Water-dropped Wheel Weights....Really work Well?

[BrushBuster]

The hardening method of dropping boolits from the mold into cold water seems to be generally accepted in most of the literature I've come across. However, when I question experienced casters I find the procedure has often been fraught with difficulty. Problems like warpage, fractures, and uneven hardening are mentioned. Even when utilizing stepped and cushioned ramps into the water bath, the results often seem to result in a high rejection rate . I'm wondering if the procedure is worth considering for casting bullets with a higher S.D. than most pistol bullets. Oven hardening does work, and seems to provide a greater degree of consistency for most. Is water-dropping a method many of you use to produce accurate rifle boolits?

[charlie45]

Brushbuster; I have used the water drop for all my riflr bulletd 6.5, .309 & 405 gr. .458 with out a problem. Now I am not a speed caster but move right along.
My rejects happen in the mold and are generaly a hint that I NEED TO CLEAN THE MOLD. I do not cast every week so I started to clean and resmoke before every use and now seldom have problems.
I do use a tall 6 gallon bucket with a bath towel on the bottom with cold water an flip the towel when they start to over lap.
Works for me. :)

[David R]

Been doin it for a while. My rifle boolits are sure harder. No problems unless I don't use enough water, the boolits hit each other and have dents. An almost full 5 gallon bucket is fine with me. I drop em right in from the mold. It is also nice because I don't have to keep making room for more boolits. After a few 1/2 hour sessions, the bucket gets HEAVY.

I don't quench for peestol boolits.

[imashooter2]

Huh! I use water drop because it lowers my rejection rate. All the bullets fall onto the soft surface of the water and never on top of other bullets. I use a 5 gallon bucket 3/4 full sitting on a second empty bucket for ergonomics. I drop the bullets from the rim of the bucket or just above, so they don't fall far. I cast mostly .30 caliber rifle and .357 caliber pistol. I have used WW, WW + tin, high antimony/low tin alloys, near pure lead and more and never had an issue with warpage, fractures, or uneven hardening.

I suspect that the use of stepped and cushioned ramps would create a problem rather than fix it.

[chunkum]

I've been playing with this concept for a few months since deer season closed and, just for fun, mixed up an alloy of 2WWs/3XrayShielding-lead with an oz of tin and a tsp of chilled shot. I let some air cool, water dropped some, and heat treated some others in a convection oven for an hour at 420degrees before dropping in ice water, (yes she was home and I had permission). The AC's stabilized soon at about 8.7 BRN; the water dropped after a few weeks were at BRN of 18; and the heat treated at about 13.
This was with a Saeco 300 gr GC silhouette type bullet. So with one session I got bullets suitable for my .44 Specials, and .44 mags. I'm like the other caster above and always procede at a deliberate rate, but I've had none of the problems that the original poster mentions haveing seen discussed. This kind of versatility has infinite possibilities. So far, I've only fired the water dropped bullets at a metal target at 82 yards from a Dan Wesson 44 mag; about 1' in diameter and accuracy was good. I can't wait to shoot some more of them.
chunkum

[45 2.1]

On oven heat treated boolits, you need to heat the boolits just slightly below slump temperature (about 445 or a little higher, you need to test your oven for this temperature setting) to achieve maximum hardness for the alloy. If you heat them at a lower temperature, you are actually drawing the hardness down from maximum hardness. This is actually what you want to do in some cases. Alot of cast boolit benchrest shooters oven treat just below slump then quench, then later heat treat again to a lower temperature to draw all the boolits down to a consistent hardness that they can duplicate for any batch of boolits.

[stocker]

I'm one of the guys that has had little success with the method. I only attempted it twice with RCBS180FP and had a very high rejection rate. Basically the bullets bent in an arc and often had fractures in the outside of the bend in the lube grooves. I made quite an elaborate opposing sides baffle of sponges like two off sequence ladders. They couldn't have been babied more . The first sloped sponge was a couple inches down in the water and I really thought it was clever. Been garbage for a long time now.

One of my first steps in sorting bullets is to set them on a slightly inclined piece of plate glass. These suckers wouldn't move they were so crooked.

Must be our hard water but I adopted oven hardening and couldn't be happier.

[bobthenailer]

hi ive been water dropping bullets from the mould into a bucket of water for about 20 years or so, right after i read about it from veirl smith book on bullet casting. i would not make my bullets any other way! i know ive made over 100,000 bullets this way, and i shoot all cast bullets in the matches i shot in which include bulleye, ipsa, sillewette, action pistol ,steel plate, bowling pins, bpcr, and my accuracy is as good as any and better than most ! bob

[rbstern]

I drop my 30 cal rifles ww boolits (Lee molds) into a big coffee can of water with fabric padding on the bottom. I cast a few to get the mold up to temp, then drop the next few into my gloved hand to make sure they are filling out. The rest of the batch goes right into a funnel that sits atop the coffee can lid. Never have a problem with the bullets. No dents. Straight. Uniform.

[MT Gianni]

I find water dropping works great to get a harder boolit. I also find it rare that I need a hard bullet. Auto pistols usually revolvers rarely and rifles only over 2000 fps. Air cooled works just fine with clean bores and good lube. Gianni.

[sundog]

Stocker, no elaborate setup. And, don't open that mould with a boolit that will bend, even air cooled. I use a 3# coffee can of cold, cold, water, and drop them directly into it. One inspection, I cannot find and dented boolits. No sponges, no towels, no nuthin'. If'n a boolit don't release with a second or two of opening, it goes up on the table. Get into a nice even rthym and the boolits go pssssssst as the pas into the cool water. Nice, hard boolits in a day or two.

I gotta get off now. BIG thunder bumpers in out are. First time in many, many months here in Oklahoma - maybe the drought might be breakin'. sundog

[BrushBuster]

I think I've got it figured out now Stocker.

We're too close to the north magnetic pole!!! [smilie=l:

[Bass Ackward]

Brushbuster,

I use the technique once in a great while. The best success comes from bullets that need little sizing. Because what is sized will soften. So if you only size say .001, then you have .003 more of hard bullet for the rifling to grip to.

Some say that WDWW or frosty bullets will have cracks in them and cause the bullet to break up. Could be. All I can tell you that I have never seen it using some tin to make the bullet more ductile. The tin prevents cracking. Not at handgun velocities anyway. And I don't shoot hard bullets in a rifle anymore. I don't shoot lead without some tin in the mix unless it is "pure" lead. Actually I have had many more jacketed bullets fail on me than cast. So I wouldn't worry about it.

The real disadvantage, as far as I am concerned, comes from bullet diameter. I molded some for almost two hours a week ago, then quit and quenched them for use the next day. When I dumped them to dry, it was pretty close to two hours total time by the time I got to sizing. I rolled the bullets on a case lube pad and already a difference could be felt on the press handle. I was sizing .003 off a 44 caliber bullet. The resulting bullet diameter varried by .0015 from the soft to the hard. And this showed up on the target.

So again, best results are obtained if very little sizing is required. Otherwise, size and heat treat in an oven.

[Newtire]

Aha! Noticed the same thing Bass. Remember Felix saying to size the bullets right out of the quench without waiting around. Never thought to check the diameter difference. Wil do that today. Got to have some excuse to try out my new mould!

[felix]

Antimony makes the boolits grow, and this takes time. However, the more the boolit grows, the more antimony it has, and the harder it will get. So, to make non-competition boolits for a known size for the mix on hand, size the boolits right out of the quench. For competition boolits, wait a month before sizing, assuming this would be the maximum size of growth. Now oven treat, and requench. No more sizing, and then pan lube, or lube and apply a check with a bigger size die. If that size die is too large for the crimping action on the check, then crimp on seperately using the smaller die (if necessary) without sizing the boolit any further than necessary for the crimp. ... felix

If you are in a real hurry to make match boolits: cast, water drop (for boolit protection), then oven treat for consistency at 450 or so for an hour, water drop, and then place back into the oven for 200 and not more temp for a couple of hours to hurry the hardening. The next day size and shoot them within 4 hours or so. ... felix

[stocker]

Bass: At the time I was using straight wheel weights as per some comments made from a published article. Adding tin is what was not done at that time although I shortly after obtained sources and have used it consistently since.

The warping and cracking were as a result of too rapid cooling in my opinion. I continued casting at the same pace on those two occasion letting the bullets drop directly onto a padded bench and they sure as heck didn't bend. I can't recall if I checked diameter of the quenched bullets I did salvage but do recall they were not as accurate as the unquenched and unhardened cast on the same days. They may have been slightly smaller as you report.

I was using a Lee push through to seat the checks and also found too much press effort after a few hours lag time. Neither was I particularly happy with the consistency of hardness around the perimeter of the bullet as the Lee tool was skimming parts of the outer surface. Now I have a raft of various sizes of H&I dies to avoid disturing the skin of hardened bullets.

At any rate I use the oven method exclusively now and won't change as it suits the way I cast as I often cast the same bullets for a long day or two to build up an extended supply and can install the checks and harden at my convenience.

[felix]

Yes, rapid cooling without enough tin will crack the boolits. Also, long boolits, like a 180 grainer plus in 30 caliber, should not be sized with any force unless the boolits are hard. Hence, the sizing operation does the harm that everyone says. Nose first sizing would be better in this situation, but this assumes a good gas check application will be applied up front. ... felix