Bullet Cooling

[roscoe]

When I was casting many years ago, when the bullets fell from the mold they were on a towel. Later when they all cooled I picked them up and went to the next step.

I see some folks are dropping their cast bullets into a container with water. Other than cooling them faster, is there any other reason this is done?

[Seeker]

Water dropping boolits that have antimony in the mix will be harder than air cooled. Even harder when aged a couple of weeks.

[bangerjim]

Water dropping Sb-containing alloys can and will give you gained hardness.

How much? Get out your ouija board. Only controlled heat treating can give you repeatable numbers.

I do it only to get cold boolits, not to gain hardness, as when I bake the PC @400F, all that gained hardness goes away. I mix my alloys for the air cooled hardness I want. Use the free alloy calc spreadsheet on here to determine your desired mix hardness for A/C'ing.

"Many years ago" all those in the know preached hard alloys. Today "fit is king", not hardness. You can shoot much softer alloys, especially if you PC them. Unless you going for some uber-hard rifle boolit for 4K FPS, you do not need the hard stuff of the by-gone eras for general usage. I cast and shoot 9-12 hardness + PC for almost everything subsonic.

banger

[Nueces]

Yessir, there is. With enough alloying elements, such as antimony and arsenic, the water cooling results in increased bhn hardness, right up to and past linotype hardness, from less expensive alloys.

[tazman]

I water drop for convenience but the added hardness is a good benefit.
Fit is king but the hardness helps with accuracy in my revolvers. The transition from the cylinder into the barrel can be a little tough on the boolit if the cylinder alignment is off. Harder boolits survive this better.
In a semi-auto pistol the rules are a bit different. You don't need much hardness as long as the boolits fit/seal the throat well. Sometimes you can use a softer alloy and bump it up to seal the barrel using the pressure created by firing the cartridge.

[quilbilly]

I water drop for convenience but the added hardness is a good benefit.
Fit is king but the hardness helps with accuracy in my revolvers. The transition from the cylinder into the barrel can be a little tough on the boolit if the cylinder alignment is off. Harder boolits survive this better.
In a semi-auto pistol the rules are a bit different. You don't need much hardness as long as the boolits fit/seal the throat well. Sometimes you can use a softer alloy and bump it up to seal the barrel using the pressure created by firing the cartridge.
What he says

[GhostHawk]

I started water dropping after reading about it here. Started small, soon found a container with high enough sides to keep water drops from flying randomly around. The more I did it the easier it was, now I am water dropping most boolits for convenience if nothing else.

I just get one hand wet once I am done casting. My container is a yellow childs sand bucket. Bit over a gallon in size, taller than an ice cream bucket, but smaller.

Drag bullets out, roll them on a towel, check for poor bases or incomplete fill out, then 2-3 light coats of Ben's Liquid lube. Rifle, Pistol, Pistol caliber carbine it is quick, simple, bullets are cast, cooled, checked if needed, lubed and ready to load in a couple of hours.

This includes .314 90 and 155 gr boolits for my pair of mosin's. Book says over (Ed Harris load) of Red Dot with 150 gr they are doing 1750-1800 fps. Just checked both Mosins with my new USB endoscope from evilbay, no leading. Period.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

I don't think there is much antimony in my mix, but it is mostly range scrap so I suspect there is some.
Bullets I am casting are not what I would consider hard, still can mark them with thumbnail. But they are harder than pure lead. So unless someone is going to send me a hardness tester, that is all the information you get.

Call me a happy camper, the rifles shoot, easy and cheap to make and load, accuracy is probably not in the 1-1.5 MOA range, but is getting closer to that all the time.

[Brotherbadger]

As others have said, depending on what your bullet has in it, it will make it harder than air cooling.