Learned a little something about BHN

Learned a little something the hard way about BHN after casting a bunch of clip-on wheel weight boolits from a couple of Lee moulds, 9mm and .45 ACP. Water dropped them from the moulds then powder coated them, then dropped them into water again after coming out of the convection oven from the heat/cure process of the PC. I tried sizing a few of both calibers right away … they were barely cool and towel-dried when I sized them easily with my Star lubesizer. Was away for several days and decided I would finish the sizing and had to stand on that Star to get the .45ACPs sized. Even the 9mms were a little tough to size. Coating was cured nicely and survived the smash tests but those boolits got really hard after a few days. I'm now thinking a 50/50 mixture of clip on/stick on wheelweight plus some tin for fill out might be the most economical and practical way to go. Apparently at handgun velocities the boolits don't need to be that hard. Rifle boolits I'd think would be another matter. Big Boomer

Yes powder coating gives you a moderate cushion on the lead hardness thing (pardon the pun). 50/50 mix with a touch of tin to help fill out molds does the trick for me. But that doesn't always fix everything, every gun I own that I shoot cast from has been "slugged" to get just the right fit on the end result bullet of which it will be eating. Hope this helps.

If you get stubborn ones like that a quick spray of Hornady one shot usually makes them size easily and you don't even have to wipe it off.

50% clip on wheel weights and 50% range scrap or soft lead with maybe 1-2% of tin/pewter added is what I aim for.

Mostly these days I am not shooting high velocity rifle so I tend not to water drop.

The above alloy air cooled with BLL shot at 1300 to 1600 fps seems to have no problems whatsoever in any barrel I have tried it in as long as the bullet fit is good. IE 2 thou bigger than groove.

But I'm old, not hunting, just punching paper, don't need lots of speed, recoil, noise.

Nice slow soft easy going slugs over a pinch of Red Dot works for me. YMMV.

Dieselhorses: Had the size thing pretty well worked out before getting into powder coating. Honed out my Star sizing dies to where the .45 ACP sizing die gives me .4525 and the 9mm is sized in a .3585 sizing die. Have been running fairly hard boolits through both without leading and with no chamber fit problems. Just did not realize that that much BHN hardness would return after curing the powder coat. I had read somewhere here on cast boolits that once boolits reach 400 degrees while powder coating some of boolits' original BHN would be lost. Pleasant surprise to find out some/much of it had returned after dumping powder coated boolits in water. Since I do not have a BHN tester, I'm just guessing regarding relative hardness of boolits. My thumbnail scratching usually indicates to me the difference between acceptably hard and relatively soft. Of course, scratching on a powder coated boolit would be pointless. Big Boomer

Lloyd Smale: After I got the 1st one through, I picked up a non-powder coated boolit that had already been lubed and ran it through the Star and continued to do that from time to time until I got them all sized. That eased things considerably.

Ghost Hawk: I'm on the old side myself (will be 79 this coming Feb. if the Good Lord lets me live that long) but I still like a little kick in my revolvers. Have a Ruger .45 Colt Bisley 5-shooter that Hamilton Bowen built for me and shoot a 340 gr. LBT boolit at 1400 fps. That thing is noisy and I can't shoot it over 25 rounds per sitting or it makes my hand swell up. Don't hotrod the semi-autos. They won't take it. As far as the noise, I have lost all the hearing I can afford to lose. I use both plugs and muffs when shooting even light loaded .223s. Have a Contender in that chamber - super 14 with an 8XIER scope and it is a dream to shoot and with lead boolits there is little noise. But I still cover my ears good no matter what. Big Boomer

Veral Smith of LBT fame wrote a booklet called Jacket Performance With Cast Bullets and in it he had a chapter on hardening and heat treatment of cast bullets. In this chapter he wrote about aging of heat treated bullets and he found that will reach maximum hardness after a week or two from the time they were heated or water quenched at casting. His test involved casting, heat treating, them measuring hardness at various time intervals for some time and he recorded the variation. I would recommend anyone who can find a copy of this booklet to buy it and read.

We smelted wheel weights for the first time a couple months ago and I was surprised how soft the ingots tested so I posted about it on one of the threads. 100% of the replies said check them again in a couple weeks. ;)

Motor

RangerDan: I have that book and have read it time and time again, though it is out on loan right now. Good info. Also have some of Veral's boolit moulds. Big Boomer

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But I'm old, not hunting, just punching paper, don't need lots of speed, recoil, noise.

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You just described me! Years ago I loved a "full load", but these days, all I need is enough to punch holes in paper, or ring a steel gong.

KenH: In the 1990s I was involved in "magnumizing" a Ruger Blackhawk sixgun in .45 Colt. I swapped the Blackhawk grip frame out with a gunshop owner for a Bisley grip frame, hammer and trigger on another Blackhawk that he had. He thought the Bisley configuration was ugly. Had to work on the Bisley grip frame to make it fit the Blackhawk but it worked pretty well. Oddly enough, my Blackhawk frame fit his revolver perfectly. I ended up shooting hard cast boolits through that Blackhawk/Bisley and cracked the cylinder bolt cuts on at least two of the chambers and split the barrel about 3/8ths of an inch at the bottom inside the cylinder frame where the barrel screws into the frame. Hamilton Bowen put a new barrel on that revolver and took a .44 Mag cylinder and reamed it out to tight .45 Colt dimensions. That gun still shoots good. While all this was going on, I purchased another new Ruger .45 Colt Bisley and traded some Ruger Redhawks to Bowen to do the work to convert the .45 Bisley into a 5-shooter. With the oversized, longer cylinder, tight chamber dimensions and line-bored cylinder/chamber arrangement along with other internal goodies, that revolver is way more accurate than I am. However, that was 20 years ago and it is more than doubtful that I could shoot now as I did then. However, I still have the targets some fellows volunteered to autograph to attest that I actually fired some 4-inch 100 yard groups with open sights and the use of a Meritt eyepiece so that I could see the rear sight. But at that time I was working out regularly, lifting weights, etc., and that all gave me the necessary strength to hold a revolver still and shoot correctly. Now I'm 20 years older and can't hold still long enough to shoot a good group any more. But I still have the guns that I will pass on to my son one day. Those big 340 gr. WLN gas check boolits from Veral's mould have a big kick on both ends. Big Boomer

Sounds like you had fun with the "big loads". I know I did. I didn't realize it at the time, but I warped the frame of a .357 mag Colt Trooper back in the '70s with heavy loads. I sent the Colt to a "high end" gunsmith for colts a few years back, first few minutes of looking at Colt he says "you've warped the frame. You been shooting heavy loads?" He fixed it all up, now I don't need such heavy loads for paper punching. It was fun back then {g}

Ken H.

KenH: Right … fun while it lasted. Incidentally, that 5-shooter revolver is where my handle comes from. Every time I showed up at Northeast Kentucky Fish & Game Club, Ashland, Ky., someone would ask me if I was going to be shooting the "Big Boomer" today? It surely is noisy. Then the guys just started calling me Big Boomer. Ear plugs and muffs both are in order when touching off a round with that revolver. 24 grs. of H110 provides 1400 fps with a 340 gr. boolit. You can almost see the barrel/cylinder gap, it is that tight. Big Boomer

Hard alloy is not needed with a properly coated & cured PC, this is a hold over from the old days when lube was your only choice. To make the sizing process easier and faster mist the bullets with a couple of sprays of 1 part lanolin to 12 parts 99% alcohol. You can find the liquid lanolin on Ebay and a 12 ounce bottle of alcohol at an auto parts store, it is sold to remove water from gasoline.

Dragonheart: Thanks for the tip on where to get the 99% alcohol. Had looked in other places but never thought of auto parts store. Already have the anhydrous lanolin, now just need the alcohol. Wonder if the high %age alcohol will remove lanolin from resizing cartridge cases? Big Boomer

I don't think alcohol would be my first choice. For lubricant the alcohol acts to dilute and as a carrier for the lanolin. The 99% alcohol evaporates quickly leaving the thin waxy lanolin coating. The lanolin lubricates without being greasy. I would think it would take something like Methyl Ethyl Ketone to cut the lanolin.

Lanolin is also great for protecting firearms for storage. When I ultrasonic clean my handguns there is no lubrication remaining, so I dip everything, except wood grips in my modified Ed' Red solution, which contains lanolin, let it drip dry, wipe it down and the firearm is lubricated and protected even for long term storage.

Dragonheart: Thanks for the info! Big Boomer

Yeah your bullets continue to harden for weeks. So sizing sooner than later will always be easier. I am not a fan of water dropping during casting but I do drop the whole tray into water out of the oven when PC. I get a little bhn bump, like 3-4bhn. I also have to believe you are undoing the water quench on casting by heating then to 400deg for 15m or so. WHy I water drop out of the pc oven.

My problem with water quenching is it increases the likely hood that the bullets will get contaminated before PC, but once coated not a problem.