What is Hard Cast?

[billmc2]

When companies like Buffalo Bore and Underwood (or whoever else) advertise hard cast bullets, does anyone know what hardness they are actually describing? Is it equivalent to Lyman #2 or Linotype or something else? I see Roto metals has a Hard Ball alloy, is this the same as hard cast? I'm just wondering what I could make at home that would be equivalent to what is advertised as hard cast.

[muskeg13]

Oh my! Won't this open a can of worms? Hard Cast in my personal casting and reloading dictionary are curse words used to describe a casual and lazy use of too hard alloy to cover for reloading ineptness in most cast bullet applications. While hard alloys have a place to provide reliability in situations calling for full metal jacket replacements, the majority of cast bullet reloading is best done with at most a Lyman #2 alloy, Brinell 16, or much softer. Linotype is even harder at BN 22. It's better to size and lube appropriately. "Hard Cast" is completely inappropriate for hunting and probably for most loads less than 2000 fps.

Softer is usually better. It costs less and does the job better, obturating and game performance.

Back to your question, the answer is in the description. https://www.rotometals.com/lyman-2-bullet-metal-5-pound-ingot-90-lead-5-tin-5-antimony/

[D.Bullets]

Its generally in the neighborhood of BHN 14 to 18. Sometimes much harder. You really need to match your loads Psi to the Hardness. Both too hard and too soft of a bullet will have problems. Column 2 is BHN thats suitable and column 4 is how much pressure it can take. The load PSI should be in your reloading manual. BHN can be reduced with PCing and GC. I am using 230gr. .338 at BHN of 18 with Gas Checks and with PCing = 2380fps @ 38275 Psi.

315319

[nicholst55]

IMHO, the term 'hard cast' is simply a marketing ploy used to deceive less knowledgeable cast bullet shooters. Let's take a look at my favorite supplier of 'hard cast' bullets, Oregon Trail. Their bullets are typically around a BHN of 22 - harder than linotype alloy. They cast them that way because it's easier for them; they don't have to worry about sourcing multiple alloys. The bullets are so hard that they won't be damaged or deformed during shipping, and will arrive looking 'pretty.' Same reason they use the hard, waxy blue crayon lube. It stays in place during shipping. It might even be a decent lube, but they use it because it stays in place. Such bullets are really too hard for about 95% of handgun usage.

ETA: Well smear my ears with jam and tie me to an anthill! I actually went to Oregon Trail's website and did some research. It turns out that my info is at least five (5) years out of date. Rim Rock Bullets bought out Oregon Trail and made some changes. One thing they changed was their bullet hardness. Most of their Laser Cast bullets seem to be between a BHN of 12-15. Their True Shot bullets all seem to have a hardness of 22. Another change is that the variety of bullets offered seems to be about 1/3 of what I recall it being. I sincerely hope that their endeavors are successful and financially profitable.

[cwlongshot]

HARD CAST. Is NOT A STANDARD hardness!!

TECHNICALLY, it is ANY hardness harder then pure lead...

You want to know a standard that you can repeat like BHN.

CW

[Thumbcocker]

Hard cast is the boolit equivalent of "match grade" or "low fat".

[Cast10]

I’m no expert, but, I believe it to be any alloy mixed to add a hardness to suit most calibers at moderate velocities, that with the boolit and lube will, in most cases, not lead the barrel. I’ve always figured it to be somewhere around Lyman #2, or harder. That’s my opinion, because my alloy is around 11.3 BHN. Should I water quench it, I’d consider it a Hard Cast. Maybe just a slang term in our work.

[dverna]

I do not depend on what a name says. I buy commercial alloy by its composition. I have fired 10's of thousands of 92-2-6 alloy rounds in pistols and have never had a problem. It is called "Hardball" alloy by some suppliers. It is what many commercial bullet casters use.

I do not hunt with cast so the comments of others should be heeded if that is your goal.

One thing that comes across from being here a few years is one alloy is unlikely to be the best for every application.

Some folks get anal about using the cheapest alloy that will work without leading and/or poor accuracy. I tend to KISS solutions and do not mind spending a bit more to get a wider "process window". My requirements value ease of use and accuracy above terminal performance or cost, and a "harder" alloy is more forgiving. When I need terminal performance, I use jacketed bullets. They are a better fit for the paltry number of bullets I use to harvest game.

[waksupi]

Oh my! Won't this open a can of worms? Hard Cast in my personal casting and reloading dictionary are curse words used to describe a casual and lazy use of too hard alloy to cover for reloading ineptness in most cast bullet applications. While hard alloys have a place to provide reliability in situations calling for full metal jacket replacements, the majority of cast bullet reloading is best done with at most a Lyman #2 alloy, Brinell 16, or much softer. Linotype is even harder at BN 22. It's better to size and lube appropriately. "Hard Cast" is completely inappropriate for hunting and probably for most loads less than 2000 fps.

Softer is usually better. It costs less and does the job better, obturating and game performance.

Back to your question, the answer is in the description. https://www.rotometals.com/lyman-2-bullet-metal-5-pound-ingot-90-lead-5-tin-5-antimony/

Nailed it.

[mnewcomb59]

I think the proper use of "hard cast" should come with a velocity at impact figure. 9 BHN is pretty "hard cast" at 850 fps impact and wfn bullets will look nearly unfired. 9 BHN is pretty soft at 1500 fps though and mushrooms. My most used alloy 2-2-96 is pretty hard when you water drop it after powder coat and fire it from a magnum revolver. Probably 14 BHN and 12-1400 fps impact velocity means a hole puncher, bone buster, etc and a small wound if you hit fleshy stuff. Same alloy at 1800-2000 fps impact in the rifle will moderately mushroom out to 75 yards and isn't what anybody would call hard when it mushrooms to 58 caliber.

As long as your BHN is close to your impact velocity you have "hard cast". From my water jug experimenting I verified what a lot of the old charts say: 10 BHN won't mushroom at 1000 fps, 15 BHN won't mushroom at 1500 fps, and 22 BHN heat treated won't mushroom at 2000 fps.

To answer the original question - you really have no idea what alloy buffalo bore is using. Probably 2-6-92 air cooled. 2-6-92 will get around 16 BHN and it is a brittle alloy compared to 3-3-94 heat treated to 16 BHN. What this means is that after you exceed roughly 1600 fps impact, the bullet will want to mushroom but since it is brittle the edges of the mushroom will crack off. I have seen 2-6-92 WFN bullets where the bullet presumably mushroomed into a wadcutter or a little further, then the entire outer ring of the meplat broke off leaving a pointed conical with about 90% weight retention.

[waco]

Commercial Bullet casters use hard alloy and crappy hard lube for one reason only. Shipping.
The bullets get handled and banged around a lot from point A to point B. They don’t want them getting dinged and dented. Plus, to the uninformed, harder is better right?

[mdi]

HARD CAST. Is NOT A STANDARD hardness!!

TECHNICALLY, it is ANY hardness harder then pure lead...

You want to know a standard that you can repeat like BHN.

CW

Yes! In my opinion (memory) "hard cast" was a term started by commercial casters, originally to differentiate between swaged and cast. Also many newer boolit shooters thought "harder is better" and the commercial casters gave them what they wanted, 18+ BHN. Today newer shooters use "hard cast" to mean almost any cast bullet. A term generated by ignorance and advertising ...

BTW. at what BHN does a bullet become "hard"? What is the official standard? Whenever I see someone use the term I immediately think of a new caster/boolit user that is not well versed in cast bullets, maybe wanting to sound like he is knowledgeable...

[Hanzy4200]

I don't know that there is a standard. It's a personal opinion thing. I call "hard cast" anything I add antimony to that is high velocity, like rifle bullets. Like others have said, hardness is really not as important as most new casters think. Proper sizing a lubrication are far more important.

[cwlongshot]

There is no "standard"

What one considers normal is not to another. A scale of haDNESS STARTS @ approx 5, which is BHN rating for pure Lead. IMHO the rest of the scale getting hardershould only have numbers. As assigning names like Lino or Mono or COWW suggests a standard or average for them. While
Some may be with in a few numbers of quited they are jot as exact as just a number.

So when you want a harder bullet you merely say 13 BHN or 20BHN.

Now the other can of worms is MANY MIXES of materials can achieve same BHN number. Some can be brittle or more maleable yet carry same BHN. Its not Blk & White.

CW

[porthos]

i would prefer to buy pistol bullets that are advertised 10-12 brinell; with soft lube

[muskeg13]

i would prefer to buy pistol bullets that are advertised 10-12 brinell; with soft lube

I agree with your specs. It's probably sacrilege for me to admit this, but I'm usually not that careful to blend exact Pb-Sn-Sb formulas when I melt up a 20# pot to begin a lengthy casting session. My standby is to fill the pot with mystery metal wheel weight ingots and add about 2% or a bit less tin, which has consistently rendered BN 10-12. I always cast with several moulds, often a mix of rifle and pistol, so I use the same alloy for both, and find it hard enough when using checks and good home made lube. Lee Liquid Alox, sometimes cut with Johnson's Paste Wax, is also used regularly for either a primary or a secondary lube coating. Sample boolits from each lot are weighed and are tested for hardness with the Saeco-Redding tool. I do segregate the finished boolits by lot and try not to mix lots when loading. When I finish loading and shooting boolits from a certain lot, I cast up another pot when I need more. Weights of boolits doesn't seem to vary more than a few grains between lots, so I don't think it matters much as long as I don't mix lots.

If softer boolits are needed, like for hollow bases, BP or shotgun ammo, I'll swap out most or all of the WW ingots for pure lead. If harder alloy is desired, a linotype ingot or a chunk of a superhard 30% Sb bar that Midway sells goes in the pot. Since I'm not a match shooter, I don't think things need to be made that difficult to achieve satisfactory results. This is supposed to be a fun pastime.

Question: Does anyone else use the "ping" test to help determine ball park ingot hardness? In addition to the calibrated thumbnail test, if I have a question about an ingot's hardness, I drop it on the concrete garage floor from waist level. Pure lead only gives off a dull "thunk." WW ingots give a slightly sharper "clank", but not quite the sharp ringing "Ping!" of linotype and harder alloy. just wondering.

[billmc2]

Thanks for all the info guys. It sounds like "hard cast" is anything I say it is.

As I'm getting older I'm finding my memory isn't what it used to be, so forgive me if I get some of this wrong. Since joining this forum I've done, what I consider to be, a lot of reading, including the thread about some new members doing better than others.

Not knowing and not having read anything by Elmer Keith, somehow a hardness around 13 is what sticks in my mind that Keith used for developing his bullets and was satisfactory for the 44 mag. I had read (which turned out to be incorrect) that harder bullets will help prevent leading. From this site I've learned that fit is more important.

I've run out of the free wheel weight lead that was given to me and have started buying lead. Not being sure what to buy (and so far everything is handgun), from my reading I came to the conclusion that the Lyman #2 would cover about all that I'm doing and I wouldn't need to worry any further. I've bought some from Roto Metals and from Missouri Bullet company. I've got about 45 lbs at the moment. I'm also of the impression that the Lyman #2 is harder than the 13 BHN that Keith used. 92-6-2, listed as hard ball, I thought, is harder than the Lyman #2 and if that is true, which one is "Hard Cast"? As you all know and have stated, this can go on and on. I wasn't going to pay it much nevermind except...

Last night I started watching some comparison videos. They were comparing (various calibers) the Lehigh Defense Extreme Penetrator bullet to Hard Cast to see which one actually penetrates the furthest. Most of the people were comparing Underwood Ammo because Underwood loads both. I didn't watch all of them but of those I did watch, it seemed the "Hard Cast" out penetrated the Extreme Penetrator bullet. This then led to the question "What actually is Hard Cast?".

For me, to keep things simple and costs down, I started out powder coating and unless something happens to make me review that decision, I'll stay with it for now. I haven't cast or loaded any rifles yet but I do have a mold and plans for the 30-30. From what was stated here, I think the Lyman #2 will cover the 30-30. When compared to softer alloy mixes, I can call Lyman #2 hard cast and make me happy.

[mehavey]

Lyman #2 (15 BHN) is the do-all alloy.
If you're only gonna have one -- that's it.
:2_high5:

[charlie b]

FWIW, Rotometals lists what the bhn is for each of the bullet alloys they sell.

[Harter66]

Elmer Kieth developed what became the 44 mag with 1-16 lead tin . Apparently that was hard enough to do what was done .

While the description of "Hard Cast" being an alloy of anything other than lead and tin works , we use lots of WW based alloy that is often softer than 1-16 tin-lead so whatever .

At best it is a vague marketing term that means it's too hard to do much but poke holes in paper if it happens to fit in your use .

[44MAG#1]

"HARD" is a relative term. Meaning it is relative to something. "SOFT" is a relative term also.