Water drop?

[brewer12345]

I have mostly been casting range lead plus some tin for lower pressure stuff (cowboy action type 44 mag, 38 wadcutters and mild RNFPs, etc.) and AC COWWs plus some tin for somewhat higher pressure stuff (357 mag, middle of the road 35 Rem, Lee soup cans for 30-06 target loads, etc.). I am wanting to cast up some 195 grain gas checked flat nose stuff for 30-06 that will be driven ideally up to 2000 FPS in a 1 in 11" twist barrel and some 240 grain gas checked SWCs that will be driven fairly hard in a lever action. I plan to use the COWW plus 3 or so percent tin (via pewter) recipe that I have been using, but I am wondering whether these should really be water dropped for additional hardness. The 44 load might some day be used on pigs, but the 30-06 load is intended to be a deer load (to 150 to 200 yards if I can get the velocity) once I get it dialed in. Do these boolits need to be water dropped for my applications? If so, will the water dropped ones be usable on game (expand rather than shatter, etc.) or will I need to cast up some air cooled ones once I have the load dialed in?

[prs]

If your goal is get some additional hardness with that alloy, I suggest that you do your casting in your normal fashion, size the bullets, then oven heat and quench. That way the stress on your size equipment is less, stress on your arm is less and hardness will be more uniform and maybe harder. But you may have to run through again to lube The hardened alloy will still age a bit over a few weeks or months. If your as cast boolits are already dropping to desired size, then dropping into cool water from mold is ok.

prs

[popper]

Probably more tin than needed. They will not shatter unless hit a heavy bone - most any alloy will do that. WD for the higher fps will be more accurate.