softening noses

[44mag1]

Ive read about softening noses on cast bullets to make them more effective for hunting. I read to water drop the bullets, then stand the bullets up in water covering the area you want to remain hard, Then run a torch over the noses until they changed colors. Has anyone here had success doing this?

[xr650]

Are you by chance talking about annealing cases?
My lead is silver when solid and silver when liquid. I don't see how you would accomplish this.

[targetshootr]

I've read about pouring soft lead into the first 1/4" inch of a mold and then pouring ww on top. fwiw.

[TexRebel]

Ive read about softening noses on cast bullets to make them more effective for hunting. I read to water drop the bullets, then stand the bullets up in water covering the area you want to remain hard, Then run a torch over the noses until they changed colors. Has anyone here had success doing this?

hope this helps, there is a long post on this subject , you can find it here http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=11749

[runfiverun]

44 you got it about right.
you gotta heat them just short of the melting point and let them aircool.
turns the point back into ww's alloy.
expect to mess some up.
if you look at lahsc glen fryxell has an explanation of this.

[44man]

With a proper meplat on a revolver boolit you neither need or want a soft nose. For smaller caliber rifles you need some expansion so it would help.
I think if you mix 50-50 pure with WW's and water drop them, they would be hard enough to shoot, yet expand nicely.
Straight WW metal, air cooled will be as soft as they will ever be.

[MT Gianni]

When you heat the boolits there is a slight dulling of the lead. IMO it is easy to miss read the change and difficult to make uniform heat on each side. Gianni

[xr650]

five,
I can see messing some up.
How do you regulate the heat?
Are you looking for shine?

MG,
Answered my question as I was typing it.
Talk about quick.

[NSP64]

CAST some like Bruce B last season. shot some into test media and held together nicely. Didn't get to shoot deer but will try again this year. I used pure Pb in the nose and weighed the pure so I had some control of the uniformity.

[44mag1]

Im mostly interested in doing this to rifle bullets. I understand from experience how well a large meplat on a hangun bullet can kill. I would like to get better performance out of my 6.5 bullets. I have been casting them with WW and dropping them in water to harden them. They shoot great in my 6.5x55 X 12ga combo rifle. I just worry with little or no expansion that they would make for a long tracking job on big game. Softening the noses should work.

[randyrat]

Learn about Paper patching using soft lead and J bullet velocties. You'll have your soft expansion, velocity and no leading. Don't ask me I'm still experimenting but i will get there someday soon.

[leftiye]

Use tempilaq crayons to control the heating temp you get on the noses. 300 degrees is plenty hot. 44Man is right about 50/50 wheelweights/pure expanding well. It will heat treat to BHN22 (I believe), the same hardness as linotype, and you could anneal the noses to BHN12 if you wanted to. If you use this alloy, I wouldn't anneal too much of the nose. It is also tougher (hangs together better) than straight wheelweights.

[44mag1]

Learn about Paper patching using soft lead and J bullet velocties. You'll have your soft expansion, velocity and no leading. Don't ask me I'm still experimenting but i will get there someday soon.

This is definetly something I am interested in. I would like to be completly "off the grid" with regards to jacketed bullets some day. My son has a doe mule deer tag for the kiabab this year and they want us to use solid copper bullets to hunt with. Fine with me considering they will be supplying the ammo. I just hope this isnt going to be a sign for the future of hunting.

[Marlin Junky]

I haven't gotten around to annealing noses yet but it is on my list.

I have noticed a color change on 50/50 alloy (half lead, half clip-on WW metal) at 550F in my convection oven. I've also had a few bullets stick together that were cast of clip-on WW metal with a bit of tin added after a 500F heat treat. If you're going to anneal bullet noses, I think you need to leave out the tin and cast hot (800F+) for good fill-out. Or, I guess you can use the "tempilaq crayons" but as I recall, they are very expensive. I have also significantly drawn back the hardness of HT'd 50/50 from 27-28 BHN (you need a little added Sb to reach this hardness - 50/50 will only HT to 22-23 BHN w/o additional Sb) by heating in my convection oven at 250F to 300F and allowing to air cool but this takes about 20-25 minutes to effect an anneal at these lower temps.

MJ

[pdawg_shooter]

I've read about pouring soft lead into the first 1/4" inch of a mold and then pouring ww on top. fwiw.

I have done this, bit it is much easier to cast soft then paper patch. No leading, JB performance, and the perfect game bullet that way.

[Marlin Junky]

I have done this, bit it is much easier to cast soft then paper patch. No leading, JB performance, and the perfect game bullet that way.

What kind of accuracy are you getting with what caliber/rate of twist configurations? Do you need deep grooves for good accuracy at high velocity?

MJ