Annealed vs. Age Hardened Cast Bullets

[detox]

The Cast Bullet Association web site is down :(

Per Veral Smith: The purpose of annealing is to obtain the lowest possible hardness of a given lead alloy. Alloys which age harden when air cooled after casting will age harden again to approximately that same hardness within two weeks after annealing.

To anneal any lead alloy: Place in oven at 350 deg F for one hour, turn off oven and allow to cool slowly in oven. The lowest possible hardness will be obtained with a very slow cooling rate.

I will test annealed vs. age hardened

[marlinman93]

Afraid I can't shoot up everything I cast in one session in two weeks, so I guess all my bullets will be age hardened. Never found any issues with mine, so I wont be annealing and trying to shoot faster.

[curator]

Needing quite a few .454" round balls for a cap & ball class I was going to teach, I got out my Lee 6-cavity mould and some 50/50 SO/CO Wheel Weight alloy and getting carried away made about 1500 of them. I have been working off this supply for the past year or so by annealing them in the aforementioned 350 degree oven and cooling slowly the night before shooting. Annealed they test a shade over 6 BHN and load smooth as butter in my C&B revolvers. After one week they are noticeably more difficult to load and after two weeks will nearly bend the loading rod and test 11-12 BHN. Occasionally if I don't have time to size boolits right after casting, I will oven-anneal them to make it easier to push them through the sizing die. This is particularly helpful with Linotype and other high antimonial alloys.