Water dropped coww?

[Aaron]

How hard are water dropped cows the day they are dropped?

Thanks

[Wolfer]

Don't know for sure, probably depends on their makeup. For about 24 hrs they will be pretty soft though.

[Max Brand]

All depends on the alloy makeup, most I've cast take at least a week to stabilize.

Max

[oldandslow]

aaron, 3/11/12

I looked up an old article I had by Mark Trope from surplusrifle.com called "The Hard Line" (I think I may have been linked to this article from the lasc website). He details the BHN of oven quenched wheel weight bullets at 20-22 right after quenching, increasing to 30-35 by day one and 40-41 by day two. Is this what you're looking for?

best wishes- oldandslow

[BulletFactory]

Why would you drop a cow in the water?

[Aaron]

Oldandslow, yes that is what I needed, thanks!

Bullet factory, the cow was my phone "helping" me spell. I hate that! :-0

Aaron

[williamwaco]

In my experimentation
Water dropped WW bullets will be around 17 immediately after casting.
They will harden to about 28 in nine days.
After 60 days, they will revert to about 19.

[Gohon]

In my experimentation Water dropped WW bullets will be around 17 immediately after casting. They will harden to about 28 in nine days. After 60 days, they will revert to about 19

Next time I water drop wheel weight casts I'm gonna test that because I just don't believe it. I know when water dropped they will be somewhere around 17-19 and go up a point or two over a couple weeks. But jumping from 17 to 28 and then back down to 19 in two months......naw, I just don't think so.

[williamwaco]

Next time I water drop wheel weight casts I'm gonna test that because I just don't believe it. I know when water dropped they will be somewhere around 17-19 and go up a point or two over a couple weeks. But jumping from 17 to 28 and then back down to 19 in two months......naw, I just don't think so.



I would love to hear your results.

I have very little confidence in what I read about water dropping. That is exactly why I tried it myself.

One word.
One bullet will tell you nothing.
Take a sample of a dozen. You will find a significant variation. they will not all be the same hardness.


.

[Uncle Grinch]

With my WW alloy mine air drop between 14-17. If I water quench the run 21-23 using the Lee hardness tester.

[AR-15 Cowboy]

I've been building my own research database on Brinnell hardness of cast boolits. Using four different alloy mixes to start with, so far I discovered that every small change in the alloy mix changes the time tables for hardness progression and then decline. Water dropping the cast boolit immediately adds between three an four from the non-water dropped boolits. As I get deeper into this study I'll have more info, but right now now its too early to draw any conclusions. Hope this helped you.

[Budmen]

I would love to see a controlled experiment done on this. My water dropped with the old Lee tester seem to run from 19-21 after sitting for months and the same after sitting just a week! All I know is WW make good shooting bullets with good lube and gas checks if intended velocity requires them WW bullets dont lead the bore. I got the Cabin Tree tester for more accurate results but it seems to me if they shoot good and dont lead they are the best BHN I know of no matter what the tester says. I use Lyman #2 on my hunting bullets but have yet to kill a deer with one so I cant tell you how well or poor they preformed. I have to fill the freezer before I hunt with the levers or handguns with open sights!!!!!

[AR-15 Cowboy]

I hope to gain information on just hardness relating to alloys and quenching, water drop after casting and oven hardening, and then just rechecking after time to see the changes. I'm using a Lee scope, I have mine mounted in a old childs microscope frame ( I'm nearing seventy and shake too much to use it without a solid base) and had my son check some of my results with a scientific tester at school. He is a student at Texas A&M. The Lee scope is pretty accurate. I won't at this time do any ballistic testing for accuracy or leading, but maybe further down the road. In about three months I'll post my findings.

[fecmech]

I think it matters what "right after" water dropping means in actual time. If I water drop I dry the bullets and immediately run them through my Star. In that case water drop to size is less than a couple hours and I feel little resistance to sizing, which is why I do that. If I size 12-24 hours later it's a whole different ball game with sizing effort increasing dramatically. I can not tell the difference in sizing effort between acww and wdww when sized within a couple hours but I can feel the difference if acww bullets are left for a week or two before sizing. That leads me to believe that for the first couple hours after water dropping the BHN is less than aged acww.

[AR-15 Cowboy]

This is because they harden over time. The softer boolits size easier. Initially my tests indicate they harden after quenching but not to their full amount which is the time I'm trying to determine. Then how long do they stay at this maximun hardness before they start to lose it?

[fecmech]

Then how long do they stay at this maximun hardness before they start to lose it?
My understanding is that time is measured in years.

[Roundnoser]

As I understand it, there are a number of variables that come into play. Time. Casting temperature. Alloy. Water temperature.

My straight WW alloy is cast at 675 - 700 degrees, and immediately dropped into approx. 60 degree water. In the first 24 hours, the hardness is 11 BHN. After 2 days +, it increases to 15 BHN. I tested bullets that are 6+ months old, and they are 18-20 BHN.

Those are just my results using a Cabine Tree tester.

[williamwaco]

I think it matters what "right after" water dropping means in actual time. If I water drop I dry the bullets and immediately run them through my Star. In that case water drop to size is less than a couple hours and I feel little resistance to sizing, which is why I do that. If I size 12-24 hours later it's a whole different ball game with sizing effort increasing dramatically. I can not tell the difference in sizing effort between acww and wdww when sized within a couple hours but I can feel the difference if acww bullets are left for a week or two before sizing. That leads me to believe that for the first couple hours after water dropping the BHN is less than aged acww.


"Right after" in my test means one to two hours.

In my testing, sizing the water dropped wheel weights significantly reduces the hardening effect. If I size one batch and d compare them to a similar batch unsized, the sized ones do not get nearly as hard as the unsized ones.

I need to write up my results and post them.

I would love to compare results with Cowboy.

[Huntducks]

My testing is pert simple, I cast them size them, then shoot them, if they shoot straight and don't lead the barrel there good boolits:drinks: but I guess i'm real old school.:-D

That bull elk in my avatar was shot with Lyman #2.

[lead chucker]

I just cast up some 170 gr 30 cal 50/50 WW, lead water dropped. They were pretty soft when they came out then after a week they had a bhn of 9 and at two weeks they are a 11 and now at three weeks they are still a 11. I have some 44 mag bullet Cast a year ago that I heat treated with two part WW to three part lead and they are a 11, I believe they were a 12 three weeks after casting them. So in my experience they take a couple weeks to get hard and loose hardness over time but for me it's negligible.

[AR-15 Cowboy]

"Right after" in my test means one to two hours.

In my testing, sizing the water dropped wheel weights significantly reduces the hardening effect. If I size one batch and d compare them to a similar batch unsized, the sized ones do not get nearly as hard as the unsized ones.

I need to write up my results and post them.

I would love to compare results with Cowboy.
My study has only been running a month but the data so far shows
that from six hours to five days it grows in hardness. After five days they stabilize and so far after thirty days nothing has gone down. I am putting everything into a spreadsheet and as soon as I can I'll post the results. I have brinnell tested the ingots before casting, the boolits after casting, some water quenched and some not. This way I can check the aging hardness of all three from ingot to final result. I also test after sizing because this compresses the boolit much like shrinking does from aging.

[williamwaco]

In my experimentation
Water dropped WW bullets will be around 17 immediately after casting.
They will harden to about 28 in nine days.
After 60 days, they will revert to about 19.




First page of first experiment.

This is about 20% of my total test data onthis question.

http://www.reloadingtips.com/pages/exp_bnh-vs-time-1.htm




.

[popper]

How deep is a bucket is needed for WD? Never done it, think I'll try but I don't have a real big bucket. I'm dropping from a 6x so it does need a wide mouth. I have a plastic pretzel jug with a wide mouth, but it's only 8" deep. I don't want to melt a hole in the bottom and have water all over everywhere. Put a towel with a hole int it to prevent splashing?

[cf_coder]

I drop mine into a folgers platic coffee can with iced water in it. But I'm only doing two and four cavity molds at the moment. Never had the water get hot and I've loaded it up with up to 200 boolits...

[Roundnoser]

How deep is a bucket is needed for WD? Never done it, think I'll try but I don't have a real big bucket. I'm dropping from a 6x so it does need a wide mouth. I have a plastic pretzel jug with a wide mouth, but it's only 8" deep. I don't want to melt a hole in the bottom and have water all over everywhere. Put a towel with a hole int it to prevent splashing?

It doesn't have to be very deep. Maybe a few inches of water. Depends on how many bullets you plan to drop. I place an old hand towel in the bottom so the bullets won't get deformed. As for melting the bottom of the container...those bullets should be cool enough to handle within seconds, but if you care to err on the side of caution you could stick with some sort of metal container. I use an old (1950s) enamel refrigerator freezer drawer.

Just my 2 cents.

[GRUMPA]

When I water drop mine I have 2 sponges floating on the surface of the water so that my heavy boolits hit those first then they kinda roll off the sponges and down they fall to the bottom which is filled with 5-6" water. I tried just letting them drop right into the water but I noticed to many dings in them when I took them out to dry.

[runfiverun]

i drop into a little over a half gallon of water in a little galvanized pail.
if it's winter i put some snow in the water.

[HangFireW8]

How hard are water dropped cows the day they are dropped?

When I started just 3 years ago, I got the good advice to wait 3 days until checking BHN, then do it again at 2 weeks. At 2 weeks the boolits have reached most of the hardness they'll peak at around 2-3 years.

At 1 day the hardening process is not yet finished, and you'll find some really variable results, both between boolits and even different spots on the same boolit.

I won't try to answer the question because it varies so much between batches. The total amount of antimony and the presence (or absence) of a grain modifier (arsenic, copper, etc.) varies between Wheel Weight batches, and that makes final results vary a lot between batches. I have WW batches where the ingots are at 10.4 BHN, others as high as 20 BHN! That's before water dropping where the grain modifier variable comes in.

HF

[popper]

Arsenic and sulfur create the HARD CBs. Tin and Sb will slightly harden but the tin will whisker (dendrite) and come out of the lead slowly, softening the CB. The grain refiners don't have this problem. Tried to add sulfur to mix this morning, got big balls of metal floating on top, but not much fire. Eventually got most of the stuff mixed back in. SD flux worked pretty good but still left smaller balls. Candle wax finally got rid of most of it and left a fine grey powder (Pbsulfate). Now to cast a pile and see how it works. Thanks for the tips on WD, I'll try a deep plastic hospital pan with a towel on the bottom for now. Hope the fridge still makes ice.