Annealing

[jem102]

I have some commercial cast bullets (.476, 355 gr. GC) alloy unknown, at 22 BHN that I would like to get down to the 12-15 BHN range. My plan is to remove the lube and heat them in the oven to 400°, hold 30 minutes and then turn the oven off and let them come to room temperature in the oven.
What do you folks think, will this accomplish the goal? Any input welcome.

[Cowboy_Dan]

It all depends on the alloy used, but yes, if they were water quenched then something like the procedure you describe would bring them back to their air cooled hardness. The problem is 22 BHN could be water quenched wheel weights, or air cooled Linotype, or ...

[ikarus1]

I anneal bullets when I PC them in the oven


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[Nose Dive]

Hmmm yes,,,I agree...put'em in the oven....heat'em up....the let them cool...in that oven is a great idea to me... Should work just fine...soft'em up just fine....

I 'go backwards' to get my stuff up there...22, 23, 25 or so.....45's and 50 calibers nuggets in hot loads for BP long rifle, long range shooting.

I smelt, flux sawdust,,flux wax...mix,,,, etc...etc... and ingot my 'trash mix' smelt. I test then and know my 'mux mix' still needs work. So...remelting in sawdust..sulfur...and mix and play is normal. these ingot too need alloying... the ingots are poured and let to sit a week or two and then we test. ALL need remelting and alloying, usually with pewter, and or some tin... and again,,,sawdust and mix... and some wax to end the story.
I got about 30 wax toilet rings from a demo'ed apartment complex some time back and these do work well. So, after these ingots get poured....they sit for another 30 days or so, and then get poured into boolit molds. Now these mold mix gets up to around 700 F or so and poured in to 'hot molds'. the molds are set on a furnace and get hot and I do not pour hot mix into cold molds...old trick...old news....

But there, the boolits are COLD WATER DROPPED into ICE COLD WATER. Yep..put ice in the bucket,,,put a screen on the ice...towel over the screen and have a ice cold, soft water bath for my boolits. I mold and drop until the ice has melted and then stop. I let the boolits sit for 10 minutes, pour out water, capture boolits...box them up,,,label them...then let them sit and cure for at least 120 days or so. They sit in my basement...and then..we can size, lube and give them to my SHOOTZEN buddy to go play at 800 meters. Yep they are hard at casting, yes they soften up on cure, yes the 'skin' is scraped at sizing and lubing....and yes...my buddy always wins or places in the long range BP shootzen competitions.

I do the same with my 45 caliber pistol reloads...but..do not shoot competition and I do not have any leading....

Nose Dive

Cheap, fast, good. Kindly pick two.

[jem102]

Thanks for the replies. i am going to give it a try with a dozen or so and see how they do.

[54bore]

I did this with some age hardened 11MM rifle bullets, i went 45 minutes and let cool on their own with no help, it DEFINITELY softened them back up. I read somewhere on here that this is temporary, for instance a bullet at 15BHN will soften to say 8BHN, within a couple of weeks it will be back to 15, you can not take out what is in the lead, it will return to its hardness, now age hardening i am not sure? This lead, alloy stuff has been my biggest challenge, and it continues to be!