baking time

[slide]

I see where Elvis Ammo has posted a new video about not baking bullets at as high a temp. If I heard him right it was around 250 F. And he decreased the time also to 16 minutes. He is doing this to try to keep his bhn up. Says he water drops after casting but not after powder coating. You will just have to watch it. This got me to thinking and I was looking at some of the pdf's on the prismatic site. They recommended coating the bullets,put them in a preheated oven at 400f and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. I guess this is from the time they go in,it didn't say anything about flowout. Has anybody tried this? That maybe long enough for what we are doing.

[P Flados]

I experimented with reduced time & temp

Using the hammer test as my guide, I ended up with

Set the PID for 390°F

Time for 15 minutes after reaching 350°F

[gtrpickr]

The low temp baking method that elvis ammo is doing might be something to keep an eye on. I would like to see some more follow up testing done before I try it but I think if your wanting a specific hardness for a hotter load and you have the ability to test the bhn then it could be a really good method to use.

[slide]

Why couldn't you water quench after powdercoating ? I think he said something about that. I was doing other stuff when the video was on and didn't pay that close attention.

[runfiverun]

it takes a full hour to heat saturate a bullet enough to let the antimony move and do the hardening.
when we quench we are trapping that antimony all throughout the matrix.
in effect we make 3% antimony act like 6-8% antimony by not allowing it to clump up [form a chain] within the matrix.
it takes time for the matrix to form and harden the alloy around it and the smaller amounts of antimony take longer to reach that hardened state.
that's all a quench does.
re-heating a bullet for a short period of time just breaks that matrix down and it has to reform again.
get it hot enough for long enough and it reverts back to it's original alloy, don't get it hot enough for long enough and it just shrinks back the hardening effects until the antimony matrix reforms again.