This may be a strange question. . .

[shaman]

This may be a strange question, but I'll ask it anyway. I ran into a fellow the other day that felt the need to re-heat his bullets after they were cast. I asked why, and his explanation wasn't clear-- something to do with reversing the changes in hardness in an alloy over time and producing a more consistent hardness. He said he did this between casting and sizing. I have done a lot of lurking on this and other forums, and I have never heard of annealing bullets:

1) Have any of you heard of this?
2) Have any of you tried this?
3) Has this guy been smelling the fumes too long, is he a guru, or is he a goof?

[bigborefan]

If the bulets contain antimony as in wheelweights, you can harden them further by putting them in your oven for a described temperature and time (which escapes me at the present) and then immediately quenching them directly into cold water. Wheel weight lead with a BHN of 9-12 can be brought to the high 20s with this method.l

[felix]

He is correct. This process would be overkill for the most part, unless you have a match rifle that YOU can shoot 3/4 inch groups or less with. Minute air bubbles in the lead kill accuracy in the more accurate rifles, rather than hardness. Hardness allows faster speeds, but only when the boolit fits the gun to a "T". ... felix

[BABore]

He could be doing a couple of things with his reheating.

If the bullets are cast air cooled, he could be heating them up and quenching them to make them harder. Basically doing he same thing as water dropping them, but I find OHT bullets to be more consistent.

He could also be annealing, or drawing them back. Assuming he water drops his bullets, he may be heating them up into the 250-325 F range then allowing them to air cool. This will reduce the hardness and make them consistent.

WW's can be hardened to 28-31 Bhn which can be way too hard in some cases. Through annealing they can be reduced to their normal 9-11 Bhn, or anywhere in between.

[shaman]

Okay. Thanks. It sounds like this guy may not have as high a mercury concentration in his blood as I thought. This was in relation to some precision rifle bullets.

[Dale53]

Charlie Dell experimented quite heavily with heat treating, then annealing cast bullets to various hardnesses for trials in his rail gun. He had a 100 yard "tunnel" that he was able to shoot almost regardless of conditions. This with a Schuetzen rifle.

However, Jim Borton has proved that GOOD cast, plain base bullets will consistently shoot under ½ minute with a simple alloy of ( I believe) 25/1 lead/tin as long as the velocity, in his rifle, is kept under 1500 fps. HIs rifle is a Dehaas-Miller single shot bench gun in caliber .32 Miller Short. Jim has done this, and better, in registered matches in front of God and everybody...

Dale53

[cbrick]

shaman,

Bullet fit in the firearm is more important than bullet BHN as far as leading goes. Heat treating has its place and can be a valuable tool for a bullet caster. It takes testing to see where and how your gun will shoot its best. Here are a couple of articles that explain the how too's and where for's.

http://www.lasc.us/HeatTreat.htm

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletAlloy.htm

Rick