Soft, hard, harder, really hard?

[Bret4207]

Okay, I don't know or care to know how to put a poll together, but I'm interested in something. What defines soft, medium, hard and really hard alloys in your opinion?
For me soft is under 9 Bhn, medium runs 10ish to 18-19, hard is 20ish to 28 or so and really hard is 30ish and up.

I'm interested because it's readily apparent that a lot of us are talking about different things when we say hard or soft.

[MtGun44]

Pretty close definitions for me, I shoot almost exclusively WWt or softer,
like 11 to 15 or so BHN. Some times range lead that runs about 8 BHN, definitely
rate that "soft" but seems just fine even at .357 and .44 mag full power loads with
Keith designs.

I have purchased hard (20ish +) and even water dropped a few times, but never found
any benefit for the effort and cost so have stopped entirely. May go back when I do more
rifle work. The little bit of rifle work I have done seems fine at 1600 or so with AC wwts
and a GC. I have bought a few LBT types up around 29 BHN but never got anything of
note with them.

Bill

[fecmech]

I do mostly pistol and pistol cartridge rifle casting. I too think of less than 10-11 bhn as soft but more of the acww range of 11-14 as medium and Lyman #2 as Hard along with WDWW at around 18. I don't do any high speed rifle at all.

[mtgrs737]

I cast mostly WW's like MtGun44 (after all we Kansans gotta stick together!) as it casts good enough for me and is soft enough to slug up and seal the barrel, throat at pistol pressures. I also like the KISS method of keeping things simple as long as it works. I think that "Fit" is the most important thing with hardness coming in a distant second.

[winelover]

Soft = Pure lead

Medium = Wheelweights

Hard = Lyman #2

Super Hard = Linotype

Winelover:cbpour:

[HeavyMetal]

I agree, the BHN levels suggested are spot on and real close to what I have always "used".

I will also agree that hardness is not the "be all end all" in shooting cast but nither is "fit".

Both must act as a team for success and a good lube must be part of that team!

[RobS]

Well this one shouldn't stir up as much crude from the bottom of the pot vs the shooting hard or soft debate. This will be a good thread to claify to all those who are new to casting or just as a "feel" for what the casting community clarifies as a general definition to alloy terminology.

My thoughts on BHN readings if that is the only factor considered:

8 and under soft alloy content

9-16 medium alloy content

17-25 hard alloy content

26+ very hard alloy content

[Rocky Raab]

I am reminded that when the blessed St Elmer talked about "hard" cast bullets, he was referring to alloy that would likely test about BHN 12 today.

That fits within the broad BHN numbers given above, and suits me just fine. My definitions are a little bit simpler: Range scrap, wheelweights, birdshot and any thrown-together pot containing any or all the above - in any proportion - are "just right" for me. Commercial cast bullets are "too hard."

I love simple.

[Pat I.]

I'll go with this one.

8 and under soft
9-16 medium
17-25 hard
26+ very hard

[Shiloh]

Whatever hardness WW and range scrap 50/50 make. I use these water dropped for rifle and 2:1 range scrap/WW for handguns. Rifle load with gascheck to 1850 max usually less.
Handgun to 1100 max usually less.

Shiloh

[357maximum]

My personal collection and what I use it for=


really hard/tough yet mallable @24+BHN = wd'ed 50/50 plus 5% nickle bearing railroad babbit (Full out GIT R DONE j-word speed rifle loads)

Hard=waterdropped ww.....(do not use any more, sold all my brass tossing and losing pistols)


tough@ 19-21 BHN = wd'ed 50/50 (38spcl+P, 357mag, 357max, 35rem, 30/30, 308, 30/06, 35 whelen etc hunting loads and general all around rifle use)

medium @12 BHN= my personal range scrap(medium velocity loads and practice loads in both pistol and rifle rounds, also for Paperpatching HV rounds)


soft @ 7=8 BHN = unknown almost pure but not quite pure scrap (plinkers in rifles, revolvers, saboted muzzleloader boolits)


sooooooooooft= pure lead (quality long range low speed plinkers and for frontstuffers)


Hard is NOT all that............hard is only part of the boolit equation, especially if you are a hunter.

I would rather have a TOUGH and MALLABLE alloy than one that it merely hard.

Linotype is hard.........but brittle...............think ceramic.

Heat treated or WD'ed 50/50 ww/pure can be just as HARD (BHN wise) , but it is tough and mallable ...think copper.

I would much rather shoot a deer with a boolit that acts like a soft copper solid than I would a boolit that acts like glass. Generally the softer/tough/mallable will be more accurate also.

I can honestly say I own no linotype...I traded it all for pure lead. Linotype serves me no purpose.

[WHITETAIL]

+1 on what Winelover said!:lovebooli

[jh45gun]

I use air cooled WW for every thing PB 45 Colt 252 Grain Lee SWC and Lee 405 grain .459 HB

Thirty Caliber gas checked 180 grain bullets Ideal 311407 that I use for 30/30, 30/36 and 7.5x55 Swiss.

I do not have any leading issues with any of these applications.

[TCLouis]

All that I have cast into ingots right now seems to fall about 14.5.

It has workd for all rifles and pistols that I have shot it in, but then If I wanted HV loads I would just use full Gas checked bullets.

[Bret4207]

Thanks guys. Most of you follow my line of thinking. This is more to define ambiguous terms than to define alloy content. I don;t imagine most of us really know what our alloy content is. With the recent outcropping and crowing about "HARD CAST" I thought defining our terms might help.

Fit is King, the rest comes second.

[Char-Gar]

Bret... I mostly agree with you. I would narrow down "medium to 10 - 15" and "hard" would be 16 to about 23. Anything over 23 would be needlessly hard. in other words;

Soft would be your binary alloys under 10
Medium would be your wheelweight and all it variations
Hard would start with No 2. and go up to Lintotype.

[cbrick]

Great thread, there seems to be more consensus on this topic than I would have thought and my thinking pretty much follows that consensus.

I consider soft as anything up to about 10 or 11, medium from about 11 to 18 and anything over 18 as much too hard for anything I shoot including the 308.

I don't classify most of my loads as "handgun" except things like the 45 ACP, 45 Colt etc because most of my "handguns" shoot bottle neck cartridges. The vast majority of my casting falls into the medium range, none of it in the "hard" range, very little in the soft range. A good example is my 308 rifle that shoots air cooled CWW (12 BHN) @ 1900 fps into surprising 200m groups with zero leading.

Rick

[Bret4207]

I'd like to let this run a bit. I also posted this in handguns section where the issue cropped up. I've already seen one poster that thinks soft is anything under 20, but other than that most of us seem to have the same general thoughts. This might be something we should sort of solidify a bit so when we describe our practices we're on the same page to start with.

[Char-Gar]

Good for you Bret. The lack of a standard definition for such things as alloy hardness and what is leading, is the cause of endless miscommunication around this board. Maybe at some time a glossary could be appended to the site. There will never be 100% agreement, but consensus would be good enough for me.

[RobS]

I agree this is a great start to define general terms however hardness or a simple BHN reading is only scratching the surface to shooting cast as many of us already know including the original poster.

Making a bullet that is "tougher" molecularly, not necessarily harder, often times has better characteristics regarding performance and application; think of shooting a water quenched WW bullet vs a straight linotype bullet...............both bullets will test out at about the same BHN so which one is better???? Depends on intent, depends on firearm, etc, etc, etc.

Or go the other direction to the soft side and use a pure lead/tin 1:10 at 11 BHN vs straight WW at 11-12 BHN. Too much tin not enough tin..............don't use tin at all.....................add antimony or not........................what is best?????

After being part of a thread that involved lead/tin alloys and discussing hardness that tin can bring to lead even if not much can yield interesting results or at least it did with my recent experiments. I use to rarely ever work tin in an alloy as I only seen it as a means to help with mold fill out while using WW's. Out of all my molds I only had two that gave me fits with fill out and they took a trip down the river as I am a cheap person and wasn't going to use tin as it can be an expensive additive.

Well this particular thread a few weeks back got me to thinking and unlike some stubborn forum members I pieced together an experiment that ventured outside of my current casting methods. I took two different loads in two different calibers that were giving me a bit of leading using straight WW bullet at the upper ends of the alloy limits and added a mere 1/2-3/4 of a % to bring the total tin percentage up to or slightly over 1% (WW's already has about 1/2 percent).

I took the same loads and shot them..................no leading at all. All bullets were cast at the same time (within an hour of each other) and allowed 2 weeks to age. Bullets were sized to the same diameters in each respective caliber and bullet sets had the same BHN reading.

There are many variables and mileage may vary for each person to certain degrees of course, but as I stated before this is a beginning to clarifying bullet BHN terminology and one that could assist with eliminating some of the misinterpretations.

[Bret4207]

Excellent post Rob. The variables between alloys, guns, shooters, casters can be a huge difference. By narrowing at least the terms we use I hope we can bring all of us together a bit and make the information flow a lot smoother.

IMO, being naturally cheap, I believe a caster should be able to make use of what lead alloy he can come by most easily. Those that go to either extreme, soft or hard, just make things more difficult for themselves and the rest of us. Throw in ambiguous terms and bend a few noses and you get a minor scuffle over words like "hard". Hopefully when we get through this some of that will be alleviated.

I'm also of the opinion that most of use have very little to go by in determining our alloy content. We go by guess as much as anything else.

[qajaq59]

These 3 are all I go by since they are easily distinguished.

Pure lead............. soft

Wheel weights..... medium

Linotype............... hard

[pls1911]

Yoru assessment is about right, though I believe for all practical purposes really hard would be anything Linotype or harder (21+BHN)...
I agree that truely anything <9 is "soft"
Medium would be 10-14 ("Lyman #2")
Medium hard 15-20
Hard 21+
I use roughly 50-50 ww and pure lead, heat treated to 22.
It casts well, shoots like linotype without the brittleness, doesn't lead and is nearly free.
Though I have heat treated bullets carefully to get to 30+, I find no benefit.
I just chunk 'em in the oven at 455 degrees for an hour or so,
then dunk in icewater... presto.... 20+BHN... lube/gas check, load, and shoot!!!

[qajaq59]

I'm also of the opinion that most of use have very little to go by in determining our alloy content. We go by guess as much as anything else. I agree. And while the BHN may tell us how hard it is, I don't think it tells a whole lot about what type of alloy it actually is. And who can afford to send it out to a lab to find out? I just did small batches until I hit the right mix that shot well in my rifles and then made enough to last for a couple of years.

[Bret4207]

I agree. And while the BHN may tell us how hard it is, I don't think it tells a whole lot about what type of alloy it actually is. And who can afford to send it out to a lab to find out? I just did small batches until I hit the right mix that shot well in my rifles and then made enough to last for a couple of years.

Well, in my mind this isn't so much about alloy makeup. ductility, toughness, etc. or even about actual Bhn. It's more about bringing us together and sort of establishing a general guideline of terms so we're at some sort of a common start when we discuss things. Having one guy talk about soft boolits and meaning ACWW when the rest of us are thinking 50/50 WW/Pb... it creates confusion. At least this way we can hopefully get our ducks in a row.

[44man]

Well, in my mind this isn't so much about alloy makeup. ductility, toughness, etc. or even about actual Bhn. It's more about bringing us together and sort of establishing a general guideline of terms so we're at some sort of a common start when we discuss things. Having one guy talk about soft boolits and meaning ACWW when the rest of us are thinking 50/50 WW/Pb... it creates confusion. At least this way we can hopefully get our ducks in a row.
Even with all the differences, you still might have a point.
Maybe we should just say what we are shooting, like 75% WW's and 25% pure, water dropped. Takes a lot of typing but would be best.
I ran into it with my new Handloader with a guy showing small groups with a Rem 870 and the Lyman slug. I can't do it with the same loads he shows. His slug picture LOOKS like pure lead and on top of that it is a horrible casting job. But he neglected to say what lead he used. At least he could have said soft or hard.
Why some can't cast pure is strange, let alone a gun writer.

[cast367]

I use 100/30 pure lead/linotype The mix is very good useble for 30-06 loads.
With 22 grs Acc. no.9 and 180 grs waterdropped bullit gives a exelent result.
100 meter ,2 inch group and sometimes smaller.
Hardness onknown, have not a tester. But about result satisfayed.
More info,mail me