Oven hardening pure

[Lead melter]

I have a rig borrowed from another board member that is designed to allow oven heat treating/quenching of cast boolits. The rig is set up so that only a portion of the boolit body would be quenched and that portion is adjustable to the users desire.

My question is, if I cast some boolits of pure and then quench the body to keep the nose area soft, about what type result am I likely to get? As I understand it, the quenching creates a "shell" of harder alloy around the somewhat softer body, and this may let much softer alloys be run at somewhat higher velocities.

Just thinking aloud, or am I simply chasing the rabbit to its hole?

[fishhawk]

well from all i know you can't harden pure by heat treating just nothing there. now WW is a differnt thing all together. steve k

[jar-wv]

I thought arsenic had to be present to do any hardening. Is there arsenic in pure?

jar

[Calamity Jake]

Pure lead will not harden without some antimony.

[GLynn41]

yep--need a mix as was stated or no joy

[wiljen]

I wrote an article on this subject that is available at castpics or Lasc that documents the process of quench hardening and the elements involved pretty well. The alloy must contain antimony and a grain refiner in addition to lead to successfully Hall-Petch Strengthen.

http://www.castpics.net/memberarticles/arsenic.htm

[BeeMan]

Very interesting article and test results, Wiljen. Well done!

[243winxb]

Pure Lead can not be hardened by water dropping, it must contain antimony. The water dropped bullet with the correct alloy will be the same hardness all thru the bullet, not just on the outside. If you only put half the bullet in water, dont know:confused: http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5464487/description.html