Hardness Tester needed for Ingots

[brown bass hunter]

I bought an estate of reloading/casting equipment and got about 500 lbs of ingots (not sure of composition). I have some pure soft lead to mix and I would like to know the hardness of the ingots without having to cast a bullet first and then test. I know some bullet hardness testers use a bullet and can not use a large piece of lead to test. Any info would be helpful.

[GlocksareGood]

Cabin tree tester will do just about any flat sided ingot. Will do 22lb lintotype ingots.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

you can measure the hardness of any ingot you can fit in a reloading press, using the inexpensive Lee tester.

I've found measuring ingots isn't always gonna tell you the exact hardness of what that alloy will cast a boolit. Several factors involved, mostly boolits cool faster than ingots, the faster the cooling, the harder...although if the ingots were "cooled" after pouring, like placing the ingot mold on a wet towel, that could effect the hardness the other way, if you were going to compare them to air cooled boolits...this is all assuming your ingots are a ternary alloy.
Jon

[rsrocket1]

Look here. (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?75455-Testing-hardness-with-pencils) 20 pages of really good information. You can get a set of pencils and have a pretty good idea of the harndess (even a close idea of BHN) for about $7.

[Dusty Bannister]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?5406-Lead-Testers&highlight=hardness+tester

Nice post from the past so you do not have to do the work over again.

[Alstep]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?125702-Genuine-Brinell-Hardness-Tester-Cheap

Here's another post. I have used the small arbor press idea, simple and spot on with results.

[jsizemore]

Here's a simple way to test your BHN. You need a known standard and a ball bearing. I use a 1/2" ball bearing because I found a dozen of them in a bucket of WW's I was sorting. I have some pure lead foundry ingots. I've used my 1 and 2 lb muffin ingots that have fairly parallel tops and bottoms and gotten consistent results. I've used a vise (really a pain) and an arbor or reloading press (gravity as your friend, much more better).
Here's the process. Make a ball bearing sandwich with your ingots as the bread and your ball bearing as the, well, the ball bearing. Squeeze the sandwich in your vise, arbor press or reloading press as little or as much as you desire. The force is equal to all parts of the sandwich so spare yourself maximum exertion. But please, satisfy your curiosity about the results by trying hard and easy force. The fun part is over and now you get to do some math. Take your mic and measure the diameter of the indent in each ingot. Take the diameter of your known sample and divide it by the unknown sample's diameter. Square the result. Now multiply that times the BHN of your known sample. You now have the BHN of your unknown sample.
I didn't come up with this method. Nobody has asked for a copyright for it's use by the general public. Please share but don't eat the sandwich. And your right, it can't be as good a result as achieved with the high dollar widget. It will get you in the ballpark for little cost.

[Clay M]

I like the Cabin Tree tester. To me it is worth the money because I have a lot of different alloys I am working with. It is easy to use and accurate.

[bangerjim]

Cabine.......all the way. You will NOT be sorry for spending more to get one!

I have a Lee and never use it anymore. Waste of $80.00 Too finicky and too hard to use.

banger

[cbrick]

As was mentioned already, what will determine the final hardness of a Pb/Sb alloy is the rate of cooling. An ingot will cool much slower than the small mass of a boolit so a BHN tested ingot will give a different reading than boolits cast from that ingot. If your dealing with a pure or nearly pure lead it doesn't matter if it's BHN tested, it will be right at 5-6 BHN regardless of how it's cooled.

Rick

[brown bass hunter]

Wow, I am still amazed at the mass of info I get from the experts here. I have some research and reading to do now. I don't mind to spend a little extra now for a tool that will not only last, but will give me the results I desire. Thanks again for the info and I will update as soon as I get a chance to put this to work.

[btroj]

Interesting, only two of the "experts" told you what really mattered.

The hardness of your ingots is meaningless. Bullets cool differently from ingots due to huge mass differences. An ingot may test far softer than bullets cast from it.

My opinion is that testing ingots is a waste of time. The information gathered isn't going to any more helpful than labeling them soft, medium, and hard.

[Dusty Bannister]

Meaningless?? Hardly, if you are just trying to sort by a range of hardness. In the original post, all he was asking for was a good hardness tester to seperate out the ingots. I believe he knows now, that the ingots may be different due to the cooling rate and size of the ingots. However, if he puts all the "x's" together and all the "y's" and "Z's" in their groups, then he can do the hardness test on a bullet sample and have a general expectation of some consistancy. Not perfect, but better than just random picking of ingots to toss into the melting pot.

Meaningless? Certainly not if you have Lino and type metal ingots mixed in with WW and range metal ingots. Been there, and appreciated the use of a hardness tester to sort things out. Not a lot of fun. But I saved my good stuff that way.

I might agree that the value would be less if you had several individuals making up those ingots, but most will aim for about the same temperture and unless really pressed for time or production limits, air cooling the ingots will not be as great an influence on the resulting hardness.

Dusty

[btroj]

He has unknown metal to start with. Testing the hardness will tell him little.

I would mix some of the unknown with some pure and do some test casting. See what works. Do they seem too hard? Soft? Adjust as needed to get the desired result the to from a small batch to large batches of reasonably known, and consistent alloy.

Hardness tells very little about composition. Ingots vary so much in cooling rate that hardness tells even less.

If you can't tell hard lead from soft lead by sound then you need to pay more attention.

[Clay M]

If you don't need a hardness tester then I suggest you don't buy one.Mine has save me a lot of time and trouble by being able to test a bullet. Better than casting up 200 bullets and finding out they lead the barrel.

[btroj]

Leading is often not a bullet hardness issue.

I managed for 30 years without a tester. Have had one just over a year. Mine is used 5 to 10 times per year.

Don't use hardness as a crutch

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

My post insinuated that measuring ingot hardness will be a waste of time...and that was intended ! I was feeling "gleefully tactful" when I typed that out...a rare occasion indeed.

I'm glad to see the OP plans on doing some research. Assuming he is a newbie, First he needs to figure out what the Target alloy/hardness will suit his situation. The link at the bottom of the page is a good guideline
http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm
Then he can figure out how to get there with his 500lbs of unknown, assuming it's all the same. You should be able to tell just by the "look", but adding the fingernail test and the drop test...and having some sample of known alloys to compare to, would be extremely helpful, as photo's and verbal descriptions only take you so far.

So, while most people starting out don't need a hardness tester, If you are starting out by buying known alloy's or at least Alloy's like COWW or Linotype, where you know the "ballpark" alloy. But if you are starting out scrounging scrap alloy or buying unknown alloy (like I did), then I strongly recomend a hardness tester.

The Lee is "for sure" adequate for the job. If you fish through all the posts evaluating and testing hardness testers, the Lee almost always comes out on top for repeatability. Now for ease of use ? probably near the bottom, Hence I call it adequate. It's not like you are gonna test hundreds of samples. But if you are ? The worst issue with the Lee is the Microscope and looking/measuring the dimple. When you find a good and steady way to hold the sample, and the microscope and a light source easily. Then the Lee works as easily and as well as any other hardness tester IMHO.

I copied Larry's idea. there are other ideas in this thread as well
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?169268-Lee-hardness-tester-stand&highlight=Hardness

[Clay M]

Leading is often not a bullet hardness issue.

I managed for 30 years without a tester. Have had one just over a year. Mine is used 5 to 10 times per year.

Don't use hardness as a crutch

I too have done without one for over thirty years,but I have really been enjoying the cabin tree. Wish I had it a long time ago.

[cbrick]

Mine has save me a lot of time and trouble by being able to test a bullet.

Precisely! Testing a boolit. NOT testing the ingot it came from and that is the difference in what is being talked about here.

Rick

[kcajeel]

I bought the lee tester first and used it with decent results but wasn't completely happy. I used it for a couple of years before I finally broke down and bought a Cabine Tree. Really I think the Cabine Tree is the best. It took me a while before I became confident in the results of the individual tests but you get better at it the more you use it.
I wish I'd have put up the money for the Cabine Tree first but I have a back up if I really need one.

[brown bass hunter]

Thanks again for all the info - hope I didn't stir a hornets nest with the subject. I guess I am a newbie, only been casting about 5 yrs. I use the soft lead add COWW and cast for my handguns. Have never really worried about bhn, but the new lead stash got me to wondering what it migh holdt. Looks line the cabine tree may be the best route for the long haul. I need to do some spring cleaning and clear out some molds and such to free up some $ and then I will take the plunge.

[badbob454]

a thumbnail hardness tester , cant scratch it ,, linotype or babbot , scratch it a little coww or range lead ,,, scratches a deep groove , soft lead .. it isnt rocket science , or the drop test higher the ring when dropped the harder , or pour thin strips of lead sheet , breaks easily hard . bends easily soft ... hope this dosent sound sarcastic dont mean it to be

[tazman]

badbobgerman wrote:a thumbnail hardness tester , cant scratch it ,, linotype or babbot , scratch it a little coww or range lead ,,, scratches a deep groove , soft lead .. it isnt rocket science

That's a nice rule of thumb

[Dusty Bannister]

I bought an estate of reloading/casting equipment and got about 500 lbs of ingots (not sure of composition). I have some pure soft lead to mix and I would like to know the hardness of the ingots without having to cast a bullet first and then test. I know some bullet hardness testers use a bullet and can not use a large piece of lead to test. Any info would be helpful.

There has been a lively discussion about the accuracy of testing bullet samples as compared with testing ingot samples. So I decided the best thing for me to do was run a simple test on my own with my Cornaggia hardness tester. I have verified the accuracy with pure samples of lead, Lyman #2 and linotype from Bill Ferguson. I find that my tester has an error in the low range, but from Lyman #2 and harder, it is correct with the data sheet on the Castingstuff site.

My sample slug is a Lee C501-440-RF. I chose that because it is long enough to fit easily in the tester and has a wide flat nose. My sample ingot is just a muffin tin ingot which I normally use for all ingots when cleaning alloy or blending casting alloy.
My casting alloy is 3 parts WW and 2 Parts Lino by weight and used for rifle castings.
My samples were cast on 2/25/2014 and air cooled.

Bullet indent .090+
Ingot indent .091+

I only tested the two samples so your alloy may have other variables. For me, the arguement of ingot or bullet samples is pretty much just a talking point, without any real meaning for MY purposes. In two more weeks, will the readings be the same? Probably not, but they will both be changing so likely will still be relatively close. If I had a lot of unknown ingots to try and seperate into various hardness groups, I would just do it and not get too critical about the difference in the sample forms.
As always, your results may be different. Dusty

[w5pv]

I use the pencil method fast, inexpensive and conclusive.Look in the stickies for info that I cannot remember for now.

[pdawg_shooter]

I bought a used cabin tree at an estate auction. I could test the same ingot 6 times and get 5 or 6 different readings. Sold it and bought a Lee and some powder and primers. The Lee tested the same ingots and came up with the SAME reading 5 out of 6 times. Slower? Yes but I believe way more accurate.

[bangerjim]

I bought a used cabin tree at an estate auction. I could test the same ingot 6 times and get 5 or 6 different readings. Sold it and bought a Lee and some powder and primers. The Lee tested the same ingots and came up with the SAME reading 5 out of 6 times. Slower? Yes but I believe way more accurate.

You must have had a lemon. I can test same ingot 6 times and get almost the same reading.

banger

[pdawg_shooter]

You must have had a lemon. I can test same ingot 6 times and get almost the same reading.

banger

Must have been. The guy I sold it to messed with it a few weeks and sold it too. He bought a used LBT he found in a pawn shop in Denver.

[Gussy]

I've had that twice. Once was simple lack of lube/rust on the plunger. Second was a bad plunger with a burr on the end of the threads.

Send it back and it will be fixed or replaced, no charge.

[pdawg_shooter]

To late, it is already gone. Besides the shipping both ways would be more than what the Lee tester cost me. It is a bit slow, but I dont have all that many ingots to test. When I smelt a test every 5th ingot from a pot full and stamp all the ingots with that BHN.

[Gussy]

To late, it is already gone. Besides the shipping both ways would be more than what the Lee tester cost me. It is a bit slow, but I dont have all that many ingots to test. When I smelt a test every 5th ingot from a pot full and stamp all the ingots with that BHN.

Shipping is $12.00