Magnum handgun alloy's. Bhn?

[Murphy]

Hi Guys,

I'm doing a bit of blending using WW's and Lino. Using a handy little calculator program someone provided here on the forum, I have found that a 50/50 mix will give me a Bhn of 15.5.

The boolit's I am wondering about, are Keith's #429421 & #358429. Mostly, they'll be going out the barrels of 4 inch barreled Smith & Wesson models 19 & 29.

I won't be shooting a great deal of full house magnums. So I'm not worried too much about skimping on the Lino, I have about 1/2 a ton of it.

Thoughs and input please.

Respectfully,

Murphy

[9.3X62AL]

I wouldn't be surprised if straight wheelweights did fine work up to 1200 FPS with the two designs you mentioned. I have used both designs to this velocity in straight WW metal/lubed with Javelina, with strict adherence to dimensional integrity--boolits are sized at throat diameter.

My usual metal for rifle work and magnum handguns is Taracorp alloy, which is a high-end word for "half Lino and half unalloyed lead", AKA 92/6/2. If you went 50/50 Lino/WW, your metal should be a little harder than Taracorp--and really good alloy for the maggies and rifles.

[Dale53]

You'll find that 5/1 (WW/lino) will be plenty hard enough for magnum handgun loads at whatever velocity you can safely use. I have literally driven thousands of loads at 1200-1300 fps (chronographed) through my model 29 8 3/8" S&W and my Ruger 7.5" Red Hawk and 7.5" Super Black Hawk. This using the Lyman 429421 bullet. I have also used the Lee c430-310RF at 1200 fps with this alloy with NO problems.

Dale53

[Lloyd Smale]

I use alot of 5050 in mag handguns not because it neccisarry to prevent leading but because it has proven itself in penetration testing. Weve not found a better alloy for ductility and strength. Now it may be a little bit of an overkill for a 44 and deer hunting but another nice thing is it makes very consistant bullets and has given top accurarcy in alot of guns. Only real way your going to find out what your gun likes is to shoot it with every possible combination you can come up with.

[Bass Ackward]

Murphy,

With each magnum hangun you will find one hardness level where a certain hardness level is hard enough. One 44 I have, 14 BHN will get me to maximum loadings. For THAT hangun 14 is as hard as 30. By that I mean that at 14 BHN, I have complete freedom from leading or stripping or lube to use any powder to produce any velocity level without leading in the persuit of accuracy. Another gun I own has some issues and it takes 18-20 BHN before the same .... flexibility is achieved. With that said, both guns do well with 10 BHN for mid range 1000 - 1200 fps loads.

From my experience, during the life cycle of a handgun you will have the flexibility to change hardness levels many times. The general pattern (for me) was to usually start off fairly hard at one level and as conditions break in and optomise, (500 - 1000 rds) be able to go much softer in bullet hardness than I origionally started. Then I had to start to harden things up again as things wore.

I tell you this so you understand that you may not have to shoot the expensive mixes all the time. And so you can understand one reason why there is such a variety of opinion on the subject.