Hardness

[Welderduck]

Hey everyone I just joined and I am getting stuff together to try my hand at casting boolits. I have a question concerning hardness. Can anyone give me a ball park Brinell hardness if you mix clip on wheel weights to pure lead evenly. Like 10 pounds of wheel weights to 10 pounds of pure lead? I will be coating my boolits and will be casting 124 grain 9 mm and 230 grain 45 acp. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[RobS]

current wheel weights with straight lead 50/50, 8-9 BHN. Probably a bit soft for 9mm ok for 45 acp.

[Welderduck]

current wheel weights with straight lead 50/50, 8-9 BHN. Probably a bit soft for 9mm ok for 45 acp.

Thanks! What would be a good ratio for the 9 mm?

[slim1836]

I use straight clip on wheel weights for modern weapons (.30 rifles and .45ACP's) and pure for all my black powder weapons. Seems to work fine for me for general shooting out to 100 yards. I have never checked for BHN. YMMV

Slim

[RobS]

WW alloy is typically what I use for handgun boolits. I only use 50/50 or 60/40 straight lead to wheel weight for 45 acp hollowpoints. Although if you are trying to conserve alloy and you are not coating bullets you could try 50/50 and water quench for the 9mm.

[huntnman]

I have had no problems using 50/50 co/soft mix for all of my .380, 9mm, 38,44,45, hollow points. I use a 75% clip on/ 25% soft for mag h.p. loads. I also do not hot rod them, two holes, one in and one out, has done the trick on all of the deer I've taken, with a 44mag handgun.

[Welderduck]

RobS, I will be coating using super coat and will not be loading to max. Just looking to target shoot and plink steel with.

[RobS]

I see then water quenching is out. Your pistols will tell you what works and what doesn't. You can always start softer and work toward harder alloy or visa versa.


RobS, I will be coating using super coat and will not be loading to max. Just looking to target shoot and plink steel with.

[leadman]

Welderduck, you can water quench your coated bullets after coating to increase the hardness if needed. I have done this many times for various reasons. You can also heat treat the bullets in an oven and water quench between coatings to help maintain the hardness.
If only water quenching after the last coat the hardness will take longer to be achieved and usually to a lower bhn. Should work fine for pistol loads.

[mold maker]

In a few of us, hardness is a state of mind. For most of us, hardness is overrated unless HP expansion or penetration is the desired effect. Among the rest of us it doesn't matter except with magnum loads.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Hey everyone I just joined and I am getting stuff together to try my hand at casting boolits. I have a question concerning hardness. Can anyone give me a ball park Brinell hardness if you mix clip on wheel weights to pure lead evenly. Like 10 pounds of wheel weights to 10 pounds of pure lead? I will be coating my boolits and will be casting 124 grain 9 mm and 230 grain 45 acp. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Welderduck,
welcome to the forum.
I moved your thread to this section, I hope you find all the answers to your questions.

My personal opinion, I would suggest to just start out with casting for your 45acp. The 50-50 alloy will be about as good as it gets for that caliber. Once you have some success with that, then try casting for 9mm. There are some pitfalls with the 9mm...spend some time reading about the 9mm and you'll have a head start.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?121607-Setting-up-for-boolits-in-a-new-9mm

[Traffer]

I use roughly 50/50 mix of WW and Pure lead for making my 22lr.

[Grmps]

https://i.imgur.com/VhCnBhO.png