hardness after cooling

[Mchadpayne]

I took the plunge and started casting bullets recently. I started with a thousand pounds of straight wheel weights, smelted into ingots. I cast about 500 210 grain 45 acp and a week after they are still a 9 bnh. I water quenched some 41 mag and got them up to 14 bnh. has anyone ever had this happen with straight wheel weights? I've always heard that wheel weights aircooled come out around a 12. I am shooting the 45's in a 1911 and dont want issues with leading. just wasn't what I was expecting from wheel weights.

[RobS]

Well that doesn't sound right at all. Straight air cooled WW should run you around 12 BHN in a week or so and then in a weeks time around 20 BHN if water quenched. What are you testing with?

When you smelted things down what temp did you run at and did you seperate out all the stick-on's from the clip-ons?

[Mchadpayne]

I got the lee hardness tester. for straight ww it seems really low to me. I can deal with 8-10 for the 45 acp, but the 41 and 44 mag that just isnt gonna cut it. I guess I could add a little more tin and see what happens:-?

[RobS]

Tin really isn't going to do a great deal of hardening, antimony is a better means to making your alloy harder. Tin does help with fill-out of the mold by reducing surface tension of the alloy.

[Mchadpayne]

when I smelted them I kept them around 700 and there were no stickons in the mix.
I guess I will give them another week and see what happens and then if nothing else just melt them back down and water quench all my mangum bullets. that sounds like fun

[Mchadpayne]

I wonder what would happen to the mix if wheel weights did get too hot and what the effect would be?

[btroj]

Air cooled they may not get as hard and it takes longer to develop full hardness

Shoot some, bet the handgun doesn't care what the hardness is. Wheel weights make a good pistol bullet. Don't sweat the hardness, it just isn't that critical what the BHN is.

[1Shirt]

My cabin tree measures ww air cooled between 11-14 after a week or so, water dropped between 18-20 after a week or two.
1Shirt!

[geargnasher]

My cabin tree measures ww air cooled between 11-14 after a week or so, water dropped between 18-20 after a week or two.
1Shirt!

Ditto. I'm not saying it's impossible for modern, scrap clip-ons to come out that soft, but in my experience even the ones with only a couple percent antimony are coming out at least twelve, air-cooled, after a week, and water-dropped closer to 20-22 from a hot mould.

If you want to confirm the hardness, pm me and send me a few to test.

Gear

[Mchadpayne]

everything I had read had readings way higher than what i was getting. I water quenched some for the 41 and got them up to 15 bhn I am not that worried about the 45. i am only going to load them to min load for plinking. I will try them and see what happens. thanks for all the info guys. really helpful to get other insights. I will let you know the results after I get them loaded.

[runfiverun]

the thing about equipment is it all comes out different depending on who uses it.
the trick is to know if how you do it works for you.
if you are getting consistent results with your equipment then you are good to go.
it's your lead, bhn reader, powder scale,loads, etc...
my bunch of recent ww's come out about 10 bhn air cooled for me, none of my guns care.

[Bret4207]

I'd worry a heck of a lot more about FIT than Bhn! This Bhn paranoia is one of the worst things ever done to new casters.

[WHITETAIL]

If you have your mindset to get harder.
Then remelt them and add 2 or 3 table
spoons of magnum bird shot.
Then WC your boolets.

[1Shirt]

Sure do agree with Brit on fit being more important than BH!
1Shirt!

[500MAG]

I never got past the "thousand pounds of wheel weights". You just started casting? Where did you obtain that many wheel weights?

[41mag]

When I started out early last year I had some WW, and I got a bucket or so more of them, but I quickly found that in my area they were not going to be a reliable source for alloy. Even so I still have a couple hundred pounds of them cast up into ingots. All that I have checked either with the pencil method or after getting my Cabine Tree tester have come out in the 10.5-12 range when simply air cooled.

This said my initial purpose for casting was to feed the appetite of my Raging Bull in 454. I chose the Lee 300gr RF to use as it was pretty close other than weight to the Cast Performance bullets I had been using. I started off with a little over a hundred each air cooled and water quenched. What my load testing and further shooting proved to me was that the air cooled shot considerably better with most of the loads I used, even up to around 1650fps. while I freely admit these were the GC designed and GC's were used, I have since also shot plenty of PB bullets form the same alloy, up to around 1550fps with no ill effects.

My self and a good friend are also shooting range lead and other alloy which is running around 8.5-10bhn through our 41 and 44 mags, as well as some loads through our Rugers in 45 Colt which are easily pushing 1200fps, and having great success with accuracy and no leading. We are pouring up a couple hundred per secession and allowing them to sit for around 2 weeks before sizing and shooting them.

Like has been recommended I would concentrate on your fit and not so much on the hardness. I highly doubt your going to need anything as hard as what your trying to get unless your simply wanting no expansion what so ever. With what we are using in ours we do get some expansion, but haven't noticed much if any lack of penetration.

[fredj338]

I just don't think you ar reading the marginal Lee tester right. I have been using ww for decades, they are a bit softer now, but still around 12BHN for AC. Water dropping them still gets them up to 18BHN+ on my Cabin Tree..

[Shuz]

The older I get.......the softer it gets! I'm talking handgun alloy of course! For years I strived to achieve Bhn 11(Saeco 7) for my .44 mag alloy. It seemed to shoot very well with a minimum of leading with Green Dot and Unique in the 1000fps area. Within the past couplea years I've been pharting around with various hollow point designs for the .44 mag and as an intended consequence, wanted to go softer to avoid break-up etc. What I found is that softer alloy, down to Saeco 4,(Bhn 7) gives me as good an accuracy as harder alloys, but LESS leading! We live and learn!

[Larry Gibson]

I wonder what would happen to the mix if wheel weights did get too hot and what the effect would be?

The quality and composition of WW alloy can vary a lot. It depends on whether the alloy is from remanufactured WWs, how many SOWWs are in the alloy and how well the alloy was fluxed during remanufacture. A lot of the tin nd antimony can be removed if not done correctly. Yes, I know the "experts" say you can't seperate and remove the tin and antimony during remelting but you can. This is why linotype gets "soft" and old printers either had to get new linotype or "recondition" the linotype they had used over and over with tin and antimony. With used alloy unless you have it tested you are only guessing at te compsition.

I suggest you add 2% tin to the alloy you have. This should bring the AC'd BHN up a bit as your alloy is probably poor in tin. The additional tin will better bring the antimony into solution in the ternery alloy. It will alsoallow the WQing to give a harder BHN unless your alloy is really antimony poor. I concur with Shuz and others; a reasonably soft cast bullet is actually better in my magnum level handgun loads. I regularly should cast ullets of 14 - 17 BHN at true magnum level velocity (1400+ fps) out of my 357, 41 and 44 magnums with better accuracy than "harder" cast bullets.

Larry Gibson

[rintinglen]

+1 to what Larry said. I went through a spell where every boolit I cast was heat treated--my boolits were hard (+22 bhn, per Lee). I justified it to myself because I was still getting some leading and assumed that the boolits just needed to be harder.

But after a while, it dawned on me that the Speer and Hornady hollow base wadcutters that I was loading backwards to make Dean Grinnell's "Planet-wrecker Specials" were soft as butter, yet there was little or no leading. I read Major George Nonte's book on Pistol's and Revolvers and the light came on and I went back to ACWW. My boolits today are what ever they are from whatever they were made from. (Scrounging lead in southern California is arduous, and what you get is generally pretty soft but a little tin goes a long way).

I can't tell you where my hardness tester is, for higher velocity rifle stuff I still use heat treated WW metal. That has worked well for me well in excess of 2000 fps. in various 30 cals. Everything else just "is what it is." BHN is not the bugbear that some folks make it. I find that a well fitted boolit with a decent lube is very tolerant about how fast it goes, even if the BHN is a little on the soft side.

[MtGun44]

9 will be fine, even in the magnum at full power if you use a good design, fit and lube.
Of course, it is a bit unusual for clip on wwts, IME.

+1 on Bret's comment, and 1Shirt, too. I have used 8 BHN for mag loads with excellent
results. Hardness is MASSIVELY overratted.

Bill