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?