Water dropping debate

[cricco]

I am having a debate with a co-worker. My position is that water dropping and sizing is ok, as I believe that water dropping will cause the alloy to harden throughout. My co-worker believes that water dropping and then sizing is a waste of time, as his belief is that water dropping only hardens the outer .001" of the boolit, and that sizing after water dropping will strip that hardened layer off of the boolit. Can anyone tell me which is true?

[Glen]

In a way, you're both right. Water-dropping DOES harden the bullet all the way through. However, sizing work-softens the outer layer of the bullet (i.e. where it is engraved by the rifling) so you lose some of the benefits of water-dropping (although the expansion properties will still be hard).

[Doc Highwall]

They will be more of a hardening on the out side then the inside. Depending how far you want to go some people will size the boolits with out lubing then using something like a old toaster oven heat the boolits up for a amount of time to let the antimony trees grow followed by a quench in water and finally lubed. The temperature is 425deg to 480deg depending on the alloy and with a time of 1/2 hour to 2 hours for the trees to grow. This is for alloys that have antimony and trace amounts of arsenic like wheel weights. If you are using Linotype you have to lower the temp some. For your alloy you could take a reject boolit and heat it in the toaster oven to find the temperature where it slumps and then set the oven for 50deg less then that as a starting point.

[RobS]

This is my experience with hardening and sizing.

I have tested the BHN of wheel weight bullets after sizing and yes as we know they work soften, and also we know that they age harden to a harder value after a few days and extends out to about a week or two for full hardness.

Now here is the interesting points I have discovered. (1)Allowed to age harden a week and then size the bullet the sized portion is in fact softer (work soften). (2)Size the bullets directly after water dropping and the values of the BHN is the same or almost the same on the driving bands a week later when the bullets have age harden.

Since I shoot flat meplat bullets this was an easy test to do as I compared the BHN of sized areas of the bullet to the BHN of the nose of the bullets to varify this comparison of: sizing after the bullets had age harden vs sizing directly after casting.

Another note is if a person sizes WW bullets directly after casting the bullets will become larger after a weeks time. For example I size my WW 45 cal bullets to .454 and end up with a .455 bullet after a week. If I size the same bullet a week later after it has age hardened it will stay at .454 but will be a bit softer on the bands of the bullet.

[GLynn41]

Lyman says you are forcing the dendrites? of the lead on the out side to "freeze" suddenly -- forming a harder outside than the inside as the inside cools at a slower rate---- they also say the same as Glen about sizing - it is some what counter to your intended goal of hardening still unless I want to change as cast diameter-- I will sometimes water drop and accept what I get even after sizing because it is still harder than AC- If I remember all that right

[Shiloh]

There has to be milliseconds difference in cooling temp to any depth at all. I could see the core being a bit softer, as it would take the chill effect maybe tenths of a second.

Shiloh

[Pat I.]

HTing is a lot more than .001 deep so don't worry about sizing afterwards. I do it all the time.

[WHITETAIL]

The way I see it you make your boolets
to the size you need for the gun.
And then you water drop them.
Wait aweek and then size them
to the same size they are dropped.
So you are only rounding them insted of realy sizing them.:coffeecom