Where can I find scientific data on long term effects of water quenching?

I have spent hours reading threads on this forum and articles elsewhere on the internet, and found people absolutely insisting on all of the following things:

• Water quenched wheel weights can get anywhere from BHN 18 to BHN 29, but only last that way for a couple of weeks before reverting to the same BHN as the same alloy air cooled (hence water quenching is only a good solution for increasing hardness if you're going to shoot the boolits pretty much immediately).
• Water quenched wheel weights can get anywhere from BHN 18 to BHN 29, but will soften maybe a few BHN over the course of a few years, finally settling down to 15-25 BHN permanently (hence water quenching is a good solution for increasing hardness permanently).
• Water quenched wheel weights can get anywhere from BHN 18 to BHN 29, and will stay that way indefinitely (hence water quenching is a good solution for increasing hardness permanently).
• Water quenching wheel weight boolits will max you out at around BHN 15, and air cooling the same alloy would have age-hardened to that same hardness anyway after a few weeks (hence water quenching is only a shortcut to reaching the same inevitable permanent hardness).

Obviously these all pretty much directly contradict each other. Lots of anecdotal evidence to back up any of these claims. I realize wheel weight alloy is tricky because it can vary pretty wildly in antimony, lead, arsenic, and tin content.

What I'm most interested in is if water quenching can permanently harden a WW alloy boolit to a BHN that is higher than the maximum BHN an air-cooled boolit from the same pot of alloy would ever reach after age-hardening.

Is there actual scientific data available to help determine which of the above claims is closest to the truth?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BHuij

I have spent hours reading threads on this forum and articles elsewhere on the internet, and found people absolutely insisting on all of the following things:

• Water quenched wheel weights can get anywhere from BHN 18 to BHN 29, but only last that way for a couple of weeks before reverting to the same BHN as the same alloy air cooled (hence water quenching is only a good solution for increasing hardness if you're going to shoot the boolits pretty much immediately).
• Water quenched wheel weights can get anywhere from BHN 18 to BHN 29, but will soften maybe a few BHN over the course of a few years, finally settling down to 15-25 BHN permanently (hence water quenching is a good solution for increasing hardness permanently).
• Water quenched wheel weights can get anywhere from BHN 18 to BHN 29, and will stay that way indefinitely (hence water quenching is a good solution for increasing hardness permanently).
• Water quenching wheel weight boolits will max you out at around BHN 15, and air cooling the same alloy would have age-hardened to that same hardness anyway after a few weeks (hence water quenching is only a shortcut to reaching the same inevitable permanent hardness).

Obviously these all pretty much directly contradict each other. Lots of anecdotal evidence to back up any of these claims. I realize wheel weight alloy is tricky because it can vary pretty wildly in antimony, lead, arsenic, and tin content.

What I'm most interested in is if water quenching can permanently harden a WW alloy boolit to a BHN that is higher than the maximum BHN an air-cooled boolit from the same pot of alloy would ever reach after age-hardening.

Is there actual scientific data available to help determine which of the above claims is closest to the truth?

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TATVcanada on YouTube did a lot of the scientific testing in this regard. Watch his videos it will answer your questions. 2nd paragraph you posted is more or less correct. Depending on the tin content it will get slightly softer over the time but not in 2 weeks more like in a year. WW has only something like 0.5% tin, i would not worry about going soft. You will never reach air cooled hardness to water quenched levels.

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From: http://www.lasc.us/heattreat.htm

Water quenching (dropping bullets straight from the mould into a bucket of water) will harden your lead, antimony, arsenic alloy but as the lead pot and mould temperature varies so does the final hardness of the bullets. Additionally, you get what you get (about 15-19 BHN with wheel weights). As the revolver tests proved, varying the BHN effects both groups and the velocity extreme spread. With convection oven heat treating a specific BHN range can be attained and variation is held to a minimum.

This is from their article on heat treating Pb...it's the most scientific info I ever tried to digest.

Sounds like if I want super hard powder-coated boolits that are consistent, I need to:

Cast, air cool, size, powder coat at specific temperature, quench directly out of PC. Sound about right?

no...not exactly, @ 400*F. you need 1 hour in the oven to get to 15 BHN in 4 days cure time. See the chart > http://www.lasc.us/heattreat.htm#chart
& keep in mind, the wheel weights he used in this test were improperly fluxed...he lost, dipped out too much 'slush'/antimony. So, his starting BHN was 10~11 BHN but he explains that in the article above the chart. He also added 3% Sn to this batch of ingots.
Depending on having an increase of the Sb & As content of your wheel weights your results will be better, harder ~ sooner.
Prolly the best thing to do is run your own tests with your alloy and see exactly what you get.
Also a specific minimum BHN for pressure in a specific gun is only the starting point...you still have to find the load that gives you the best group with no leading...size is still mostly 'King' in the formulae.

If you are serious about consistency, forget about quenching the bullets. Quenching is for tight wads that are not willing to cut loose a few bucks to buy what they need to mix up a proper alloy that will age harden to a point and stay that way.
Pretty much the quenching is a " I'll show you some can't" to show that in a pinch there are ways to beat the system but not a good solution for serious business.

+1........

http://fellingfamily.net/isolead/

Scroll down on the introduction tab to see a table.

As the dicta indicates, the main data was derived from a science fair project my oldest boy did about 10 years ago. He placed really well, though some people were wound up about using "horribly toxic lead" for a grade school science fair.

I just got around to updating the table with the last column, which was from my daughters project two years later. We still had all the samples sitting around. They had been stored in an un-insulated attic space for those 24 months. The samples were retested, 10 from each group of thirty bullets, and the average BHN @ 24 months is listed.

Conclusions I draw from this data.
1. The casting temperature can be an indicator. Series 1, 7, 13 all received no quench or heat treat. But the higher the casting temp, the higher the BHN both right away and after time. These three series had the highest three BHN of all the samples the were air-cooled as a final step.

2. Normalizing a lead alloy in the oven and allowing it to air cool will stabilize it at a lower hardness than air cooling from the mold. This is shown most clearly in series 1,3,5. Series 1 is the least hard on the initial test of the air-cooled final step samples, but is the hardest after 24 months. And while series 7 and 13 started out harder than their normalized sibling samples, they had far more increase in hardness than the others.

3. There certainly appears to some kind of difference in the internal lattice which means bullets will head to a certain hardness. 1,7,13, air cooled from the mold with no further treatment seem to be headed towards a BHN of around 16-18. All the samples that were oven normalized with a slow cool in place are clustered around 13, and all the bullets that were quenched, either from the mold or from the oven are clustered around 22, even if the initial tests had them well below or above that value.

4. Time certainly can have a wide impact on the hardness of lead alloys, even if they are not quenched. This means two bullets cast in 2010, with one fired right away and the other not fired for several years, my behave quite differently. If a specific terminal performance is desired you will need to know your alloy.

Ultimately I both agree with and disagree with LWKnights statement.

You need to know you alloy and how it will behave after casting.

But, the best stability of the bullets came from oven treating after casting. And that goes for both quenching and air-cooled.

Work left to be done?

I would really like to have the time to build a PID controlled pot. In these tests pot temp probably varied ±10° While the standard deviations were good in the results, pot temp is a variable I could control better with a little time and money.

If I were to repeat this with more time and funds, I would use a single cavity mold, and would instrument the mold and heat it with a hot plate. Again, the deviations indicate this would not have a huge effect, but it was a variable that could be monitored and controlled better.

Finally, water temp of the quench water. It could be instrumented and controlled as well.

Do I think these would affect the gross outcomes? No. I don't. I think this would just shrink the deviations down from an average deviation across all series of about 0.85-1.02 BHN to about 0.20 to 0.25 BHN. Since I have no indication this would substantively impact the outcome, I probably won't ever do it.

So, there you have it. Published to the world, and peer reviewed here. You have seen my conclusions, but feel free to draw your own.

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Originally Posted by lwknight

If you are serious about consistency, forget about quenching the bullets. Quenching is for tight wads that are not willing to cut loose a few bucks to buy what they need to mix up a proper alloy that will age harden to a point and stay that way.
Pretty much the quenching is a " I'll show you some can't" to show that in a pinch there are ways to beat the system but not a good solution for serious business.

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That's an 'eloquent' response for a new member asking questions here. That ought to inspire him to learn...
You know, any monkey with a dollar in his pocket can always buy what he wants. Some may have to make do with what they have or...perhaps he just wants to experiment, what is it to you anyway?
It is a qurious thought I keep having, since I see this sort of post recurring from time to time..."how do you 'pseudo-old-timers' in this forum get away with 'trolling remarks' like this...you have some special arrangement with the hammers?"

You have answered an honest question with a personal attack.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lwknight

If you are serious about consistency, forget about quenching the bullets. Quenching is for tight wads that are not willing to cut loose a few bucks to buy what they need to mix up a proper alloy that will age harden to a point and stay that way.
Pretty much the quenching is a " I'll show you some can't" to show that in a pinch there are ways to beat the system but not a good solution for serious business.

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I shoot buckets of water dropped bullets and don't see a difference from air cooled alloy. I'm a tightwad that shoots 1k rounds a week and shooting expensive alloy just doesn't make sense. For 'serious business' I'd be shooting jacketed bullets every time...

Tin in the alloy will cause a long term slight reduction in BHN. Yes, cook your PCd for an hour, then immediately into cold water. If you want really hard, you can add 2% Cu = BHN upper 30s, WDd. They shoot fine but why? Cause you can!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lwknight

If you are serious about consistency, forget about quenching the bullets. Quenching is for tight wads that are not willing to cut loose a few bucks to buy what they need to mix up a proper alloy that will age harden to a point and stay that way.
Pretty much the quenching is a " I'll show you some can't" to show that in a pinch there are ways to beat the system but not a good solution for serious business.

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another tightwad and glad to have ways to save $$.
not knocking others' methods, just happen to like my own more

that's what makes our nation great--accepting differences of opinion . . . and spray cheese in a can!

I ice water quench my 50/50 pure/coww + splash of tin for my pistol boolits.

I’m not a bench rest shooter, and I don’t caliper measure my groups.

I shoot for practical accuracy, and I’ve never had an issue other than being extra careful for water droplets when putting cut sprues back into the pot.

I’ve made enough holy grail shots and consistently outshoot factory FMJ’s in both pistol and rifle to not care.

Comes down to you doing you.

Saves me money and lets me move around larger piles of cooled boolits faster.


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by OS OK

no...not exactly, @ 400*F. you need 1 hour in the oven to get to 15 BHN in 4 days cure time. See the chart > http://www.lasc.us/heattreat.htm#chart
& keep in mind, the wheel weights he used in this test were improperly fluxed...he lost, dipped out too much 'slush'/antimony. So, his starting BHN was 10~11 BHN but he explains that in the article above the chart. He also added 3% Sn to this batch of ingots.
Depending on having an increase of the Sb & As content of your wheel weights your results will be better, harder ~ sooner.
Prolly the best thing to do is run your own tests with your alloy and see exactly what you get.
Also a specific minimum BHN for pressure in a specific gun is only the starting point...you still have to find the load that gives you the best group with no leading...size is still mostly 'King' in the formulae.

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If you read the whole article he says in the end he was going to experiment with shorter heat treat time but he didn't write if he did. Well I experimented with only 20 minutes @450 while baking PC and WQ and it got me in to upper 20's BHN range.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by dimaprok

If you read the whole article he says in the end he was going to experiment with shorter heat treat time but he didn't write if he did. Well I experimented with only 20 minutes @450 while baking PC and WQ and it got me in to upper 20's BHN range.

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Interesting...but, what gives me pause is 'over cooking' the PC. Various brands and blends of the poly I'm sure react to 'over cureing' differently.
For me, using clear gloss & before I had a reliable thermometer...

Attachment 213217

...I found that my oven was hitting 475*F., & running @ 15 minutes, it turned the clear to a shade of light grey and it would not pass the hammer test. Soooo...I'm a bit leary of trying to PC and H2O drop at the same time.
In fact, I don't water drop anymore at all since I've collected enough various Pb's to mix what I want from the start. I've also found out that PC'd casts can be pushed harder than you might imagine possible, so my quest for hardness has relaxed somewhat.

The thing about success with H2O dropping is having enough Sb and/or As to effectively increase by a greater degree of BHN's. If your Pb is Sb poor it'll do not so well...if it's rich in Sb it'll get harder, kinda relative to that and we all seem to have different blends of Pb so the whole thing is a dice-shoot.
I've wondered before if shortened oven times might just harden just the outside of the cast instead of all the way through...I dunnoh, all I know is that I don't scrape Pb out of barrels anymore so the way I see it is..."I win!"
You casts your Pb & you drop in water & and you get what you get...besides that...we generally put too much emphasis on BHN instead of blend.

But one thing is for sure...I sure don't have any problems with all of us 'tight-wads' experimenting and doing just whatever the heck makes us grin!

If I am shooting higher speed rifle I water drop, yeah I'm tite, money is tight period.

You try living on 400$ a month. Now try doing anything other than eating ramen and shivering in the cold. Ohhh yeah I'm in Fargo ND.

Some of us have to take the cheap way, and does it work? In my experience yes.

Some of you need to be careful, your bias is showing. It is about as appealing as plumbers crack.
Just my opinion.

Everyone has different needs, different budgets, and different access to scrap yards. Where I am only 1 yard will sell lead and I only get that way twice a year... So I make do with what I have on hand. Mostly wheel weights! I currently have enough tin and pure to play with and mix Lyman #2 which is my go to but I have used pure wheel weights too in a pinch...

We do what we have to to enjoy our hobby our way!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OS OK

Interesting...but, what gives me pause is 'over cooking' the PC. Various brands and blends of the poly I'm sure react to 'over cureing' differently.
For me, using clear gloss & before I had a reliable thermometer...

Attachment 213217

...I found that my oven was hitting 475*F., & running @ 15 minutes, it turned the clear to a shade of light grey and it would not pass the hammer test. Soooo...I'm a bit leary of trying to PC and H2O drop at the same time.
In fact, I don't water drop anymore at all since I've collected enough various Pb's to mix what I want from the start. I've also found out that PC'd casts can be pushed harder than you might imagine possible, so my quest for hardness has relaxed somewhat.

The thing about success with H2O dropping is having enough Sb and/or As to effectively increase by a greater degree of BHN's. If your Pb is Sb poor it'll do not so well...if it's rich in Sb it'll get harder, kinda relative to that and we all seem to have different blends of Pb so the whole thing is a dice-shoot.
I've wondered before if shortened oven times might just harden just the outside of the cast instead of all the way through...I dunnoh, all I know is that I don't scrape Pb out of barrels anymore so the way I see it is..."I win!"
You casts your Pb & you drop in water & and you get what you get...besides that...we generally put too much emphasis on BHN instead of blend.

But one thing is for sure...I sure don't have any problems with all of us 'tight-wads' experimenting and doing just whatever the heck makes us grin!

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you might be right about overcooking PC, my oven also overheats compare to dial. I noticed some bullets will have little "chip" of PC missing (on the nose usually) and I am afraid to try the hammer but the good news I am getting no leading that I can see, I am going to order cheap borescope and see. I haven't shot lead bullets to really determine long term leading plus I am experimenting with traditional lube and I shoot FMJ bullets.

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Yeah I found something similar; before I checked my cheap toaster oven purpose-bought for PCing, I just went with the dial on the oven and set it to 400. Recently I checked with a thermometer, and my setting of 400 was putting the internal temperature of the oven more like 500. I believe this over-curing was a big part of my problem with powder coating.

The main reason I ask this question is because I'm about to start casting for my AR-15. It appears that with cast, I'm going to need to use a faster powder than I would with j-word bullets, because I need to aim for high enough pressure to cycle the action reliably without also pushing my boolit past about 2100 FPS. Looking at IMR-4227 so far. It's working wonders in my Mosin Nagant and I have high hopes that with fairly hard PC'd and GC'd cast boolits, 4227 can be my go-to for cast in .223 as well.

I figure I'll start the experimentation by water dropping my pure WW alloy (mix of stick-on and clip-on) and PCing. I'm a little concerned though that PCing @ 400 for 20 minutes might be annealing the boolits as a side effect, and undoing any benefit from water dropping. Thoughts?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BHuij

Yeah I found something similar; before I checked my cheap toaster oven purpose-bought for PCing, I just went with the dial on the oven and set it to 400. Recently I checked with a thermometer, and my setting of 400 was putting the internal temperature of the oven more like 500. I believe this over-curing was a big part of my problem with powder coating.

The main reason I ask this question is because I'm about to start casting for my AR-15. It appears that with cast, I'm going to need to use a faster powder than I would with j-word bullets, because I need to aim for high enough pressure to cycle the action reliably without also pushing my boolit past about 2100 FPS. Looking at IMR-4227 so far. It's working wonders in my Mosin Nagant and I have high hopes that with fairly hard PC'd and GC'd cast boolits, 4227 can be my go-to for cast in .223 as well.

I figure I'll start the experimentation by water dropping my pure WW alloy (mix of stick-on and clip-on) and PCing. I'm a little concerned though that PCing @ 400 for 20 minutes might be annealing the boolits as a side effect, and undoing any benefit from water dropping. Thoughts?

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You are already annealing whatever you want it or not when you are baking your powder coat. I had bullets drop really hard because i run my pot 780-800F and if i bake at 400F and BHN drops. I tried Elvis ammo low temperature method and it doesn't work but baking @ 450 does!

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by dimaprok

You are already annealing whatever you want it or not when you are baking your powder coat. I had bullets drop really hard because i run my pot 780-800F and if i bake at 400F and BHN drops. I tried Elvis ammo low temperature method and it doesn't work but baking @ 450 does!

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As in, bake at 450 to PC and quench out of the oven with PC on?


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by BHuij

As in, bake at 450 to PC and quench out of the oven with PC on?


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Thats my method when I do rifle bullets, i line them up spray them and transfer to oven, bake at 450 for 20 min and dump immediately in to icey water bucket. For pistol bullets shake and dump on mesh tray, bake at 400 for 10-15 min, water quench. I tried heat treating some pistol bullets for 357 magnum that were already powder coated, i put them on their bases on the tray and did same 450 for 20 the result was significant increase in BHN. The coat became darker but otherwise OK. You always want to water quench if you want hard otherwise they will anneal to your alloy base composition hardness.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by BHuij

As in, bake at 450 to PC and quench out of the oven with PC on?


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If you are new to PC lookup elvis ammo and fortune cookie 45lc on youtube although their methods are slightly diffrent.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by dimaprok

you might be right about overcooking PC, my oven also overheats compare to dial. I noticed some bullets will have little "chip" of PC missing (on the nose usually) and I am afraid to try the hammer but the good news I am getting no leading that I can see, I am going to order cheap borescope and see. I haven't shot lead bullets to really determine long term leading plus I am experimenting with traditional lube and I shoot FMJ bullets.

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So over the weekend i decided to test it the flattening with the hammer- it passed. I am still seeing little chips of PC missing but now I know it has to to be something else perhaps bullets falling from the tray and on the way to bucket hitting tray or something. There are no dents only PC missing, could also be my cheap HF powder.

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<------ another tight wad with a lee hardness tester. I am proud of what I can accomplish with .05 cent bullet. I like watching Elvis ammo and FortuneCookie. I have used tips for both of them. Pre warming my bullets helped a lot. Elvis put them in the oven, i just set mine on top of the toaster oven while i do a batch. They don't over heat that way and perfectly warmed to where i want them when i am ready to coat them.