A question for Mr. Know-It-All

[KYCaster]

I've been casting my own boolits for quite some time(1968 or so), mostly for handguns and more recently for rifles. I've been selling my cast boolits for ~15 yrs. or so, mainly to the IPSC crowd. These guys aren't too picky...as long as the boolits are cheap, they don't have to scrub lots of lead out of their barrel and it hits somewhere close to the sights, they're happy...oh, did I mention CHEAP.

I have always relied on four basic alloys. #1...20/1...for BPCR...I don't use much of this, mainly for a couple of friends who aren't into competition and also for .38 wadcutters.

#2...range scrap...recovered from an indoor range. Basically interchangeable with 20/1 if you're not too picky about your alloy's pedigree. I've been using quite a bit more of this recently...as is and also mixed 50/50 with WW.

#3...ACWW...Seems like almost everything from 900 to 2000 fps.+ in handgun and rifle does well with this; it seems to take care of almost everything I've been shooting lately and I've been changeing to this alloy for some of my commercial boolits recently without any complaints from customers...it works well.

#4...92/6/2...The "Industry Standard"...works very well in the high pressure semi-autos like 9mm, 10mm, 40S&W, 38Super, but isn't necessary in .45ACP and moderate loads in .38/.357 and .44spl/mag.

My point is...I have always relied on the inherent hardness of the basic alloy to achieve the level of performance I expect from the boolit I'm using...which leads to my question...actually more than one question:

What do you expect to accomplish by heat treating? Does your 18BHN WQWW perform any different than my AC 92/6/2? Does your 22BHN oven HTWW perform any different than AC Linotype? Is there a difference in ductillity or obturation or expansion at the target that makes the extra step worth the effort?

Also...Lyman's #2 alloy(90-5-5), has quite a bit more Tin than required to get the Antimony into solution. Does this extra Sn add anything to the performance of the alloy? Do you guys add 2% Sn to your WW just to enhance fillout or does the 95-2.5-2.5 alloy perform similar to Lyman #2? Is there something to this Sn=Sb ratio that works better?

I'd like to hear your comments.

Jerry

P.S. Extra points if Mr. Know-It-All answers in a Bullwinkle voice.:mrgreen:

[S.R.Custom]

I don't put any special demands on my cast bullets-- 1000 fps is about as fast as any of 'em go, rifle or pistol, and they get used for punching paper, rounding up renegade beer cans, or ringing the 200 meter gong. When I want serious, predictable, high performance from a bullet, I reach for the little green boxes.

That said, what water quenching does for me is that it absolves me from any concern whatsoever about alloys. If it's a lead like substance, it get thrown in the smelting pot, and turnied into muffin ingots. Then it gets turned into bullets, whether they be .45 ACP chunks, .44 SWCs, or 245 grainers for the .358 Winchester. Water quenched, my mystery alloy works for all of 'em. It's cheap, easy, and requires no great mental effort on my part.

[trickyasafox]

I water quench cause its easier- I don't have to worry about bullets denting, or mis forming while cooling- or burning myself on bullets not yet cooled.

[9.3X62AL]

92/6/2 is pretty much my "default" rifle alloy, and gets used in high-pressure handgun applications. Low or moderate pressure handgun calibers (38 Special, 32 S&W Long, 45 ACP) get WW metal, sometimes sweetened a little with a fist-full of foundry type in the 22# RCBS bottom-pour.

[NuJudge]

What do you expect to accomplish by heat treating? Does your 18BHN WQWW perform any different than my AC 92/6/2? Does your 22BHN oven HTWW perform any different than AC Linotype? :

I cast Wheelweight metal with a little Tin for fluidity. I drop bullets into a 5-gallon bucket to harden and for ease of material handling. Many of my barrels have a lot of tool marks in the barrels, and they Lead a bit if the bullets are not hard. Water-dropped, Leading from Lead bullets is a thing of the past with Gas-checked rifle bullets up to 2200 fps, Gas-checked pistol up to 1400 fps, Lead pistol up to 1000 fps or so.

I've never done any formal hardness tests, I just want the bullets such that a finger nail can mar the surface finish, but not gouge the surface.

I've recently recovered a lot of .45 acp and 9mm bullets shot into bowling pins. I was impressed how identifiable my bullets were. The rifling marks were scrubbed off, but they were otherwise very much as before shooting.

The response to heat treatment will be greater when section sizes are smaller. After water dropping 6.5mm Cruise Missiles a little while ago, I was impressed that after drying, if one dropped one of them on concrete they 'rang'. They also did not show any mark from having been dropped.

CDD

[shotstring]

For me, quenching has always been cheaper than adding expenisive linotype to the alloy and if dropped in a bucket of water at time of casting, takes no additional time or effort whatsoever except a little more muscle during the sizing stage.

I have never quenched using an oven first, but the ability to size a softer boolit and have more control over final BHN has given me the desire to at least try it.

[Buckshot]

..............Water quenching WW is like getting something for nothing. Very simply you can make the humble WW alloy act like a much more 'noble' mixture. Linotype was THE high performance alloy. It was hard, and it was easy to get good slugs due to the high tin content. But you just can't get linotype metal anytime you want it, unless you're willing to pay commodity prices for it. So WD'ing WW alloy gives you that hardness ( or even more) simply by dropping in water.

..............Buckshot

[The Double D]

A long time ago it seem that water dropped bulets for me came out rounder than those dropped on a pad. They took less effort to size and seemed in my mind to have less distortion from the sizing. Shooting combat pistol matches with a .41 Mag Model 58 at ranges normally under 25 yards the difference in accuracy was not discernable.

When I went to shooting big bullets, water quencing was such a habit that I just did it.

In order to use all my use or loose leave this month I only have work Mondays. I think this would be a good time to conduct an experiment.

I am going to crank the pot up and cast up some bullets. Half I will water drop and half towel drop. These are some big bullets .464-480 and .468-480. I'll get back to you.

[Bret4207]

For me WQWW is an easy way to mimic a more expensive, hard to obtain alloy like Lino without the bad habits of lino- brittleness. WQWW seems to retain the ductility of WW, it mushrooms more or less instead of shattering. It also seems to be tougher and to resist stripping in the rifling more than ACWW. This is all based on limited experimentation and that why I say it "seems" to do this and that. The more I work with cast, the less I believe any hard and fast "rules" apply to this hobby.

[Bass Ackward]

My point is...I have always relied on the inherent hardness of the basic alloy to achieve the level of performance I expect from the boolit I'm using...which leads to my question...actually more than one question:

1. What do you expect to accomplish by heat treating? Does your 18BHN WQWW perform any different than my AC 92/6/2?

2. Does your 22BHN oven HTWW perform any different than AC Linotype? Is there a difference in ductillity or obturation or expansion at the target that makes the extra step worth the effort?

3. Also...Lyman's #2 alloy(90-5-5), has quite a bit more Tin than required to get the Antimony into solution. Does this extra Sn add anything to the performance of the alloy? Do you guys add 2% Sn to your WW just to enhance fillout or does the 95-2.5-2.5 alloy perform similar to Lyman #2? Is there something to this Sn=Sb ratio that works better?

I'd like to hear your comments.

Jerry

P.S. Extra points if Mr. Know-It-All answers in a Bullwinkle voice.:mrgreen:


Jerry,

It sounds like you had a .... customer complaint. :grin:

1A. Handgun velocities? Probably not much, but it could. Just depends on what problem you have to solve. Let's say you have a new revolver that has throats larger than bore and you want to shoot bore sized bullets at lower velocities / pressures. If you mix 50/50 WW and pure and then water drop that, the outside will measure 18 BHN and the core will be softer since the mix borders on HT ability.

The larger the bullet diameter, the softer the center will be down to AC levels. Softer the center, the faster the bullet seals to prevent gas cutting and blowing off the lube. The hard outer prevents galling or abrasion from a tool marked bore. So you might say that gives you a wider flexible powder speed operating range especially with PB bullets. GCs, not as much. If you have a properly broken in firearm and you match your powder speed to the bullet hardness so pressure comes up rapidly enough to seal, it's doubtless you will need or see a difference unless you are truly anal.

1B. Rifle means the hardness not to gall, but expansion upon impact would be better in those cases where expansion is more likely. Since the antimony content is less, more uniform bullet integrity upon expansion will result without the use of tin.

2A&B. Cheap sourse for 22 BHN. You already paid for the heat during molding, why not use it? Problem is that you don't always get even numbers unless you wait for a long time. I had 280 grain, WDWW that ranged from 24 to 28 BHN when first water dropped that one year later, all bullets were uniform at 20 BHN and have stayed there after 15 years. But if minute gas cutting with hard bullets is a problem, lino melts at 450 degrees where WDWW won't until almost 600 degrees.

3. Trusting my memory: During Lyman's testing, they found that antimony did not bind to lead very well. But it binds better and more evenly to tin. That's why when you have tin in any mix, it won't HT as well or as hard as plain WW. Plain WW will HT harder than lino that has 3 times more antimony. And this has been my problem with 50/50 WW and pure. The tin in my WW prevents most HT period. So there is no need for tin in a 50/50 mix.

Tin will not allow the separation lattice of antimony to form. So, a bullet upon impact that is soft enough TO deform at a certain velocity level, will hold together better with tin. Which is why you hear some guys complain of bullet break-up with either lino or HTWW. If neither mix deforms much, you are OK. If either mix deforms enough, shattering or break-up is a good possibility. It's just a matter of time. IF a bullet's going to deform, then you are better off with less antimony and enough tin to hold it.

Since the antimony does separates from the lead during HT, Lyman believed that antimony in a bullet will not be uniform binding better and cooling faster in some spots. This will cause a weight imbalance, which is why long range comps are mostly lead / tin only. The tin makes the bullet more uniform and thus better balanced for flight. So Lyman used antimony to achieve the hardness they wanted to achieve balanced that with an equal percentage of tin. 90,5,5 was the result.

But if you have been casting since 68, you already know this. So was this just a pressure relief post? :grin:

[beagle]

I heat treat for two applications. #1 is for use in microgroove rifling when any help is welcome. #2 When shooting cast in the .223 as I'm pushing them pretty hard.

I have heat treated in teh past but got rid of teh MG .30/30 and now, I use babbitt to harden and toughen the .22s for the .223./beagle

[deltaenterprizes]

Quenching is to get a harder bullet with a cheap readily available alloy like wheelweights.Tin while adding a little hardness mainly helps with bullet fill out.

[KYCaster]

But if you have been casting since 68, you already know this. So was this just a pressure relief post? :grin:


Well, Bass, not exactly...on both counts. Although I've been casting for a while, my experience with heat treating lead is exactly zero. And most of the information in these responses has been posted many times before, but not all in the same place. I lack the patience and computer savvy to find what I'm looking for so a few questions put it all together so even I can understand.

There were no real surprises here, but I did get a better understanding of the reasons for heat treating. I did find SuperMag's response interesting. That's the first time I've seen that reasoning and I can see where it would work very well for him.

Like Al, 92-6-2 is my go-to alloy, mainly because I always have plenty of it available, but also because I've found that it works well for a wide veriety of applications. Other shooter's reports of their experiences with WQWW and HTWW, especially in MG barrels, seems to agree very closely with my results with 92-6-2.

Bret's comments about expanding boolits are very interesting. I've seen a few references to this in other posts and was hoping somebody would report some test results vs. other hunting bullets/boolits. Maybe BruceB can be persueded to include some of this in his expansion tests.[smilie=1:

One of my reasons for avoiding HTing is the changing hardness over extended periods of storage. During a recent move I found some of my earliest attempts at dual alloy boolits, cast in the mid eighties. Also found some 35Rem loads my son and I loaded for his first deer hunt...he was 11 then...he's 31 now. What I cast today may not be shot for many years to come and my fear of changing hardness sometime down the road has affected my desire to HT. Now Bass and others recently have reported their HT alloys stabilizing after a relatively short time. That's encouraging.

NuJudge gets all the available extra points. Even though he "can't do Bullwinkle" his Rocky impersonation is acceptable...nobody else even made an attempt.:confused: Please use your points wisely.

Oh, Bass, this doesn't have anything to do with coustomer complaints. There aren't many people willing to pay the price I'd have to charge for HT boolits. Most complaints I hear are from guys who never used any of my boolits. When somebody stops to look, his buddy will say, "I shot some lead bullets once and...", very discouraging. Most of my customer relation problems are because people DON'T complain when there is a problem, they just quit buying from me. I never get a chance to make it right because I never know there is a problem...but that's a whole 'nuther topic.

Thanks to everyone for their input. When you want info about cast boolits, this is the place to find it.

Jerry

[Bass Ackward]

Bret's comments about expanding boolits are very interesting. I've seen a few references to this in other posts and was hoping somebody would report some test results vs. other hunting bullets/boolits. Maybe BruceB can be persueded to include some of this in his expansion tests.[smilie=1: Jerry


Jerry,

1. All bullets hardness's and mixes break up under the right conditions. No bullet guarantees 100 % weight retention.

2. There is little difference between accelerating a bullet and slowing one down. Shear forces are focused in the middle of a slug as is obturation force. Wider meplats increase shear forces by having more area exposed to them. Higher RPMs increase shear effects.

3. Any bullet that breaks up loses some percentage of frontal area. Hard bullets tend to break into a wedge or pointy shape do to their lack of ductility in general. This shape, uncorrected, may alter bullet path, but definitely loses shock producing effect.

4. A bullet needs enough velocity so that if or when the front breaks, it can begin to mushroom again and repair itself. Too many impact variables for anyone to list, predict. Because pure soft lead is difficult to launch with cast, softer metal which is more ductile to begin with, has a better chance of hanging together and then morphing into a working (shock producing) shape than a hard bullet if it does break or not.

5. It's all about the odds. Hard bullets work until they don't. Velocity which is limited with cast helps. Soft bullets will work longer. Heavy bullets make better hunting bullets. Bullet strength comes from bore diameter, not hardness.

Side Opinion: That's why I believe that 35 bore is ideal for hunting with cast. Slowest twist rate for bullet weight / length. Highest velocity with enough bullet weight. Strong enough bullet diameter for impact, but high enough velocity and small enough diameter to readily reshape itself especially with softer metal. All other diameters lose some flexibility with faster twist, smaller diameter that can't withstand impact without copper to contain it, or too large a diameter and therefore too strong to expand it well a second time before velocity is lost.

That's my experience.

[Bret4207]

To clear couple points up, I agree with Bass on the 35 cal completely. As for the mushrooming I mentioned- Keep in mind this is compared to very hard Lino boolits driven fast. My experience is very limited, but from the little I've seen Lino does seem to have a tendency to shatter or break up even in damp sand where WCWW tends to mushroom to a certain extent. The design was the same in both cases, the RCBS 180FN from a 308 Savage 99 driven to about 2200fps with 4895 or 4320 IIRC. I can say that WCWW will retain it's ductile nature down into the 1300 fps range out of a Savage 23 32WCF with the Lyman 311316. I once did a test I reported on Shooters just before it went down with a variety of cartridge combos on a heifer carcass (this was the infamous heifer I lost to a wad of Walmart bags she ate!). Recovered boolits showed similar expansion with ACWW and WCWW so I determined form that limited test that water cooling/quenching doesn't make the boolit hard all the way through. My idea could be wrong and I'm open to other views.

[Ricochet]

Haven't done the expansion testing shooting, but I have hammered WCWW boolits and squeezed them with pliers and seen that they're quite malleable.

[BAGTIC]

I heat mine in an oven for two reasons.

First, when dropping them into a water pail I sometimes get splashes. On a couple ocassions those droplets went high enough to land in my lead pot.

Second is that sometimes a bullet gets hung up in the mold and it takes more than one try to get it to drop. I figured that consistency of the heat treating would be somewhat dependent on all the bullets being the same temperature when they are dropped. Once a bullet is in the bucket I couldn't tell which one dropped 2 seconds after I cut the sprue and which one 30 seconds. By batch treating them I know they were all the same temperature when they took the plunge.

[Ricochet]

I oven treat mine, too, when I'm very concerned about uniformity of hardness. But I water drop them all because it's far easier.

A small drop of water landing on the molten lead in the pot goes SSS! Just like dropping it on a hot stove top. (Yes, I've tried it.) The Tinsel Fairy comes when something carries that water below the surface. I have my pot up on a high counter and stand to use it, with the bucket on the floor. Never have managed to splash a drop up there, anyway. With the mould preheated and kept hot by casting, drops that splash on the mould are always gone before I can refill the cavities. Always wear eye protection when you're casting.

[Lee]

+1 for that. Always wear eye protection when you're casting. Or smelting. Or shooting. You can't shoot at what you can't see.........................Lee:wink:

[joatmon]

Hay Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!

[KYCaster]

That trick never works!