Tell me again why we wait for boolets to harden

[abunaitoo]

I let them sit for about a week after casting.
I read here why, but can't remember why.
Would I still have to wait, even if I PC them????

[Winger Ed.]

Being harder, you'll have less problems of them leading the barrel at higher speeds.

Or, more nearly, you can push harder boollits faster before they start to lead the bore.

[Rcmaveric]

Lets the hardness stabilize. Depending on alloy and other factors. It sometimes take a couple weeks for your hardness to stop moving.

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[Beerd]

I have some bullets that I cast in 1987 :groner:
I think it's about time to load them up and get them moving.
..

[Rcmaveric]

I have some bullets that I cast in 1987 :groner:
I think it's about time to load them up and get them moving.
...... i am months to a year older than your bullets. Lol

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[woodbutcher]

:lol: Hi RC.Don`t feel bad.I`m 40 odd years older that Beerd`s boolits.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[waco]

This is a good read with lots of helpful info.
http://www.lasc.us/HeatTreat.htm

[Guesser]

I have unsized castings that I did in 1985 and I have about 4000 on the bench that are over a year old; I'll get around to sizing/loobing eventually.

[Tom W.]

I cast a pile and put them in an old military ammo can when they cool. Ain't no telling how old they are.....I'll run them through the lubrisizer and depending on the boolit I may tumble lube them with JPW just because..... I have 50 waiting to be loaded into my 30/30 brass, but I suspect they'll have to wait until the urge hits me, or my new sizing die arrives.

[osteodoc08]

WACO provided a valuable read and if you haven't read the book in its entirety, I suggest you do that.

Waiting to size is what I DONT want to do with quenched alloys. Age hardening after quenching just makes it that much harder to size. I size as soon as the boolits are dry and have noticed no change in an unsized boolit in regards to testing with a saeco hardness tester. The optimum way to lubrisize a hardened bullet is to run them through a sizer, heat treat in an oven and then run them back through the sizer with lube this time. (if your lubrisizing).

To the OP: Youre not heat treating your boolits. Cast your boolits and coat them and size them. No need to wait in my experience.

[David2011]

What Osteodoc said. Any operations including powder coating and sizing should be done as soon as you can after casting because they can become much more difficult to size once they age harden.

[abunaitoo]

Not heat treating.
I do drop the in water from the mold.

[osteodoc08]

Not heat treating.
I do drop the in water from the mold.

Unless shooting magnum velocity and needing hard boolits, you may find this is an unecessary step and may not be best for accuracy especially if using low pressure loads for say, 45 acp. Your hardness is max around 2-7 days and then settles down and can actually soften a touch with age. Fryxell covers this in “Ingot to Target” and should be required reading for boolit casters. I’ve checked diameter with a micrometer and hardness with a saeco (Redding) hardness tester and have found that after 2-3 days, I’ve reached maximum hardness for my WQCOWW + 1% tin alloy. I size and lube as soon as they’re dry and have found no difference in detectable real world diameter or hardness changes from sizing in that time frame.

[sureYnot]

If I try to load for my 9mm any sooner than 24 hours, the brass will swage down the boolits.

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[abunaitoo]

All rifle boolets, with light loads.
2400, I4198, I4227, nothing real fast.
Only 100yd range, so no need for it.
All military surplus rifles.

[T_McD]

So I cast some rifle bullets in the morning, (water quenched coww) and later that afternoon double coated with pc. Then that evening sized and gas checked them.

Any issues with that?

[RED BEAR]

Not sure i really buy all of this have cast sized loaded and shot bullets within a day and can tell no difference in them and ones that are year old.

[David2011]

Not sure i really buy all of this have cast sized loaded and shot bullets within a day and can tell no difference in them and ones that are year old.

With the alloy I use most of the time age hardening is very real. My standard alloy is 20 lb coww:1/2 lb monotype. If I don’t size promptly, within 24 hours of casting, the boolits are much more difficult to get through the Star sizer. While I haven’t tested the hardness of the age hardened boolits with a tester there is no doubt that they’re harder.

[osteodoc08]

So I cast some rifle bullets in the morning, (water quenched coww) and later that afternoon double coated with pc. Then that evening sized and gas checked them.

Any issues with that?

Nope. Rock on.

[osteodoc08]

Not sure i really buy all of this have cast sized loaded and shot bullets within a day and can tell no difference in them and ones that are year old.

Take a regular batch and a WQ batch and try sizing at 48 hours and you’ll notice a difference especially if using a star or similar.

[RED BEAR]

Well i have tested with hardness tester and there is very little difference in mine only a couple of points. I use a 50/50 mixture of reclaimed shot and wheel weights . Or 100% reclaimed shot . So i guess it could be difference in our alloys but with what i use doesn't seem to matter.

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

A few years back now, I bought a very well made 465gr Wide Flat Nose mold from BABore (Bruce) here on the forum when he was still making his high quality molds.

His recommendation was to cast these 45/70 bullets from a 50/50 mix of clip on wheel weights and lead, then water quench.

Then, as soon as possible and I did so the day following the casting, size the bullets in a lee "style" push through die of .460.

Sizing/lubing could then take place at some later point in a typical RCBS/Lyman type sizer/luber die of .461.

Reasoning for the second step and larger sizer/luber die was to prevent disturbance of the bullets surface hardness of the quenched and aged bullets.

He also recommended allowing the bullets to "age" at least 7 days with 14 being yet better, before firing. He said that he had tested/fired bullets with less then 7 days aging and while the tester said they were good to go, his rifle told a different story.

I hardness tested some of those 465s a couple days ago that are at least two and probably three years old and they tested out at 22 Brinell

OK then, I had a casting session on 3/20/19 with several .44 molds one being a Lyman semi wad cutter and another an Accurate mold casting a Wide Flat Nose of 275/280gr.

I normally run 3 - 4 molds during a casting session.

Alloy was just plain old clip on wheel weights. PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING IS THE DIAL INDICATOR READING FROM MY CABIN TREE HARDNESS TESTER AND NOT A BRINELL HARDNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!

On 3/21/19, they Lyman bullets tested an average of 5 at 80.8 while today they test 91

The heavier WFN bullets tested an average of 90.3 on the 21st of March while today (4/5/19), they test 91.9.

Same alloy from the same pot with both bullets the second test done 15 days after the first hardness test.

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[T_McD]

That is some interesting data, but the million dollar question is does it effect accuracy to any appreciable degree?

It would be interesting to see a test of machine cast bullets water quenched, then progressively sized, lubed and shot from a test barrel day after day. Who wants to volunteer?!!!!

Also, does any of this matter if one is powder coating? There are just so many variables it’s hard to definitively claim anything without an absurd amount of testing

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

Only one way to know and the answer may very well be different across many different firearms.

Just like with .22 rimfire rifle where there a number of high end ammos along with many more typical off the shelf ammos. Surprisingly, some of the lower priced selections will shoot quite well in rifles that unusually don't show any great degree of accuracy, while some of the higher end ammos that have solid reputations for accuracy will prove to shoot mediocre groups from accurate rifles.

The one thing I have found is, the better a barrel on a .22 rifle, the more and different ammos it will shoot well.

Maybe, quite likely, the same thing applies to the larger bore rifles shooting cast bullets. And for the typical run of the mill factory barrel it will probably shoot something very well. It just may take much more testing to find what it likes. Hard, soft, powder coated or lubed, one large lube groove or two or more smaller ones, faster powder, slower powder etc. etc. etc.

My RUGER 45/70 happens to prefer H335 while that powder is seldom spoken of for use in that cartridge, but for some reason it likes that powder while showing lessor degrees of accuracy with the many powders that typically find favor.

If all of the powder and bullet combinations were to be cataloged, there would be some clear combinations that show the highest degree of accuracy, but even then of those most accurate loads shown, they would be nothing more then a starting place, a point at which to begin our own load development/testing in our personal firearm.

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[mjwcaster]

It depends on the alloy.
I had a batch of range scrap last year that was softer than normal.
Air cooled 45 acp boolits were being sized down by the cases for at least 3 weeks, probably longer.
They finally hardened enough to stop sizing down.
Never had that issue before.
I heat treated another batch of the same alloy, they hardened enough in a few days to stop sizing down.

Same alloy sweetened with a little wheel weight (~20%) this year water dropped after baking hi tek coating was too hard after 2-3 days to size.
It was a spur of the moment decision to water drop them, and I should have sized them immediately.

I need to try annealing them.





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[Blammer]

we wait for them to harden because if you open the mould before they harden, it gets messy quick. ;)

[murf205]

What Osteodoc said. Any operations including powder coating and sizing should be done as soon as you can after casting because they can become much more difficult to size once they age harden.

Ditto on that. I have started using light machine oil on my fingers and spin the boolit between my thumb and index finger to spread th oil on it before using my push through sizer. It helps quite a bit.