Boolit hardness

[phc45-70]

I decided to get a little more testicle with my casting so I got a Lee hardness tester for my birthday. I've been casting for my 1895cb using a RCBS mold that drops 405 gr boolits but with ww they weigh around 434 gr. Been shoving them down the tube with 39 gr of imr 3031 and they come out the end at about 1450 fps. Having found a little 50/50 solder and having a hardness tester I thought I would try speeding them up a little, certainly nothing over about 1650fps if I can take the recoil without to much discomfort. What I've been wondering is what happens if you shoot to soft a boolit to fast. Can it damage the gun ? And how cast can you reasonably shoot ww in a boolit of that weight in that caliber?

[MtGun44]

"Testicle"??????

Too soft and too fast, accy goes away, may also get leading. No damage with
book loads. My std load for my Marlin .45-70 makes 1750 with that same
boolit, I have pushed it over 2000, but the recoil is serious, but no leading.

Adding tin from 50-50 will help mold fillout but do little for hardness. Try water
dropping. I use 57.0 W748 under the RCBS 405 GC or a jacketed Rem and
have excellent accy. This is not a high pressure load - reported to be safe
in Trapdoor Springfields. Use a mag primer.

Bill

[vonnieglen]

I have a Lee hardness tester also. In chapter 10 of of Richard Lee's book Modern Reloading 2nd ed., pages 129 - 139 the subject of bullet hardness is discussed in detail. There is a chart on page 134 that shows the maximum pressure a bullet of a certain brinnel hardness can take. If you excede this pressure the bullet is most likely going to leave lead inside of your barrel. If you don't keep your barrel clean your accuracy will suffer and you could cause an increase in pressure that could become dangerous.

I have a handgun with polygonal rifling. Using lead cast to the proper hardness and a charge that does not create pressures beyond what the bullet can handle is especially important with this type of rifling. People with Glocks with polygonal rifling have run into difficulty causing catastrophic failures after lead has built up in their barrels and the pressures eventually increased beyond safe levels.

One time I shot bullets that I had not aged for a couple of days to achieve their maximum hardness and they left lead in the barrel. I have had no problems with bullets of the proper hardness.

The interesting thing is that the best accuracy is said to be achieved with a bullet that is shot with a pressure fairly close to the maximum that it's brinnel hardness can handle. However, most of us are perfectly happy with the results we get with wheel weight lead dropped into water.

[largom]

I mix my WW with lead 50/50 and water drop. My velocity is 1750 .
The RCBS 45-405-FN shoots extremely well in 5 of our 45-70's. The BHN of this mix is 13 as tested on my Lee and LBT hardness testers.
Larry

[runfiverun]

the lyman and lee books are good for starters but they ain't even close to the last word.
wanna make it work for you??/
experiment some, lead ain't no way no how gonna hurt your gun you might have to get some outta the bbl but thats about the biggest harm that will come of it.
the glock poly thing can be overcome too as has been mentioned.
but if it were mine i would just buy the a-market bbl. [just me though]