Super hard alloy?

[Blackhawk45hunter]

Hi guys, I want to start casting some varmint bullets for my 30-06.
I want the hardest alloy I can find so I can push it hard, and I also want that alloy to be frangible, so high antimony content is fine.

The intended bullet mold is the Lee C113-309-RF

[Blackhawk45hunter]

What alloy will give me this combo? I want to order like 10-15 lbs worth

[theperfessor]

Straight linotype is pretty hard and frangible.

[stubshaft]

+1 - on the linotype. I used to push it over 2700fps in my unlimited pistol with no leading.

[Blackhawk45hunter]

How hard will it be if I heat treated it?

[Harter66]

By my understanding , and I've been wrong a lot lately, about 30-32 bhn.

[onondaga]

I have heat treated Linotype and gotten it to BHN 32. I put gas checked, sized bullets on a cookie tray in to oven at 340 Degrees for 1 hour then dump then into a bucket of ice water.

They will shatter if you smack them with a hammer. They also leave curls of lead in your bore because the rifling cuts them instead of a softer alloy that would be deformed instead of shaved. Those shavings are a serious problem for semi auto firearms. You will find that lead alloy bullets that are hard enough to be shaved like that will also allow gas jetting that severely effects accuracy......A bunch! I have found that for my rifles in 30-06 and .308 win if I go with alloys harder than BHN 20, the bullets shave, gas jet and loose accuracy a lot at any velocity.

I changed back to an alloy that heat treats to BHN 20 for varmints that doesn't shatter or shave and use a flat nose 150 gr gas checked bullet design.

You will find that H380 powder gives you the highest velocity with the lowest pressure for the 30-06 with a 150 gr bullet. The Lee Manual 30-06 MAX 59 gr. yields 3000+fps @55080PSI for a jacketed 150 gr bullet and Linotype will be faster with less pressure.

A gas checked Linotype 150 gr flat nose with that load would likely zoom 3100+. I would tumble lube straight LLA 3 coats for that speed, I don't think any other lube would be near sufficient.

Gary
Gary

[Blackhawk45hunter]

Thanks guys!

[BABore]

You have lofty goals with your 30'06. Possible? Yes. Easy? No.

Number one is that your boolit has to fit the case, throat, and chamber to a T. Your choice of boolit will likely not meet those requirements.

Next is alloy. Antimony is not your friend at HV. Antimony tends to migrate to the outside of a boolit. Not only is it an abrasive, but it also fouls the bore very quickly at speed. You are led to believe that you have to have a super hard alloy and thus lots of antimony to achieve HV. That's not necessarily so. It goes back to boolit fit, bbl condition, and launch parameters. Many times a softer boolit works better. I'm not talking pure lead, but somewhere in the 16 to 25 bhn range.

You can get there by using WW's with a goodly portion of pure lead, then heat treat or water drop the boolits. This reduces antimonty while getting you a hard enough boolit.

Proper lube at HV is critical. You won't know the right one til you have met all the other items above, then experiment. You have to treat lube like a reloading variable. Your boolit of choice is like all Lee boolits and it is short on lube capacity, so start out with a slick one.

Finally you get down to the launch. You have to get that well fit boolit into the bbl with gradually increasing pressure. You need a soft start to get the boolit out of the throat and into the bore without damage. Then accelerate to your desired velocity. Finally, you need the gas pressure to be toned down enough when the boolit exits the muzzle so it doesn't get blasted and destabilize it. A tall otder for sure, but there's lots of powders out there to try. Your best bet is to look at the slowest recommended powder for an equivelent weight jacketed bullet. Then look into ones that are just a touch slower that that one. Look for the powder that achieves your velocity goal at the least amount of pressure. Then test them to see which one will burn properly at that pressure.

Then again you can just get lucky and pick out a jacketed data load and it works out. Very seldom, but I've had a couple.

A slightly easier way to reach your goal is to paper patch.

[lwknight]

Mix a little zinc in it.
It will be crusty and fugly on top but will cast good boolits.
I don't remember having any tin in the zinc alloy that I played around with but it definately made really hard boolits.
It took a few days to get real hard but was pretty hard as cast.

You can only get a small amount of zinc to stay in the lead and excess will be ejected in an oatmeal like dross/crud stuff.

[onondaga]

BABore gave some great guidelines there for you. He mentions bore condition. I posted recently on bore polishing with a Hoppe's Bore Snake and Turtle Wax Chrome Polish. This is a simple cheap method that will leave your bore slickly polished for higher velocity, less pressure, and easier cleaning:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=104205

Antimony is abrasive. A successful Hi-V alloy I use is 8:2, Linotype : Pure lead. This will get you in the 20ish BHN without heat treating and Antimony will be lower than some other alloys at that hardness. Heat treating also brings Antimony to the surface, so avoid that if you can.

The flat nose bullet also has a very fat ogive near the flat nose, this is why I like it. I can seat the bullet just off the lands .005" and still have some bullet in the case neck to crimp on the bottom driving band. This fits with my rifle chamber throat length.

The three coats of tumble lube LLA on the bullets is thick, sticky and ugly. Forget how it looks and feels---you really need it.

You may end up getting Linotype off EBAY, don't buy it in ingots from an Ebay source, get it in loose print strips and spacers, it will be better quality no matter how dirty it looks. You are much safer to trust an old print shop's BHN testing than an Ebay smelter of ingots.


Gary

[Bret4207]

I'm probably wasting my breath, but you're going about this backwards. BA covered much of it. You'd be better off starting with a standard alloy and working WITH it instead of trying to fit your preconceived notions into something that may not work at all with what you want to start with.

[pdawg_shooter]

You want max speed with accuracy try paper patching. Then you dont have to worry about what alloy to use.

[Blackhawk45hunter]

The reason I want a super hard alloy is because I want a brittle bullet. I know I can push a softer alloy pretty fast, I just want a bullet that'll come unglued on impact. -less ricochet potential and bigger impact on small critters.

[lwknight]

So really what you want is a jacketed hollow point or plastic pointed balistic tipped bullet. Sometimes the copper is the way that you have to go.
We cast for fun , economy and for superior control but tools are tools and the right tool for the job gets the job done best. When you have specific needs , you need a specific tool. Hence , the invention of copper condums instead of the kosher paper condums.
People here curse the copper jacket like a plague of heretics and I don't know why.

I hope this don't start a stiny stuff storm

[Doby45]

*gasp* You mentioned the *gulp* j-word!!!!!!!

[jhalcott]

I used some alloys called Stereotype , Monotype and Foundry type. The harder alloys OFTEN broke in the barrel of my .44 Ruger Super blackhawk. perhaps from an improper crimp! Any way, they ALL leaded like crazy. Leaving ME with a bore resembling a sewer pipe. I have tried to exceed 2700 fps with softer alloys like Linotype with so so results. What no one seems to remember about these loads is the air temperature and ITS effect on your loads. A very good load at 55 to 65 degrees MAY NOT be any good at 75-95 degrees. The reverse is also true! You almost HAVE to load in the field to get consistent success. Frangible bullets and casting do NOT always go together. BUT I wish you luck with the idea.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I'm not sure if Barnes makes the "Varmint grenade" in 30 cal.
but that sounds like what you want.
Jon

[white eagle]

So really what you want is a jacketed hollow point or plastic pointed balistic tipped bullet. Sometimes the copper is the way that you have to go.
We cast for fun , economy and for superior control but tools are tools and the right tool for the job gets the job done best. When you have specific needs , you need a specific tool. Hence , the invention of copper condums instead of the kosher paper condums.
People here curse the copper jacket like a plague of heretics and I don't know why.

I hope this don't start a stiny stuff storm

That is basically what I was typing yesterday
it also sounds like he wants his do all 30-06 to do 220 swift duty
which can be done I am told
that's why golfers use more than one club [smilie=l:
best o luck

[lwknight]

Maybe a 55 grain .223 soft cast boolit in a sabot ( accelerator ) would do the job.
Most people do not have good luck with the sabots and a few reported satisfactory results.
I would venture a guess that a soft lead boolit at 4200 fps would probably be ripped to shreds and little balls shot spray upon impact.

[Blackhawk45hunter]

I have s box of 110 gr Vmax in the closet, just wanna try something cheaper and more DIY

[Bret4207]

The reason I want a super hard alloy is because I want a brittle bullet. I know I can push a softer alloy pretty fast, I just want a bullet that'll come unglued on impact. -less ricochet potential and bigger impact on small critters.

I'm not sure you're going to get jacketed explosion type performance from cast. HPing a nice FN might be the way to go with a soft alloy and paper patching to get the speed up.

[Blackhawk45hunter]

Ok, can I pp with push through sizers?

[lwknight]

Its the only way that I know.

[Blackhawk45hunter]

Awesome, what paper do you recommend for a first timer?

[lwknight]

There is a whole section and a lot of opinions about PP on our very own forum.

If you just start reading through the threads , you will start getting ideas and a whole new world of fun will open up. We even had a paper engineer post a whole seminar on papers and what they are made of.
I think that everything under the sun has been tried just like flux.
I never tried cricket wings on patching yet though.

[nanuk]

if you are going to try cricket wings for patching material, perhaps save the wingless crickets for putting into your smelting pot for helping clean the melt