boolit hardness for pistol calibers

[hickfu]

Yup ,each to his own...I started water dropping my 44's in 1970 If my mind serves me well,
they punch through all the animals I have shot with my 44's pistol/rifle Works for me.
I shoot a lot of calibers.. if they are 1,000 FPS or under I let them air cool.

That sounds perfect, I was going to cast at some point for my 45 acp's so I will air cool those...


Doc

[Rick N Bama]

Air cooled WW + 2% Tin and 20% range lead seem to work fine in my SRH

Dang Sam! You were using a Ransom Rest......right? My one shot groups aren't that good
Rick

[Boerrancher]

Guys, the original .22 WMR fired a pure lead bullet at 2,000 FPS. The .22 LR is 1200 FPS with a pure lead projectile. Use those two rounds as your rule of thumb for calculating the hardness you will need, and tweak your alloy from there to get the accuracy you are happy with. Boolit size and lube will have more to do with leading and lack of accuracy than the hardness of your boolit.

Best wishes,

Joe

[Piedmont]

Guys, the original .22 WMR fired a pure lead bullet at 2,000 FPS. The .22 LR is 1200 FPS with a pure lead projectile. Use those two rounds as your rule of thumb for calculating the hardness you will need, and tweak your alloy from there to get the accuracy you are happy with. Boolit size and lube will have more to do with leading and lack of accuracy than the hardness of your boolit.

Best wishes,

Joe

That is news to me. I thought the original .22 Mag was by Winchester and was a jacketed hollowpoint and a jacketed solid. Are you sure of your information?

[Boerrancher]

That is news to me. I thought the original .22 Mag was by Winchester and was a jacketed hollowpoint and a jacketed solid. Are you sure of your information?

Yep this is from Wiki, but the sources check out. Here is a photo of a .22WMR with the 40 grain swedged lead bullet followed by the write up. The bullet is copper plated like most rim fires.


The .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire, more commonly called .22 WMR, .22 Magnum, or simply .22 Mag, is a rimfire cartridge. Originally loaded with a bullet weight of 40 grains (2.6 g) delivering velocities in the 2,000 feet per second (610 m/s) range from a rifle barrel, .22 WMR has also been loaded with bullet weights of 50 grains (3.2 g) at 1,530 feet per second (470 m/s) and 30 grains (1.9 g) at 2,200 feet per second (670 m/s).

The .22 WMR was introduced in 1959 by Winchester, but was not used by Winchester until the Winchester Model 61 slide rifle could be chambered for it, in 1960.[2] By that time, Smith and Wesson and Ruger had revolvers for it, and Savage had come out with the Model 24 and since late 2012, the model 42, a more modern update than the 24, a .22/.410 revolver. It was the only successful rimfire cartridge introduced in the 20th Century.[3]

[Mugs]

My wife and I are Handgun Silhouette shooters. In '83 we switched to all cast. I was working full time and both of us were shooting 2 matches a month. I started to run out of time for AC WW to age harden. Water dropping became the answer, and I never quit. Has worked great for years. Slow Elk about half those years were in AK.

Mugs

[fcvan]

For years my alloy was reclaimed from a range that shot swaged hollow base wadcutters exclusively. That's pretty soft stuff and I used it in pistol calibers. If I was loading .357 or .41 mag I used a gas check. This was with Javalina lube.

Nowadays, I try to do 50/50 WW/range scrap for pistol and straight WW for rifle and BAC for lube. I am currently getting good results using range scrap for pistol or rifle and powder coated with Harbor Freight black. If the mold has a gas check shank I apply a gas check otherwise they are plain based.

The Lyman 225-415 has been working very well for me in .223 through a Mini 14 and an AR. I've loaded some 30 Carbine with a SAECO 95 grain plain base boolit but haven't tried them at the range yet. I'm sure they will work fine as I've read where others have shot that boolit in their rifles plain based with regular lube. Powder coating has worked wonderfully in everything I've tried thus far.

[fecmech]

Back when I shot silhouette (70's) I used my Ruger SBH .44 mag. At the time I owned a Ransom rest and did some testing of my silhouette load of lots of 296. Using ACWW's versus 50/50 WW/lino, my 50/50 mix was better than ACWW's so that's what I shot. I no longer have a Ransom but with dot sights or a scope a fellow can do as well or better than the Ransom. A year or two ago I shot some bench groups with my .357 Ruger GP to see if it also needed lino in the mix. My set up is one main target that catches all the shots and I move a backer that catches individual groups. My load was 14.6/820/50/50/358429 and I fired 4 Five shot groups at 50 yds The average group size was 1.91" and the composite for all 20 shots was 3"! I did the same 4 groups of ACWW's with the same load and averaged 2.7" per group and the composite for 20 shots was 4 1/8". Now IMO a 2.7" 50 yd average is not real shabby for a plain base 1200+fps load but, it is less accurate than the lino mix. If a fellow is looking for the max in accuracy in magnum plain base loads I think he needs harder bullets. CBrick who did extensive testing on his silhouette loads felt he needed at least BHN 18 for his long range accuracy and wrote quite a bit about it. Does someone need that level of accuracy for normal 25 yd plinking, probably not, but water dropping takes no extra time and costs nothing so it is a nice option. Whether it is needed for mid level loads I don't know, I only tested max loads in the 30KPSI+ range and it appears to me for max accuracy it is. YMMV

[Mugs]

I'll get to see CBrick over the Labor Day at the LASC Extravaganza. Our once a year trip to CA.
Mugs