Heat Treating

[shooter93]

If the speed in which you go from oven to water quench is important...has anyone run experiments to try waithing different lenghts of time before quenching to lessen the hardening effect. Like you don't want bn 30 but more like bhn 25 without the extra step of tempering. And i wonder if this could be consistently done. Thanks

[grumpy one]

I control the hardness of heat treated bullets by adjusting the oven temperature, and thus the severity of the quench. It works quite well across a wide range of desired hardness outcomes. You should be able to achieve the same thing by tempering after a maximum quench, but it may be more difficult to control and in any case requires an additional operation.

[shooter93]

So what temperatures for how long give you what hardness?...Make any sense?....I've tempered but was curious if a timed length before the quench would do the same. Thanks.

[DLCTEX]

The time would be varied by so many different things, such as ambient temperature, air currents(fan blowing), caliber and weight of boolit, alloy,etc. Someone may be able to give rough guidelines, but your results will vary. The only way to know is to test it and then repeat in exact conditions with exact components. A good IR thermometer would be a great aid. DALE

[BABore]

I found that OHTing to max hardness, then oven annealing, is the most accurate. You have less variables involved when annealing. Time at heat is irrelivant once the boolits are up to temp. Your only variable then is temperature. Shut the oven off and remove once cool.

[cbrick]

Remarkably accurate BHN ranges can be obtained with oven HT by selecting the oven temp. Here's an article where I tested just that and list the results in a chart.

Heat Treating Lead/Antimony/Arsenic Alloys (http://www.lasc.us/HeatTreat.htm)

Much quicker and simpler than the extra step of annealing and is as or more accurate.

Rick