DIY BHN tester

[knoxm]

Made a BHN tester from a hydraulic jack I found in the garage. Not sure what the jack was from or used for. Used a 10.3 mm steel ball I had laying around. I run the pressure up to 300 psi, hold for 30 seconds. Another trick I use is to use a permanent marker swiped over the indent to help make the edges more visible. I found a site that I can plug all the values in and get the hardness. So far seems to work good.

[nagantguy]

Seems like a lot of work to make hollow points .
Seriously love the ingenuity and that you used something you had laying around, is there a window of hardness you are looking for for a certain application or just curious as to BHN ?

[knoxm]

I was given around 150 lbs of shot .177 pellets. Researching it, the mix could be pure lead to some antimony in it. Also was given about another 300 lbs of lead ingots from the family of a friend who passed who was a reloader. Some could be pure lead, some mixed already. On top of that another 150 lbs or so of already cast bullets of various calibers. Another friend at the same time, due to health reasons, had to shut down his tire business, and got all of his WW and other scrap. Needed some way to test the stuff. Just trying to figure out what I have.

[SirNomad]

It's really cool to see the creative solutions. What web site did you use to calculate everything? How does this compare to one of the reloading company produced ones?