soft alloy

[lotech]

Can wheelweight alloy or Lyman #2 be effectively softened through a drawing / heating process?

[Rcmaveric]

What ever it air cools to is about as soft as it will get. You will need to cut with pure lead to get softer. You can heat treat to to harder and anneal to original hardness. I dont think you can get softer than the base hardness.

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[sureYnot]

I'm sure you could easily trade some for the softer lead you need. Consider posting a WTT.

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[lotech]

Thanks, guys. Just wanted to experiment with softer bullets in handgun cartridges.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Do you have any Swage Dies?

Here's my theory:
Casting a boolit with COWW or Lyman #2 and then air cooling it, the boolit will gain some hardness and strength over time (two weeks or so), due to dendrites forming. Work softening that aged boolit should break/crush those dendrites and should soften the boolit.

So, using those alloys, air cooled ...my guess is...if you were to swage a long skinny aged boolit (like a 200gr 30 cal.) into a short fat boolit (like a 200gr 45 cal), the work-softening of the majority of metal, theoretically should soften the newly swaged boolit, but probably not to a level of dead softness, like pure Lead is?

[Rcmaveric]

I read some where that antimony assists with swaging processes. Breaking of the antimony crystalline structures helps with flow like self lubricant and becomes softer afterwards. Any tin in the alloy though would resist a plastic phase under pressure though.

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