tells what metals are in it at what percent. Good luck!

runfiverun

11-14-2016, 01:53 AM

there is a sticky here on 'how tough is your alloy'. [or something along those lines]
it was a home made guillotine type machine to test toughness and shear of various alloys.
it's worth looking up.
and it say's a lot of something about the old school ww alloy we used to use back then.

Traffer

11-14-2016, 03:23 AM

He did some for me about a month ago. He does not test hardness but uses an xray machine to tell you the contents of the alloy. It helps him out if you can give him an idea of what metals are in the alloy.

hello fellow okie! Welcome to the sight! BNE will measure the alloy , 1 alloy for 1lb of lead, that's if he still does it, I also have 2 alloys I want him to check a lyman#2 I made and one other that might be 4.3%tin 1.9%sb. now mind you, this is not just a hardness test, but a scan that tells what metals are in it at what percent. Good luck!

Yodogsandman

11-14-2016, 09:14 PM

You could save yourself the bother and just mix the 4 batches together and cast some boolits to shoot.

I toss ingots onto the concrete to see if they "ring" the same. Pure lead just "thunks". Real scientific, huh?

You could also place a small ball bearing between two ingots and tighten them in a vice. The softer alloy will indent more.

There's a thread somewhere here that uses a 7/16" ball bearing, pressed onto a flat spot in the ingot at 200 ft lbs using a bath scale and arbor press/drill press. You load the measured size of the indent into a calculator and it tells you the hardness in BHN.

EDIT: Found a thread...
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?287575-quot-Billy-Bob-quot-lead-Hardness-Tester