How long to wait until sizing? [Archive]

HeavyMetal

07-07-2010, 09:34 PM

Since I quench my boolits I usually let them sit over night to dry then run them through the Star!

I can, and have, run them right out of the water by laying them on paper towels or news print but I haven't been in that big a hurry to shoot in a long time!

armoredman

07-08-2010, 12:40 AM

I let them cool for about 3 hours, then lubed and sized, now half sit drying with LLA on them.

lwknight

07-08-2010, 01:07 AM

You don't have to be in a hurry to size them. It takes a few days to start noticeably hardening up . Just don't wait toooo long.

WHITETAIL

07-08-2010, 07:54 AM

]If I only AC my WW I size them as needed.
This might mean months.[smilie=f:

DLCTEX

07-08-2010, 09:10 AM

]If I only AC my WW I size them as needed.
This might mean months.[smilie=f:

Or years in my case.

Crash_Corrigan

07-08-2010, 09:30 AM

I water drop all my cast boolits. If I made pistol boolits that need little or no sizing I can put them away for whatever time I need. However on some of my rifle boolits I am sizing them down a bit more....wrapping with paper....lubing slightly.....and sizing again....

If the boolit stays around for a few weeks it will harden some and make my job of sizing a lot harder. Ergo I usually size pretty quick on the rifle boolits for my Garand and SMLE.

sirgknight

07-08-2010, 10:02 AM

This has worked well for me: as soon as the bullets cool (cooling time differs according to drying technique - ocillating fan, air conditioning, natural air, etc) I lube them and run them through my sizing die. I then re-lube them and let them completely dry. Ready to load!!!!

qajaq59

07-08-2010, 01:59 PM

I can just let them sit until I need some. My sizing dies, luckily, are pretty close to what I cast, so I don't have any sizing hassles even if they've hardened a little.

Down South

07-08-2010, 02:36 PM

If water dropped they need to be sized pretty quick. I like to size the same day or day after if I water drop.
Air cooled can be sized just about any time the notion strikes.

Hang Fire

07-08-2010, 03:58 PM

Uh oh, like a certain bodily orifice, most everyone will have an opinion.

Hang Fire

07-08-2010, 04:02 PM

captaint

07-08-2010, 06:41 PM

This is not quite an opinion, but I'll tell you what I DO. Normally they get sized when I'm ready to load em up. Luber or LLA. Works for me. enjoy Mike

MtGun44

07-08-2010, 07:07 PM

All air cooled so I store as cast and never worry about this extra work, lube when I need
them, size to the particular gun and avoid having boolits sized wrong for a particular gun.

Bill

jimr

07-08-2010, 08:30 PM

if i size(w. d. rifle bullets) just after casting i have a chance to or will kind of crush or slightly swell up the nose a bit as to where it will not chamber . the nose of the bullet will hang up in the throat.
i know what your thinking, how much pressure are you using on that sizer handle. not all that much.
so i had some out of the same batch that haven't been sized that were several days old. when i sized them using the same pressure on the handle there was no nose up-set at all.
my sizer is .310 and they are sized pretty much as cast.
so for long rifle bullets that do not need sized much they will sit a while, as for pistol bullets ,do them now.
jim

lwknight

07-08-2010, 08:39 PM

]If I only AC my WW I size them as needed.
This might mean months.[smilie=f:

I don't know about AC hardening of lower Sb ( WWs) alloys but the 2-6-92 gets a lot harder over a few weeks even just air cooled.
And sizing them probably doesn't hurt a thing.
I will find out first hand soon and if I notice it being extra tough compared to fresh cast I will post it for all to see.
Or anything else notewothy for that matter.

smokemjoe

07-08-2010, 08:53 PM

I ran a test on different alloys with my Brinell tester that I made up. It has a 200 lb. die spring with a LED light, It takes 30 days for any alloy to get to full hardness. And after that there was no change in the hardness, It takes 4 days to any alloy to start to change, I wieght, sort, size and bump if for my 30 BRs all the same day or try and get them done with in 3 days, A few years ago I did the test and results in the Fouling Shot, Those silver painted WWs tested out the same as std. wheel wieghts, and shot the same, Hope this help,

armoredman

07-08-2010, 09:40 PM

Thanks - hope i didn't kick over a hornets nest here. :)

lwknight

07-08-2010, 10:08 PM

You will get a lot of opinions on stuff like that. An unbelieveable percentage of people just mix this and that and have no clue what the actual composition of the alloy really is and could not duplicate it if their life depended on it without wheelweights.

That probably sounds pretty snotty but, riddle me this: How can anyone attest to the properties of a given alloy if they don't really know exactly what they use themselves.

Its not a hornets nest, just an open discussion where everyone is welcome and happy to participate.

armoredman

07-08-2010, 10:34 PM

And you are right, all I know about my metal is it is wheelweight. i do not have a hardness tester of any kind.

chboats

07-08-2010, 11:08 PM

Iwknight - You are correct! But when someone offers to give me 2000 lb of lead that is a mixture of bars of sheet, range, and wheel weights with no makings, I am not going to turn them down. To make matters worse they have been out in the weather for 20 years. Tried testing hardness but the reading made no sense due to the heavy oxcide layer. I just live with it. It's a tough life living with all this free lead.

Carl

lwknight

07-09-2010, 01:30 AM

There are factors that will trick you too. A friend gave me some old cast boolits that were turned green/grey fuzzy because of a near zero tin content and some that were bright and had probably 5% or more tin. Both were like 20 years old and the boolit with tin were softer than the ones with no tin.
Granted that tin only hardens pure lead slightly but its also temporary hardening too.
Also the boolits that had no tin were likely less than 1% antimony and were fairly hard.

Carl, I'm thinking that it was age more than the oxide layer that threw your hardness test off.

splattersmith

07-09-2010, 03:40 AM

Anybody test (or notice) accuracy differences from soon or later sizing? I never thought about it but I don't recall any differences. Maybe I blamed a bad day on something else (any of thousands of things).

excess650

07-09-2010, 05:47 AM

[QUOTE=smokemjoe;941879]I ran a test on different alloys with my Brinell tester that I made up. It has a 200 lb. die spring with a LED light, It takes 30 days for any alloy to get to full hardness. And after that there was no change in the hardness, It takes 4 days to any alloy to start to change]

Your results are contrary to mine. My water dropped bullets increased in hardness in as little as 12 hours, and seemed to be fully hard after less than 3 days.

Yours were air cooled, maybe?

qajaq59

07-09-2010, 08:33 AM

Thanks - hope i didn't kick over a hornets nest here. I wouldn't say so. All opinions are worthwhile, even if I don't happen to agree with them. And sometimes I figure out that mine were wrong, so I'm ahead of the game. You can't lose on that kind of a deal!

Cloudpeak

07-09-2010, 10:37 AM

They grow in diameter slightly over time, sized or not.

Your post reminded me that I had some test samples of Lyman 452630 200 gr SWC bullets that I set aside for a "diameter test" Jan. 18, 2008 after reading about changes in bullet size over time on this forum.

I measured 7 bullets across the rear band after sizing in a Lee push thru die. I took measurements twice, rotating the bullets 90 degrees for another measurement. The bullets were wheel weight metal, air cooled. I just measured them again. The greatest change was .0005" on four bullets in the 14 measurements.