50-50 clipon ww and lead water drop or not?

[BK7saum]

I recently cast a bunch of 41 and 358 boolits using 5050 alloy with1% tin. I have air cooled them and I used the recluse 45-45-10 lube. I did not over do it on the lube, is just a light coating. However I am getting leading in the barrels of my 357 revolver and my 41 mag. These should be 1 thou over groove diameter.

Question, would water dropping increase the hardness to lessen the gas. Cutting of the boolit bases? I loaded moderate loads of unique for velocity of 750 fps in the 38s and about 900 in the 41.

I will try to size and lube with a lyman when I get some simple lube or fwfl mixed up.

Thanks

Brad

[Echd]

Why not just do straight WW if you are having problems with leading? Those are fairly low velocities so it seems odd.

[BK7saum]

I use that alloy in my 300 whisper at subsonic velocity so I figured it would work for the revolvers. The 300 whispers are gas checked, though

[captaint]

Harder boolits won't, by themselves, cure your issue. I don't water drop any boolits, and I shoot a lot of 50/50, WW's & lead. I'd look elsewhere - start with diameter on a pulled boolit (from a dummy round). We really do need to know what our groove dimensions AND throat dimensions on revolvers are. That's kinda step one. After you know those things, you can address issues by changing one thing at a time, looking for improvement. Stay with it & read, read, read. Mike

[BK7saum]

Well both revolvers are Smiths and both are 5 groove. The 41 throats are a little over the boolit. I only have a lee mold at this point. The boolits drop right at 410 and are a hard push
through the cylinder throats. The best I could measure on the groove was right at 410. I wrapped a feeler gauge around the slug, measured with a micrometer and subtracted double the feeler gauge. I don'tremember but exactly but the 410 boolit was slightly larger than my slug measurement. I cant say that my boolits aren't sized down by my case but they seat easily after expansion by an m die.

About the same on my 357 Smith with 148 wadcutters sized to 358.

I need to try a few different things. Just a little frustrating as everyone here knows.

[**oneshot**]

you replied while I was typing. I was going to ask about the cylinder throats. Are you sizing these at all or just shooting as cast and lubed?

[BK7saum]

The 41s were lubed as cast from lee mold. They are not overly large. I am in on the mihec.group buys for the 411640 and the 412640. Hoping to lube and shoot those. I think they are going to "fit" better

[45 2.1]

How long from the time you cast to the time you shoot those boolits you cast?

[BK7saum]

They were only about 10 days from casting. I'll try loading a few more since they've had longer to harden.

I also plan to lube a little heavier with 45-45-10. I don't think that will solve or possibly even help but I don't guess it would hurt to lube a little heavier.

[Ole]

I use water dropped 50/50 in most (80-90%) of my casting. It's my favorite all-purpose alloy.

Use it in 38/.357, 44 special and mag, 9mm, 10mm, .357 max TC (1900fps), SKS with the Lee 2R bullet (1950fps).

[**oneshot**]

I'm in on the 412640 myself. Look me up when you get yours. I'm assuming you have a size die for your lubrisizer. If not, go to buffalo arms and get one for 411 from the sound of it. I have a few sizers and one gun likes on and the other likes a slightly larger boolit. At the velocity your shooting 50-50 should work fine.

[Defcon-One]

At the risk of pissing half of you off...

Water dropping isn't worth the extra effort!

The correct process for quench hardening cast boolits is to size them, then heat them to just before slump, remaining at that temp for 30 minutes, then quench them in cold water. (The bullets should be sized before hardening, then lubed after!)

If you drop hot bullets into cold water from the mold, you get a marginal heat treat at best and when you size and lube them in the next step, you anneal the surface back toward its original softer state. (They may actually come out softer than when they started the process!)

If you size them after water dropping, you are just annealing them and undoing everything that you just did.

My advice is; Find the right size for your revolvers, check cylinder forcing cone diameter as well as bore diameter and do the best you can based on both (Hopefully they are close, with the bore .001" or so tighter!). Also, finding the right alloy is much easier than water dropping and the results using the same alloy every time will be much more repeatable with much less effort!

Once you answer the sizing question, try COWWs with 1% Tin!