Water quench then size?

[cheese1566]

I know water quenching boolits right out of the mold will increase the hardness of wheel weight material.

If you then run them through a sizer, will you loose some hardness from the swaging of the lead?

I read somewhere that some people cast the boolit, size it, heat treat in an oven to harden more, water quench right out of the oven, then run it through a sizer to only lube...seams like a lot of work-except for maybe some higher pressure rifle loads.

I also heard that if you water quench, then size, you are gaining nothing in hardness...

I plan on just making Sunday plinkin' boolits for light/regular pistol loads.

[mpmarty]

Good question. I await input from some of the real gurus here but my thoughts are that a harder boolit will "spring back" a bit more after sizing than a soft one and so I doubt the benefit of water dropping would be lost. Just my thoughts......

[docone31]

I size after quenching.
I don't know the answer to that. I only know they work. No leading in the loads I do not patch.
If they do spring back a little, the absence of leading might be on account of that.

[oso]

If you quench the appropriate alloy and lube with a sizer that does not work the boolit there would be no loss of hardening. If you're going to work the boolit at all when sizing, do it soon after quenching before the hardening process is complete - you may still gain several BHNs compared to unquenched. Do compare!
I don't quench for 38 Special light loads but I do quench for 357 Mag plinkers, regardless of day of the week.
Yup, you makes your choices and you pays your time/money.

[mag_01]

I believe the rule of thumb is sizing 2ths. or less will not degrade the hardness to any degree. I have one boolit that has a .457 diameter about midway and when I size that it dose rebound about .0005. As well as hardness is compromised to some extent in that area.

[mag_01]

sizing .452 I will get .4525 at that point.

[crabo]

I size right after I finish casting. It is a pain to stop after only doing what I can size in one evening, but as I understand it, if you wait until the next day, you will wipe a lot of your hardening off as you size it.

[revolver junkie]

ditto what crabo said i size asap after quenching, checking the hardness it does not seem to matter but they are subsantialy harder than plain ww something on the order of 8 BHN i would think that the softest part of the boolit would be the center because it it the last to be cooled the surface should be the hardest for at least a few thou.
for pistol loads unless your like me an run 330 kieths through a blakhawk at 1000fps. straight air cooled ww are plenty fine and are probably a little on the hard side

BTW those 330s are getting into smack youself in the head territory and thats a low load that drops free from the cylinder READ HANDCANNON.

[warf73]

I've found after water dropping boolits if I size them that day or the next they size just fine and don't loose any hardness. But if you wait a few weeks they are harder to size and seem to loose 5bhn or so.


Warf

[armyrat1970]

If your cast boolits will chamber with no problem, there is no need to size and no need to worry about losing any hardness after quenching.
I don't see how sizing effects the hardness of the bullet though? If you quench when dropping from the mold or quench after heat treating are you only hardening the outside surface of the bullet or the whole alloy?
http://www.lasc.us/HeatTreat.htm

[Bret4207]

Interesting quandary. If we WQ we find the boolit has maybe doubled it's hardness, or more, in a couple weeks. But if we size at that hardness and check again we find a degradation of the hardness. So how do we measure interior hardness without degrading the hardness when we cut the boolit? Any working of the boolit seems to affect it.

Ah! Too much thinking too early.

[armyrat1970]

Interesting quandary. If we WQ we find the boolit has maybe doubled it's hardness, or more, in a couple weeks. But if we size at that hardness and check again we find a degradation of the hardness. So how do we measure interior hardness without degrading the hardness when we cut the boolit? Any working of the boolit seems to affect it.

Ah! Too much thinking too early.

After you have had your morning cup of Joe and think about it a little more please post back.:)

[monadnock#5]

The books will tell you that if you water quench, you have to get the boolits sized within 48 hours, as WQ'ed harden at a much faster rate than AC. If you size after the 48 hours is up, the portion of the boolit affected by the sizing (the same portion that will be affected by the lands and grooves) will be softened, and never come back to the WQ hardness. Thus, you can look forward to leading.

Someone else will come along and say this is all wrong, and relate their own practical experience.

So now what are you supposed to do, believe the books, or throw the books out the window and go with practical experience?

All I can tell you is that if you're confused, don't fret, be of good cheer, it's all part of the process!! It's up to you to find that which any particular firearm likes best. So many guns, so little time! Have fun. :D

[runfiverun]

i go by the if it shoots plain based fine it will work fine with plain ole ww's when i grt into g/c territory i water drop.
except........ for one rifle.

[putteral]

I totally agree with monadnock#15.
SO MANY GUNS AND SO LITTLE TIME!
:drinks:

[Larry Gibson]

I WQ bullets not to harden the surface but to harden the entire bullet to prevent unwated obturation/set back or sloughing. Sizing WQ'd cast bullets, even after 48 hours, has not lessoned the desirable hardening of the entire bullet. Besides, as soon as the bullet is fully engraved into the throat and barrel is it "swaged" and hasn't it thus lost it's srface hardness anyway?

Larry Gibson

[StarMetal]

I WQ bullets not to harden the surface but to harden the entire bullet to prevent unwated obturation/set back or sloughing. Sizing WQ'd cast bullets, even after 48 hours, has not lessoned the desirable hardening of the entire bullet. Besides, as soon as the bullet is fully engraved into the throat and barrel is it "swaged" and hasn't it thus lost it's srface hardness anyway?

Larry Gibson

Larry,

It probably doe, but when you pull the trigger it's only in the barrel a micro second. How fast does the process of "unhardening" it really take...a micro second? Not a contest, as I don't really know, but my guess it it doesn't lose it hardeness that fast and us hardening them has served it's purpose in that micro second. Whatya think?

I size W

[StarMetal]

I WQ bullets not to harden the surface but to harden the entire bullet to prevent unwated obturation/set back or sloughing. Sizing WQ'd cast bullets, even after 48 hours, has not lessoned the desirable hardening of the entire bullet. Besides, as soon as the bullet is fully engraved into the throat and barrel is it "swaged" and hasn't it thus lost it's srface hardness anyway?

Larry Gibson

Larry,

It probably does, but when you pull the trigger it's only in the barrel a micro second. How fast does the process of "unhardening" it really take...a micro second? Not a contest, as I don't really know, but my guess it it doesn't lose it hardeness that fast and us hardening them has served it's purpose in that micro second. Whatya think?

I size WQ right after casting. I've just cast some 6.5 caliber bullets and just in 24 hrs they have hardened some and have grown .0005 to .001 in one day. I agree you can probably size them one or two days later, but they are much harder at that time then right after casting and little more effort is required. They still have a ways to go to full hardening and I don't believe that hurts them sizing anywhere from cast time up to two days.

Joe

[leftiye]

Star, We have actually gone through this before. Work softening proceeds at about the speed of sound. Bad news is that that means that .004" takes about 12 millionths of a second. So lets say before the boolit gets completely engraved in the rifling, eh? More bad news - if you look at the comments above, you'll see that mashing .002" of the surface of a boolit (sizing) softens somewhat more than the .002 on the surface. Apparently, it messes up whatever crystals it affects. May even cause a chain reaction. Air quench, size, heat treat for best results.

[Larry Gibson]

Starmetal

I didn't know and was asking the question because in the back of my mind I remembered that the bullet might be softened somewhat on entering the barrel.

Leftiye

Thanks for the answer and refreshing my memory.

Larry Gibson

[NuJudge]

I believe there are some Lead alloys that do not respond to quenching, especially the purer Leads.

[mag_01]

Very true

[454PB]

I size them right after casting. Reason #1 is that it will resoften them if done days latter, and reason#2 is that they are still soft and easier to size.

In my long term tests, it takes quenched boolits about a month to reach full hardness, and I have tested by filing in 1/3 of the diameter and found they are the same hardness within. I have also tested boolits that were sized a week after casting, and found they were a lot softer than the same ones in the batch that were sized immediately. This convinced me that they need sizing quickly.

I don't see the sense in both quenching and heat treating, but heat treating is more precise.

[StarMetal]

Star, We have actually gone through this before. Work softening proceeds at about the speed of sound. Bad news is that that means that .004" takes about 12 millionths of a second. So lets say before the boolit gets completely engraved in the rifling, eh? More bad news - if you look at the comments above, you'll see that mashing .002" of the surface of a boolit (sizing) softens somewhat more than the .002 on the surface. Apparently, it messes up whatever crystals it affects. May even cause a chain reaction. Air quench, size, heat treat for best results.

Howdy Leftiye,

Good info. I didn't know that. I wonder if there is a chain reaction. If not do you think the hardness serves it's purpose until the bullet gets out of the barrel? Some things I query are that we know for a fact that hardened bullets don't expand as much as ones that aren't hardened. That's telling me they aren't softening in the barrel through firing. They also perform different in the barrel then their softer counterparts. They don't slug up as well, say in revolvers. What do you think about all that?

Joe

[dwtim]

I WQ while casting, and size the same day. It takes weeks for peak hardness to happen. There are threads on this forum where the poster sampled with a hardness tester over time and recorded the results.

[Bret4207]

I size them right after casting. Reason #1 is that it will resoften them if done days latter, and reason#2 is that they are still soft and easier to size.

In my long term tests, it takes quenched boolits about a month to reach full hardness, and I have tested by filing in 1/3 of the diameter and found they are the same hardness within. I have also tested boolits that were sized a week after casting, and found they were a lot softer than the same ones in the batch that were sized immediately. This convinced me that they need sizing quickly.

I don't see the sense in both quenching and heat treating, but heat treating is more precise.

If pushing them through the sizer softens them, and I've never really taken precise measurement to verify it, then why wouldn't filing soften them too? Maybe sizing isn't softening them as much as we think. Time for someone to step up and do the testing boys.

[Gunslinger]

What about water temperature does that have any affect on the hardness? I hear some people say you should use ice water instead??

[felix]

It is always best to size hard boolits because they go into the die straighter. For BR boolits, water drop, wait a month minimum, size without lube (light oil spray ok), oven treat, weigh into zero grain variance lots, check and lube the lots keeping them seperate, wait a year or more, then shoot on lot at a time. Will get a maximum of 1/2 inch accuracy at a hunnert with average alloy. Better alloys can give double the accuracy. ... felix

[felix]

Ice water will help the big diameter boolits somewhat. In this case, however, it's best to use hot water to encourage a softer core for hunting boolits. Keep in mind heat transfer is limited by the steam generated. Might get a boost by using ice cold anti-freeze for making big boolits harder. I have never wanted to do this because 22 boolits, for example, tend to get hard just by air dropping, and with some alloys, hard enough. I just don't shoot big boolits for accuracy. Beer can fodder for the 100 percent shooting I do. ... felix

[AZ-Stew]

I plan on just making Sunday plinkin' boolits for light/regular pistol loads.

This is the operative phrase in the original question.

If you're making "light, plinking loads", you don't need hardened boolits. As-cast WW (or air-cooled WW, your preference) will work perfectly well in your handguns.

Nonetheless, you did start an interesting conversation.

Regards,

Stew

[leftiye]

Howdy Leftiye,
Good info. I didn't know that. I wonder if there is a chain reaction. If not do you think the hardness serves it's purpose until the bullet gets out of the barrel? Some things I query are that we know for a fact that hardened bullets don't expand as much as ones that aren't hardened. That's telling me they aren't softening in the barrel through firing. They also perform different in the barrel then their softer counterparts. They don't slug up as well, say in revolvers. What do you think about all that? Joe

The harder lead alloys have higher pastic deformation strengths, so they do not bump up, or deform as easily as softer alloys. This goes for heat treated boolits too. Interestingly, heat treated boolits are still malleable similar to their malleability before hardening. So, if you're talking about expansion in terminal (hit the hog) terms, you are right, they do expand after hardening albeit at higher impact velocities.

As for hardening doing its job while the boolit is in the barrel, I think it does resist major deformation better for being hardened. Here I run into one of my personal theories.

Though harder boolits are said by some to lead less, and I think they do to a degree (so I guess the answer would be yes it helps with leading and holding the rifling while in the barrel). I'm believeing that what we expect lead to perfom like In terms of BHN is quite a bit more optomistic than it should be. I think the surface of the boolits acts like much softer lead while in the barrel. Paper patched boolits are much more forgiving as velicities increase. Ironically, this is true also in terms of boolit slumping - or in other words structurally too. Softer alloys can be shot faster when paper patched.