Water quench or not

[USMC87]

I cast some 40 cals yesterday and dropped them on a towel, I am going to size and load some when I get time in a few weeks and give them a whirl.

[kungfustyle]

Just throwing this in there. It takes about two weeks for a freshly cast boolit to harden. Water drop and you can shoot them right away. Just my two cents.

[44MAG#1]

Just throwing this in there. It takes about two weeks for a freshly cast boolit to harden. Water drop and you can shoot them right away. Just my two cents.

Not necessarily. The bullets will be slightly harder not much right after WQ. In 48 hours the will be almost as hard as they will get with 72 hours being about Top out hardness level. It they gain much more after 72 hours it isn't much.
I've tested bullets enough over the years to understand hardness levels and hardness rates to know something. Not as much as some but am no dummy to the art, science, hobby, etc or what ever the casting and quenching this is to whomever.

[RED BEAR]

I water quench all rifle and magnum pistol and air dry all other pistols. Very well make no difference it is just the way I started and see no reason to change. Not sure it makes any difference so experiment a little and see what works for you after all they can always be recast.

[afish4570]

[QUOTE=RED BEAR;4276118]I water quench all rifle and magnum pistol and air dry all other pistols. Very well make no difference it is just the way I started and see no reason to change. Not sure it makes any difference
If it does harden great and if it doesn't it does help me in other ways. While casting outside in cool weather it works out by saving me time.....I place a 5 gal can upside down....set a 5 gal. can on top of this with cold water and alittle snow if there is any left in a pile left by snow blower that has not yet melted. This heighth is perfect so that I drop my bullets from the mold into the water while seated on my stool at my small work table with Lee furnace and casting supplies on it. After I am done casting for the day all my bullets are in one place with no wasted motion. Benifit of not dinging and damaging soft bullets dropped from mold, not having to clean off bullets from bench that have been cast Dropping soft bullets on the pile of bullets you just casted doesn't make sense if you don't want to damage your soft bullets st think of the time you save by dropping all the bullets in the cold water and cleaning up after your done.....Food for thought..just giving you my process. afish4570

[454PB]

I've done a lot of experimenting with both water dropping from the mould and heat treating in an oven. I did some long term hardness testing and found my boolits reached full hardness in about 3 to 4 weeks. They stayed at that hardness for about 18 months, then VERY slowly re-softened.

I have a batch of Keith .45 (452424) that I cast from clip on wheel weights in 1983 and water dropped. Back then I didn't have a hardness tester, but today they still measure 18 BHN.

[44MAG#1]

"I have a batch of Keith .45 (452424) that I cast from clip on wheel weights in 1983 and water dropped. Back then I didn't have a hardness tester, but today they still measure 18 BHN."

What was the hardness level at max for them? Don't really know without a hardness tester. Depending on how hot they were when they hit the water is part of it. What if they actually topped out at only 20 or 21 going down to 18 is no big deal. 18 is as hard as some custom cast bullets from some of the casters that charge more per hundred for their bullets than most manufacturers charge for jacketed.

[454PB]

Typically WW alloy tests around 24 BHN when water dropped, so I'm guessing that is the maximum hardness they reached.

[44MAG#1]

"Typically WW alloy tests around 24 BHN when water dropped, so I'm guessing that is the maximum hardness they reached."

While that is typically true. There other influences that can alter that. I have gotten COWW to as high as 29.
But that is with casting as hot as I could without the S-P-R-U-E smearing and dropping quickly into the water. I would say the average caster that cast with a somewhat cooler mold and not taking haste in dropping the bullet may get as low as 20. I don't know about that as I typically cast bullets to WQ as I stated above.
As I stated anytime a WQ bullet will mash a Lino bullet that is hard enough. 18 won't mash a Lino bullet but it is pretty well hard enough too.

[northmn]

WW is not a consistent alloy. Hardening requires the presence of arsenic which may vary from batch to batch. Whether I would mess with it for a 9mm is questionable, but I did use it for rifle bullets. Water quenching is great for as cast bullets but the original gurus like Veral Smith recommended that bullets be sized first then oven quenched. Use the same die to lubricate and apply gas checks afterwards to prevent softening from working.
I liked them because one could get a harder bullet for rifle shooting and got up to 2000 fps with no leading. Another thing that can be done is to stick the bases in water then use a torch to anneal the noses. They worked like Nosler partitions want to on the deer I shot. I only did a few for hunting and sighted in with the in-annealed bullets. What many do is to store their unloaded bullets in a freezer to maintain hardness. WW will overtime harden slightly but loses that from being melted for casting.
I used a 309 sized bullet in my 30-30 and got excellent accuracy. I do not mess with it for my 45 Colt revolver.

DEP

[Cosmic_Charlie]

So if the alloy does not contain antimony, water quenching will do nothing?

[TMenezes]

I always water dropped since I burned my fingers once or twice on boolits I thought we’re cool and turned out not to be. I don’t use wheel weights or chilled shot so don’t think mine have the arsenic required for the hardening. For 90% of my cast loads hardness isn’t an issue one way or the other.

[454PB]

So if the alloy does not contain antimony, water quenching will do nothing?

Yes, it needs antimony to heat treat. Arsenic is not required, but does enhance the effect.

[northmn]

Some casters like to use linotype to get harder bullets or what some call hard cast, which is an alloy of 6% antimony. WW contains about 4%. The advantages of WQ (water quench) bullets were that they could get a hard bullet out of a common lead source, which is getting harder to get. WW are not easy to get in my area anymore. Birdshot contain arsenic because it helps in the roundness aspect and does harden with WQ. "Magnum" fine shot like 8 on down contain a little more antimony and are close to the "hard cast" alloy.
The first time I read about WQ was when they were pushing a double melting pot system, where one contained pure lead and the other the WW alloy. They would cast the base with one drop and the nose with the pure lead drop. The melters had regulated drops. The WW would WQ harden and the lead would not. lead/tin alloys also would work for faster bullets and do not harden with WQ. Tried it for hunting bullets without the dedicated melters and it was a real PITA.
Later they pushed WQ bullets using large flat noses, some were similar to a wad cutter. You see bullets like this used for pistol loads or pistol caliber rifle loads. Often they may be the 300 grain 44 or 45 bullets. Rather blunt. The WQ would be used to prevent any deformation or assist is going through bone. The bullets were designed to cut through the game with their blunt noses and give good penetration. As my 45 Colt loads are not particularly hot I prefer "hard cast" bullets as any mushrooming would be minor and likely not much exceed the bullet diameter. The hard cast should give better penetration in their semi wad cutter configuration.
For smaller bore rifles, I discovered the method of annealing the noses of a softer alloy bullet that ahs been WQ and used that. Probably the biggest advantage to WQ is that the softer alloys are "tougher" and hold together without fragmenting. The aforementioned blunt pistol bullets made out of high antimony content like linotype would fragment on bone. The other advantage is that linotype is lighter weight than bullets with less tin and antimony like WW and does not have the ballistic coefficient of WW. Some target shooters like that and they will penetrate deeper.
Unless I use as cast, I do not make up many WQ bullets. My stint with them was with 30-30 bullets which weighed in at 188 grains. They were chronographed at about 2000 fps. I liked them and saw a Marlin 35 Remington for sale that I really liked and bought it for cast. After looking at what it would cost at the time to buy gas checks, and the mold I did not cast for it as the Remington CoreLoks worked so well and were available for reloading. I still have a bunch of them. I do cast for my 38-55.

DEP

[lightman]

I respectfully disagree about wheel weights not being a consistent alloy. BNN's test show them to be surprisingly consistent. My bullets, cast over the years, do to. Wheel weights are not perfect or exact but I expect that they are as consistent as most of our home brewed mixes are. The only thing is that older weights were of a different alloy. I'm not sure when the alloy changed. I do my smelts in batches of 350-400# thinking that that will help in consistently.

[northmn]

I respectfully disagree about wheel weights not being a consistent alloy. BNN's test show them to be surprisingly consistent. My bullets, cast over the years, do to. Wheel weights are not perfect or exact but I expect that they are as consistent as most of our home brewed mixes are. The only thing is that older weights were of a different alloy. I'm not sure when the alloy changed. I do my smelts in batches of 350-400# thinking that that will help in consistently.

Probably in big batch mixing they are? I had read that they were not consistent? I had a bunch of them but they got used up and the local tire dealers have quite a demand for them so I cannot get them like I used to. Went to birdshot for some casting. One of the changes was that some are zinc which can mess up the works.

DP