Need cast boolit opinion

[glenliz87]

Hello everyone,
I want to hear your opinons on what I should do, air cool or water quench. I will be casting plain base 150gr l-swc for my .357/.38 Special using WW with 2% 95/5 solder added. I use the same alloy for rifle & water quench, after a few days the boolits have a reading of 24 BHN and I get no leading. Would this be too hard for pistol? I don't plan on shooting them over 800 - 900 fps. I'm assuming 24 BHN may be too hard but I can be wrong, I never casted for pistol before.

[9.3X62AL]

Glenliz--

Welcome aboard, sir! If 800-900 FPS is as fast as you'll be running the castings, plain old air-cooled wheelweight metal will be fine, and the enriched WW alloy you are using should be good to 1100 FPS. This assumes good dimensions between the revolver and the boolits. I don't water-drop my boolits, someone else will have to chime in with experiences of that sort. FWIW, I can run well-sized plain-base boolits to 1300 FPS in 45-70 and 1200 FPS in a 44-40 carbine using 92/6/2 alloy and beeswax/alox lube.

[opentop]

plain ol air cooled ww will be fine for 800-900 FPS. I would save your tin and or solder. only add a little if you need to for fill out. Mic the throats on your cylinder and size to that dimention.

[glenliz87]

9.3X62AL
Thank you very much for the welcome & the info. I presently use felix lube for rifle so I will use the same for pistol and see how that works. I was thinking of using water quenched for .357 since there is more pressure involved & air cooled for the .38 Special.

[GrizzLeeBear]

Well if you are going to shoot the .38 at 900 fps and the .357 at full power (1300+ for 150 gr. boolits according to the lyman book), then yes you might want to quench the boolits for the .357, but no need for it in the .38. Make sure you size the boolits .001 or .002 over bore dia. for the .357 to reduce the chance of leading with the hard boolits. I tend to use GC boolits (358156 cause it shoots so damn good at full power) for full power .357 loads and plain base boolits for loads of 1100 fps or less.
Also agree with Opentop, just add the tin for fillout if you need it. Doesn't take much usually, maybe 1%.

[BoolitSmith]

I shoot 158gr plain base over 6 grs of Bullseye for around 1200 fps.These are air cooled WW and tumble lubed with LLA.I shoot these out of my 4'' revolver and my Marlin 1894c.I never get any leading in either one.

[runfiverun]

i have shot ww's with tin over 1600 through a 24" bbl with plain bases.
water dropping don't help till you get to gas check area.
even then in a revolver you probably will be doing more bad then good.
but [another one] if your boolits fit well a harder boolit could be an assett.

[R.C. Hatter]

No faster than you intend shooting, your bullets would be much too hard to obturate properly. You should use straight wheelweights or 1 to 20 tin & lead, something about 11 BNH, is better suited to your chosen velocity. Be sure to use a good quality lube as well. R.C. Hatter

[glenliz87]

Thank you very much for all the replies. You were all very helpful. I will air cool my boolits & change my alloy as suggested by some of the you. The winters here are long so I have a lot of time to experiment with alloys. I will also check boolit to bore fit. I just purchased this. 357 and did not test fire it yet.:drinks: