ww lead for swaging??

[cowboyt]

I've always used lead wire for swaging pistol boolets in the past,but now I have no wire and plenty of wheel weight lead-My Question is Is ww to hard?-I use an old CH swagomatic and have swaged a few in 38-44 and 45 and it seems to work ok but it does take a little more force to form the boolet- is this going to cause the forming dies undue wear? I use a cast slugs for my cores and adjust the dies so that there is no bleed-off to be concerned with-any thoughts on this will be greatly appreciated.

Cowboyt

[Hickory]

Keep using pure lead. W-W will increase pressure in your swaging dies 2-3 times of pure lead.
Don't risk runing your dies with W-W.

[math]

I have a Corbin press the one that uses 1 inch dies and that broke 3 piecis whit a bang so i advice yoe not to
Regards
Math

[sqlbullet]

if your casting slugs from WW, i fail to see why you wouldn't cast them from pure in the first place rather than use the WW, seams like to logical thing to do from my vantage point! steve k

Economy.

In my case I have a steady supply (for my needs) of lead that is similar to WW alloy. Out of my last acquisition I have 110lbs of pure lead...And that is the first time I have ever had any pure lead. I don't know how long it will be until I see some more. It is reserved right now for swaging, should I take the plunge.

Granted, that 120lbs is enough to make 5000 of the 200 grain bullets I would like to try swaging (.400 using a 60 gr 9mm case as a jacket + 140 gr core). Still, how long will 5000 last?

[docone31]

I went to muzzle loaders a little bit. I have always used wheel weights for my casting.
I found myself getting to know some roofers.
Lots of pure, it comes in slowly at first, but it starts to add up.
Might be an option.
I blend it in my wheel weight load. Fills out pretty well. I would imagine a prime casting for the swageing might work.
I can see however, how one blown die might eliminate any economy however.

[cowboyt]

To all who replied I say thanks- I've been putting off smelting down my stick-on weights, but I see now that I have to get started- Thanks again

cowboyt

[sqlbullet]

one blown die might eliminate any economy however.

Agree completely. Hence my interest in this thread.

I also gotta think a 10mm 200 grain brass jacketed bullet with a 25 BHN core moving 1100-1200 FPS from my Witness would make pretty good bear repellent here in the Rockies.

My thought was to cast the core and then anneal it in a 350 oven to get the BHN down to about 9, then swage into a 9mm case as a jacket. Once completely formed, heat treat at 450-500 for one hour, followed by a quench.

[BT Sniper]

Is it possible to anneal wheel weights to make them softer? Haven't herd of that yet. Of course it's possible to make them harder. Didn't know the opposite is true. What BNH would a ww core droped from the mold and air cooled be at? Would the heat treat for an hour affect the finall dia of the finished bullet?

[sqlbullet]

Recent tests my son did for a science fair project indicates that the slower you cool the bullet, the closer you will get to a 'raw' or baseline BHN.

Bullets that were cast from a 700° pot and air-cooled tested a BHN of 11.23 with the alloy we used. After heating them in the oven to 350 for an hour, and letting them cool in place, they tested 9.72.

These results held true for bullets cast at 750° and similarly treated (11.77 to 9.86). For some reason the bullets cast at 650° retained the same BHN after the oven treatment (10.83 and 10.53).

[BT Sniper]

Good to know. Do you think a difference of 1.5 on the BNH scale would make a noticable difference? I don't know much about BNH, how do you test it to the hundreth decemal place? Have shot bullets with ww core and no heat treatment at 1300 FPS. With a flat point there was very little expansion after 4 milk jugs and wet newspapper. Don't know if a 25-30 BNH would be any different for bears but it would be worth a shot, especialy if they ware body armor.:mrgreen:

[sqlbullet]

I use a lee BHN tester. It gives results to the tenth. In the tests, 10 samples were selected from a batch of 90 for each test. The numbers above are the 10 sample averages before and after treatment.

In swaging, I have no idea how much difference that will make. According to the data, that is a reduction of about 1200 psi in compressive strength. I guess I need to just get with it, order up some dies and squash some lead.

[OLPDon]

Recent tests my son did for a science fair project indicates that the slower you cool the bullet, the closer you will get to a 'raw' or baseline BHN.

For some reason the bullets cast at 650° retained the same BHN after the oven treatment (10.83 and 10.53).

Hats off to your son on the project. I have a question for you how soon after cooling did test the bhn. The reason I ask this is this, with quenching of WW aloy Bhn goes up over a period of time. If he still has those bullet would it be posible to retest the Bhn of them and compair the hardness now. I would realy like to know if the air cools go up in hardness over time.
Thanks
Don

[sqlbullet]

They were tested 24 hours after quenching/cooling (give or take an hour or so). I do still have the samples, and my intention is to augment his data with exactly that reading. I will post full results once the science fair judging is done.

Other samples I had tested with less control of variables showed a slight (1-2 point) increase.

FYI, I have to brag :-). He took a Best of Fair award at his school, and is set to compete in the district competition this Tuesday.

[OLPDon]

sqlbullet:
Which goes to show that excellent bullet makers make excellent kid's. Job well done on all counts
Thanks
Don