Can hard lead boolits be softened in an oven ??

[Ohio Rusty]

If you heated boolits that have a 15 BHN, can they be softened to a 9 or 10 BHN through an oven heat treatment ??
Ohio Rusty ><>

[BK7saum]

If they are water dropped, then yes, you may lessen the hardness through a heat cycle and slow cooldown. If they are 15 bhn air cooled, them they will basically stay 15bhn.

[GregLaROCHE]

I’ve wondered if you could soften boolits. My idea was to heat the lead really hot and maybe burn off some of the alloys that harden the lead. Never tried it. Maybe someone has some ideas about it.

[cwlongshot]

Sure... 20 min @ 400 then air cooled. They will be soft as you can get them.

But lube might be gone.

CW

[waksupi]

I made a chart of different temperature and resulting hardness. I found with wheel weight alloys, you could change the hardness right where you want it by 25 degree changes in heat, then quenching.

[Lloyd Smale]

once lead is alloyed its very hard to separate the tin and antimony from the lead. You sure cant do it without remelting it all. You cant soften bullets any softer then what the original alloy was air cooled. So if you have air cooled ww that tests 10bhn you cant put it in the oven and get 8bhn. Only softening you can really do is to water dropped bullets. You can get them back to the original air cooled bhn and with careful temp varying get them to any point between there hardness now and the air cooled hardness that's as soft as you can go. .

I’ve wondered if you could soften boolits. My idea was to heat the lead really hot and maybe burn off some of the alloys that harden the lead. Never tried it. Maybe someone has some ideas about it.

[Dusty Bannister]

If you heated boolits that have a 15 BHN, can they be softened to a 9 or 10 BHN through an oven heat treatment ??
Ohio Rusty ><>

I guess you are asking what would happen if you heated your cast bullets that have air cooled to 15 BHN to nearly the slump temp and then let them air cool slowly. This would be a lot like a fresh cast bullet. The Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, 3rd edition addresses age hardening of cast bullets. It all depends upon the presence of antimony. More antimony, the faster it age hardens.

The window for the use of the soft fresh cast bullet will be rather small, two to three weeks. Age hardening rapidly at first and slowing as it reaches maturity. I would think that it would be very impractical to attempt to expect to have any consistent bullet performance with the method.

[mdi]

Impressive answers! Look at post #2 then read post #3...

[44Blam]

Easiest way to soften boolits is to melt them down with a little more soft lead and re-cast...
I'm pretty sure if you oven treat them, they will get soft for a while and then harden back up.

[swheeler]

You can remove heat treating(quenching) that was done, air cool and you will be back to the hardness of alloy. Post number two has the correct answer.