Dropping cast bullets into water?

[supv26]

Last night I did a search on casting bullets search on you tube. There are a lot of different videos out there on this subject and was very informative.

One of the things I saw that made me think was a guy dropping his bullets straight into a bucket of water right out of the mold. What does this do? Most of the other videos just showed them being dropped on to a towel.

[Willbird]

Running your mold as hot as possible and dropping the bullets directly into water makes your bullets harder. This is only true if your alloy will heat treat.

Some people heat their boolits in the oven after casting then drop the whole batch into water to heat treat them, this method may be more consistant than water dropping from the mold, and may allow you to get even harder bullets.

But the difference in hardness from WW alloy dropped from the mold into water is very dramatic, they are much harder than air cooled boolits.

Bill

[bcarver]

cools faster. make bullets harder.

[yodar]

Running your mold as hot as possible and dropping the bullets directly into water makes your bullets harder. This is only true if your alloy will heat treat.

Some people heat their boolits in the oven after casting then drop the whole batch into water to heat treat them, this method may be more consistant than water dropping from the mold, and may allow you to get even harder bullets.

But the difference in hardness from WW alloy dropped from the mold into water is very dramatic, they are much harder than air cooled boolits.

Bill

This heat treat process causes an intermetallic complex to develop between the Tin and the Lead in n the presence of a trace of ARSENIC

I can't depend on wheelweights having arsenic (they dont)so I pitch a teaspoonfull of chilled shot into the pot as I develop my alloy. if I want it REALLY hard i use Antimony-rich MAGNUM SHOT

Lacking arsenic, the hardening you get from quench hardening is temporary.

Reading the cast bullet handbook on heat treating bullets is a important thing here, and the importance of Arsenic is explained.

This aint witchcraft but it sure SEEMS like it ;>)

yodar

[uncle joe]

I tried using a bucket and a towel on top, but the towel kept falling in. Here is a pic of what I use now. It's a plastic shoe box from the dollar tree, with a small funnel glued into a hole on the top. I fill the box with water snap on the top and don't have to worry about water splashing into the mold.

[Dennis Eugene]

Or you could just float a bunch of styraphome peanuts on top of the bucket of water like I do keeps splashing down. Dennis

[mooman76]

Splashing a little water on the mould doesn't hurt a thing. The mould is hot enough that it dries instantly and it is usually a very tiny drop at best anyway!

[mike in co]

Splashing a little water on the mould doesn't hurt a thing. The mould is hot enough that it dries instantly and it is usually a very tiny drop at best anyway!

dont bet with the tinsel fairy on that statement.

my one and only visit from the tinsel fairy was from just such an incident.

open the mold, drop the hot boolits into a 5 gal pail, from about 3 feet. the boolits send droplets in a reverse reaction....drops go straight up.

i leave the mold open as a turn around, close and refill......WRONG.
a 2 cav and when filling the first cavity, it blew steam and lead upward, at the bottom of the pot, and a small amount hit the top of the web between thumb and finger.

now , i use some splash guard, and if even think there was drop near it i blow thru the mold as i close it.

and i cast hot........

i love water dropped boolits....but like all else in cast boolits...some care is needed.

mike in co

[BruceB]

My water-dropping method also uses a towel-with-a-slit, draped well into the water to minimize the fall to the bucket's bottom. To prevent the towel from dropping into the bucket, just use electrical tape completely around the outside of the bucket rim, over the towel.

If you're going to cast more than one bullet type in a casting session, put another towel/rag/whatever over the bullets already in the bucket from the first mould, and just keep right on casting with the next design. This routine can be repeated, and by picking up the corners of the cloth from each successive layer for removal, the bullets are kept separated by type. I've sometimes had four or five distinctly-different bullet types in the bucket bottom at the same time by using towels or something similar to keep them in layers.

In all the many times I've cast over a water-bucket, just ONCE I managed to trap a drop of water between the mould blocks. It was a very interesting feeling, as the steam violently forced the blocks apart. The "power" exerted on the mould (and my hand) was impressive indeed.

Mike, I was surprised to hear that the water in your mould survived long enough to do the nasty on you... just goes to show that we shouldn't take anything for granted.

[Wayne S]

Make a trough out of a piece of card board, secure one end to your bench and let the other end sit on the bucket lid and slightly in side, place a towel opposite the trough on the side of the bucket to keep bullets from hitting the hard plastic bucket.
keeps the water far away from the mold, the bullets may cool a bit more that going from the mold to the water but this eleminates and hazzard and keep you from bending over a lot

[mroliver77]

I have dropped quite a few boolits into a bucket without mishap. I elevate my bucket almost bench high at 9-10 oclock from my pot. I normally use Bruce B's method of the slit towel. Occasionally I get a splash on mold but wait to make sure it is evaporated. I did once after reading about it pour some lead into a wetted mold. Pretty much as Mike described it. I feel good about this. I usually learn things the hard way.
Jay

[JIMinPHX]

I'll jump on the band wagon here.
General rule of thumb for plain base boolits is that PSI/1440=desired BNH.
Hard boolits & dainty powder charges don't mix well. Also your boolits are undersized for your gun.

[Down South]

If you are using WW for alloy WQ will bring the BHN up to around 18 or so from around 12 BHN Air Cooled. The harder boolits can be pushed a little faster without leading. Lighter plinking loads up to mid range loads will do fine air cooled.

Also your boolits are undersized for your gun.

he never said what gun and size boolit he used so I wouldn't say his boolits are undersized just yet.

[Le Loup Solitaire]

A lot of good advice above and some innovative ideas for managing the bullet to be dropped into the water. This is more important than it may seem at first, but a drop...one single drop that goes the wrong way and winds up in your melting pot is a lot more catastrophic than a drop caught between the mold blocks. The explosion that ejects the bulk of molten melt is the result of that drop converting to steam that propels the melted alloy out of the pot with horrific force. So any precaution you take to minimize such an event is certainly worth the trouble in terms of eyesight and or burns. LLS

[Willbird]

This heat treat process causes an intermetallic complex to develop between the Tin and the Lead in n the presence of a trace of ARSENIC

I can't depend on wheelweights having arsenic (they dont)so I pitch a teaspoonfull of chilled shot into the pot as I develop my alloy. if I want it REALLY hard i use Antimony-rich MAGNUM SHOT

Lacking arsenic, the hardening you get from quench hardening is temporary.

Reading the cast bullet handbook on heat treating bullets is a important thing here, and the importance of Arsenic is explained.

This aint witchcraft but it sure SEEMS like it ;>)

yodar

I must have gotten very lucky with my WW because water dropped bullets all get as hard as woodpecker lips and stay that way. I never heard of Tin being needed to heat treat bullets ??

Bill

[mroliver77]

Adressing a drop of water in the pot exploding and propelling lead out I have never been able to reproduce this. I have dripped, thrown and poured water on top of my melt with it only boiling off. I am not saying this cannot happen but I could not reproduce it. One of my early casting sessions I dropped a cold boolit into the pot (on kitchen stove) and "kerblewy" lead all over the wallpaper. Wife wondered why I had decided to rewallpaper with no previous mention of it.
J

[Bret4207]

I've tried too Jay, can't make the pot explode. But, others say they've had it happen, so- safety first! Better safe than sorry.

[fatnhappy]

I had 40# of lead come out the side of a 50# plumbers pot. Either water was trapped in an ingot or the pot was already cracked. Either way that tinsel tree was amazing.

[bfox]

I just cut a slit in an old t-shirt and wrap a bungee cord around it on a 5 gallon bucket .

Put an ingot in the pot that must of had a little condensation on it .
Tinsel Fairy scared the Hell out of me .
A pop and lead everywhere .
Luckily it all missed me .

Bill

[Willbird]

Adressing a drop of water in the pot exploding and propelling lead out I have never been able to reproduce this. I have dripped, thrown and poured water on top of my melt with it only boiling off. I am not saying this cannot happen but I could not reproduce it. One of my early casting sessions I dropped a cold boolit into the pot (on kitchen stove) and "kerblewy" lead all over the wallpaper. Wife wondered why I had decided to rewallpaper with no previous mention of it.
J

When I was dumber I shoveled ice into my smelt pot with WW and no explosion happened, I DID however find out that rain drops make some pretty alarming thumps when they hit the molten metal in the smelt pot, it must have something to do with velocity.

I did get some wet WW into a smelt pot once and launched 50 lbs of lead that way, after that I only add WW to a cold pot and heat to melting, when that batch is done it gets a rest until another day .

Bill