Water quenching?

[webby4x4]

Hi all - I've been casting my own boolits for a few months now, and have always dropped them onto a towel and just let them cool naturally. However, I have been hearing bits nad pieces about "water quenching" or "water dropping" boolits.

Can someone shed some light on the following:
1) Why this is done (Is it to harden the boolits?)

2) Do you drop them right out of the mold into the water, or let them cool on a towel for a second or two first?

3) Are there any special considerations?

I typically cast 9mm, .45 ACP and .40. I also have molds for .38/.357 as well, and will be casting some of them in the next month or two.

Thanks!
Rick

[putteral]

Anwser to your questions.
#1 yes
#2 right out of the mold into the water
#3 Don't get the pail close to the lead or you will be hurtin for sure. Lead + water = Bad
:drinks:

[Wilburt]

#2: As quickly as possible. The quicker it cools, the harder it will be. If you drop them into water after they have already cooled then no change will occur. You want to hear the hissing sound when they hit the water.

Think of it as the opposite of Annealing. Annealing is makeing a metal softer. To anneal you would raise the temperature above the re-crystallization temperature (such as when you cast) and let it cool slowly. Maybe by puting the material in hot ashes or something similar.

#3: like putteral said, don't let the splash come back up to the mold.

[captain-03]

#3: like putteral said, don't let the splash come back up to the mold.

-- OR the POT!!

[Ricochet]

Splash back to mould = no problem. You'll hear a hiss as the water flash boils off of the hot mould. You do properly preheat your moulds before casting, no?

Splash back to pot = possible problem. Actually, I've dropped water on the molten lead in the pot and seen it vanish with a quick hiss, no splash of lead. Dropping wet lead or anything that can carry liquid water under the surface of the molten lead will result in a loud pop and flying molten lead. Avoid this.

[Nora]

I water quench all of my rifle, but none of my hand gun boolits. By making them harder allows them to be fired at higher velocities with out any leading. The norm for what I shoot them at is between 1800 - 2100fps depending on the barrel length. But by making them harder in this way will rule them out as being useful for hunting. The expansion is next to none. I just shot these into a box of sand at 2000fps to give you an idea as to how poorly they would perform on soft tissue. The one on the left is an unfired as a reference to starting size. All are from a C312-185 mold from straight WW. Sorry for the blur but should give you some idea.

[webby4x4]

Splash back to mould = no problem. You'll hear a hiss as the water flash boils off of the hot mould. You do properly preheat your moulds before casting, no?

Splash back to pot = possible problem. Actually, I've dropped water on the molten lead in the pot and seen it vanish with a quick hiss, no splash of lead. Dropping wet lead or anything that can carry liquid water under the surface of the molten lead will result in a loud pop and flying molten lead. Avoid this.

Yes, I preheat all of my molds with a MAPP or Propane torch, then I smoke them with a match (not that the match adds any heat :) ).

Splash back - thanks for the tip... I knew that was a potential problem, and my coffee can filled with water is about 2 feet away from the pot.

Another question...
All I have acess to in my neck of the woods is pure lead. I've been adding that 95/5 solder to add some hardness to my boolits, but I'm just about out.

Will quenching cast boolits offer enough hardness to them to replace tin and antinomy?

Thanks,
Rick

[Nora]

Splash back - thanks for the tip... I knew that was a potential problem, and my coffee can filled with water is about 2 feet away from the pot.

Thanks,
Rick

That's to small, get a 5 gal bucket and fill it to the top. It will be less likely to have them dent each other when reaching the bottom.

[webby4x4]

That's to small, get a 5 gal bucket and fill it to the top. It will be less likely to have them dent each other when reaching the bottom.


Good to know! Thanks.

[sqlbullet]

1. In addition to harness, which may or may not be desirable, depending on your needs, it prevents dings and prevents burned fingers (or am I the only clod who occasionally forgets the pile o' bullets is hot?).

2. Given these three possible goals (hardening, preventing dings, protecting my precious fingers), straight from the mold is ideal. You loose points on all three by delaying. For hardness, you need to grain size as small as possible, which means dropping from the mold as soon as they will cut a sprue wthout smear. The hotter the better.

3. All the cons deal with water below the surface of your melt. Splash is one, although on the rare occasion this has happened to me, the water sits on top the lead and boils off...Not recommending you try it or encourage the behavior, just saying my experience. The worst is when you have a sprue that tears instead of cutting, and you drop the bullet into the pot the next night thinking it is now dry when there is a little drop of water in that sprue deformation. Bullet rapidly carries water to bottom of pot where it becomes steam and sends lead everywhere. Too avoid this, put any culled bullets in a cold lead pot, then turn it on. The gradual heating will steam off any water long before the lead melts.

[Ricochet]

Antimony is the main ingredient in our alloys that hardens with quenching and aging. (Arsenic is also helpful.) Adding 95/5 tin/antimony solder is a good source of tin, but tin-lead alloys don't harden from quenching. That solder doesn't add a lot of antimony. You'll see significant hardening from quenching from around 1/2% antimony on up, seems like it plateaus around 3% antimony and doesn't go up rapidly after that. It just seems to get more brittle-hard. Mostly, I don't bother adding any tin to my alloys. Keep the lead and the mould hot, and you can get good sharp boolits without it.

[webby4x4]

Antimony is the main ingredient in our alloys that hardens with quenching and aging. (Arsenic is also helpful.) Adding 95/5 tin/antimony solder is a good source of tin, but tin-lead alloys don't harden from quenching. That solder doesn't add a lot of antimony. You'll see significant hardening from quenching from around 1/2% antimony on up, seems like it plateaus around 3% antimony and doesn't go up rapidly after that. It just seems to get more brittle-hard. Mostly, I don't bother adding any tin to my alloys. Keep the lead and the mould hot, and you can get good sharp boolits without it.

Thanks Ricochet... that raises another question then.

My only source of lead in my area is pure lead. I was told by others that I need to add tin and antinomy to my lead as straight lead would be too soft for my 9mm, .45 ACP, .40 and .38/.357 loads. Is that true, or can I shoot with straight lead?

Since I can't source wheel weights, is there another "additive" (e.g. tin and antinomy) that you might suggest?


Thanks,
Rick

[Ricochet]

I also have a lot of pure lead, and a fair amount of scrap lead of unknown content that's mostly pretty soft. A lot of what seems to be "pure" by the thumbnail test will actually harden up quite a bit after quenching, but truly pure lead won't. Soft, near-pure lead works fine in mild applications like .45 ACP, .38 Special and .44 Special IMO.

[hoosierlogger]

if you keep pure lead boolits under 900 fps you should be OK

[Down South]

Close to pure lead should work well in the calibers that you mentioned if you aren't going max loads except for the 357 Mag loads. Adding Solder to pure lead won't harden the boolits even if you water quench. Since you have already been casting, have you gotten good results with what you have been using? If you COULD find WW then a mix of 50/50 with a little solder (2%) would work well.

Splash back, I've had water to splash back onto my moulds with no problem. Getting a drop of water or so back into the melt, no problem. Submerging a damp ingot back into the melt, major problem.

[Echo]

The main thing the tin does is reduce the surface tension of the molten alloy, allowing it to correctly fill out the mold with no rounded corners where they should be square.

[357maximum]

Thanks Ricochet... that raises another question then.

My only source of lead in my area is pure lead. I was told by others that I need to add tin and antinomy to my lead as straight lead would be too soft for my 9mm, .45 ACP, .40 and .38/.357 loads. Is that true, or can I shoot with straight lead?

Since I can't source wheel weights, is there another "additive" (e.g. tin and antinomy) that you might suggest?


Thanks,
Rick

Rick

To get the full potential of your 357mag loads you will need (antimony )wheelweights. I mix my 357mag stuff 50/50 ww/pure and then waterdrop right from the mold. I get a 19-21 BHN boolit after a 2 week period and then it is stable (basically) from there on out. I use this same basic alloy for just about all my 30/35 caliber hunting rifle/loong barrel peestol rounds.

I find my supply of wheelweights exceeding my supply of pure lead..so if you want to make a trade (ww ingots for pure lead ingots) shoot me a pm and we can work out the fuzzies and get you some wheelweights.

Michael

[243winxb]

Bullet Sizes & Weights – How to Vary Them

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if you bullets drop from the mould undersize using 50/50, you will need to add more wheel weight to increase there diameter. Lead shrinks more as it cools in the mould then wheel weights. Linotype can be added to increase bullet diameter also.
Quote:
The bullet diameters and weights presented in this list
are based on the use of Taracorp’s Lawrence Magnum
bullet alloy (2% tin, 6% antimony, 1/4% arsenic,
91.75% lead).
Bullet diameters and weights will vary considerably
depending on the lead casting alloy used. This variation
can be as much as 1/2% on the diameter, and 8% on
the weight among the most commonly used casting
alloys. For example, a .358-158 grain bullet might
show a diameter variation of .002", and a 13 grain difference
in weight.
Of the most commonly used alloys, wheel weights (.5%
tin, 4% antimony, 95% lead) will produce bullets having
the smallest diameter and heaviest weight, with
such bullets running approximately .3% smaller in
diameter and 3% heavier than bullets cast with
Taracorp's metal. Linotype will produce bullets with the
largest diameter and lightest weights. This alloy will
produce bullets approximately 1/10% larger and 3%
lighter than Taracorp. Other alloys of tin and antimony,
with antimony content above 5%, will produce bullets
with diameters and weights falling between those cast
from wheel weights and linotype.
Alloys containing little or no antimony will cast considerably
smaller than wheel weights and in some cases
will produce bullets too small for adequate sizing.
Within the limitations given above, the weight and
diameter of a cast bullet can be adjusted by varying the
alloy’s antimony content.
The size and weight of bullets of a given alloy will also
vary according to casting temperature. Higher temperatures
will result in greater shrinkage as the bullet
cools, thereby producing a slightly smaller and lighter
bullet than one cast of the same alloy at a lower temperature Cast Bullets

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Water dropping of bullets was invented to elimitate the costly alloy using tin and antimony. United States Patent 5464487 http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5464487.htmlI fine water dropping to be a waste of time when casting bullets with the proper alloy. Water and hot alloy can explode it they come in contact with each other. While antimony is used to harden the bullet, the mixture of tin is critical, for while antimony mixes with lead in its molten state, it will not remain mixed when it solidifies. If tin were not added, we would have pure antimony crystals surrounded by pure lead. A bullet of this type , while it feels hard , would certainly lead the bore and eliminate all potential for accuracy. In a lead-tin-antimony mixture, the antimony crystals will be present just the same, but they will be imbedded in a lead-tin mixutre. As the bullet cools the tin will form around the antimony-lead keeping your bullets from leading the bore. I have read that this process can take up to 24 hours as the alloy oxidizes. If your going to size a cast bullet, wait 1 day. Plain base bullets to 1400fps, gas checked to 2200fps without leading. Check Lee lead testing chat for the maximum pressure allowed for you alloy hardness. Also us the formula > Bullet's BHN x 1422 = Pounds per square inch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obturate Cast alloy bullets should never Obturate. The bullet is sized over groove diameter by .0005" to .001" Some rifles will like as much as .003" over groove diameter. Casting bullets is really simple most times. If the bullet diameter is correct as it drops for the mould, you are good to go. Pure lead will be undersize in diameter, unless using a BP mould. High antimony will be on the large size. Always make sure you have 2 % tin in the alloy and you will never have leading. 22LR bullet have little to no tin and only 3 % antimony at the most. The some how dont lead the bore. This is where a very good lube is needed. Bullets i have cast over 30+ years without water dropping. > Click for Larger View. http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/th_CastBullets_20090207_004.jpg (http://s338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/?action=view&current=CastBullets_20090207_004.jpg)