Water Drop PC

[Sliver Shooter]

Do you guys recommend WD when PCing? I read about the lead being changed with the high degree of heat. Is that an issue? Another question is the temp that you heat these up to, some guys that PC small parts talk about 350 degrees for a heat. Here it's 400 degrees as the number. I'm not sure if the lower temp would cause less of a tempering issue. ??? I am so excited about this PC idea. I love it. It's the easy answer to cast boolit issues. Makes some might nice looking boolits to.

[Maximumbob54]

I've tried WD'ing them after coating and not in .40SW and didn't find it did anything different. Rifle alloy like lino might be different though.

[C. Latch]

In theory, if you could cure the PC at temps of, say, 375 or less, you would have little if any impact on the bullet's temper.

If you get to 400 degrees, you'll have some impact on temper; at 425 degrees you're certainly going to either anneal it if you air-cool or harden it if you water quench.

[popper]

Below 200F, there is no difference. Even with HiTek coating, temper is not retained when heated for 10 min. Basically if you want HT hardening, WD them. IIRC, freightman or leadman ran tests on lino, only gained back 1/2 BHN.

[Sliver Shooter]

I have some boolits that I use in my Springfield Trapdoor that I would like maybe to be on the softer side. Forgive me if I'm not getting this but if I PC at 400 degrees and air dry will they be a bit softer and for caliburs like the .223, if I WD them they may get a bit harder? My Trapdoor has a larger bore as do most and the PC without sizing, will fill that void some. That and if they bump up because of the hollow base, when fired in the gun they would be a nice fit. With this PC thing, I don't see me ever having to buy the J-word boolits again. It would be a matter of getting the right recipie for each calibur, with booit hardness, PC and volocity.

[popper]

Sliver - it will depend on the alloy. 1:20 or so won't harden much. 92/6/2 will age harden (AC). No different than WD, except the plastic coating limits the upper temp a bit.

[bangerjim]

We PC boolits to eliminate leading AND......to no worry about hardness anymore! Why worry about WD when you have the excellent protection from the PC over the lead??????

WD'ing is an old old process of trying to squeeeeeeeeze that last bit of hardness out of an antimony alloy. With PC, we do not worry about that anymore!

As mentioned above, dropping at <400F will gain you very little as opposed to dropping at ~600 right out of your mold.

And you do NOT need a special "brew" for each cal. With PC, I throw boolits around 10-12 bhn for everything pistolee cal (9/38/40/45). Usually 12-14 or so for higher velocity rifles. But again, all PC'd.

bangerjim

[Maximumbob54]

My end goal is to see if I can do all handgun ammo with range scrap to include magnums. All rifle ammo I want to keep using close to a Lyman #2 alloy only because the limited good results I've had with rifle so far were when I used around that hardness of bullet.

[felix]

Smart, very smart. ... felix

[prickett]

We PC boolits to eliminate leading AND......to no worry about hardness anymore! Why worry about WD when you have the excellent protection from the PC over the lead??????

Unfortunately, you still need to be concerned with hardness to a certain extent. For example, try to PC some un-alloyed lead and see what happens (or, just let me tell you - very poor accuracy and possible leading). I know. I tried it. Think of it this way - the PC is durable, but not hard, so it doesn't necessarily maintain the lead's shape - rather, it just stretches - and in some cases, stretches too far and "rips".

You can use softer lead than you can with traditional lube, but there is still a limit.

[sd61]

Unfortunately, you still need to be concerned with hardness to a certain extent. For example, try to PC some un-alloyed lead and see what happens (or, just let me tell you - very poor accuracy and possible leading). I know. I tried it. Think of it this way - the PC is durable, but not hard, so it doesn't necessarily maintain the lead's shape - rather, it just stretches - and in some cases, stretches too far and "rips".

You can use softer lead than you can with traditional lube, but there is still a limit.

+1
PC coating gives you a nice, harder than lead alloy shell, but it's only about .002" thick and does nothing (or very little, that is) to improve your boolit toughness.

[bangerjim]

Unfortunately, you still need to be concerned with hardness to a certain extent. For example, try to PC some un-alloyed lead and see what happens (or, just let me tell you - very poor accuracy and possible leading). I know. I tried it. Think of it this way - the PC is durable, but not hard, so it doesn't necessarily maintain the lead's shape - rather, it just stretches - and in some cases, stretches too far and "rips".

You can use softer lead than you can with traditional lube, but there is still a limit.

Never said you could shoot dead soft PC'd lead. You need harder. Anyone that does is asking for a lot of digging in their barrels.

That is why I use ~12 for everything! It has enough "hardness" to maintain the geometry under the PC, and not use a ton of harder alloy material shooting non-sonic loads.

By backing off on the mix, I have enough harder alloy to mix in to make at least 1.2 tons of boolits at 12! That is what I like about PC. I can always "goose up" the mix if I need to.

banger

[xyankeeworkshop]

With the roughly 50-50 percentage of store-bought hardcast bullets versus jacketed in the range scrap I'm smelting, I have not had any problems casting, coating, and shooting pistol rounds with just that material.

I'll save my increasingly hard to find wheel weights for rifle boolits.