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Evoken
01-29-2023, 11:59 AM
Good morning gents,
I just cast, coated, and sized a batch of 38 boolits for my snubby out of 20:1 that I made from pure and 50/50 solder. Do lead tin alloys benefit from age hardening like coww and lino based alloys? I won't be loading any for a week or 2 anyway, just a curiosity.

I'm sure this has been covered before, but I have very little luck with our search function.

Thanks,
Ken

JSnover
01-29-2023, 02:34 PM
I don't believe there is much to worry about with lead/tin alloys. If you had antimony there would be some age-hardening.
Water-quenching might make for a more stable boolit in any case.

Dusty Bannister
01-29-2023, 04:16 PM
Lead and tin mixes do not heat treat harden, they age soften.

http://www.lasc.us/HeatTreat.htm

mehavey
01-29-2023, 04:23 PM
Binary doesn't do much of anything after casting.
And 20:1 is only ever going to be in the high "7s"

Evoken
01-29-2023, 04:32 PM
Great, thanks fellas. That is what I thought and exactly what I'm after. I powder coated them for a hard candy shell and wanted them to stay nice and soft for expansion.

For what it is worth the boolit is the lee wfn 158gr. So far I like it cast with 50/50 coww and lead as far as accuracy out of the snubby. I am not getting much expansion though, which is why I am trying a softer alloy.