Lead Hardenss Testing

[Fugowii]

I obtained some lead from different sources and wanted to get some idea of
the hardness to confirm what I've been told when I purchased it. Lacking a
hardness tester I have a arbor press and had a ball bearing so I put the
lead on the arbor press and applied a fixed weight to it and applied the weight
for a specific time. Now this wasn't going to tell me what the hardness is except
relative to each other. The only piece of lead I had that was known was an ingot
of wheel weight where I was present when it was made.

I subsequently obtained a Lee hardness tester from a friend and measured the
indent following the instructions and obtained the values. The only problem I
had with the LHT was with the microscope. It was miserable to read. I read
somewhere that I could scan the images in at high resolution and measure them
so I did that at 2400 dpi. When doing that it came close to what I was able to
measure with great difficulty with the LHT.

Anyway, here is a picture of the lead that I scanned in and the measurements
as well as the hardness values.

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r35/ruby_ridge/LowResLeadPicture.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r35/ruby_ridge/LeadHardnessTesting.jpg

The sample labeled Mikw1911 was supposed to be Lino/Mono.
The sample labeled KD ingot was supposed to be WW
The sample labeled WW ingot is the ingot that I know the source of.
The sample labeled KD other is what the KD ingot was supposed to be made from
and the seller thought it might be WW.
The sample labeled Fixxah lead is just about pure lead. It went off the chart with
the Lee tester.

My question is: Do these hardness values look about right? (A little about the
samples labeled Mike1911 - these are about 30 years old. The samples labeled
KD (ingot and other) are about the same age, maybe a little younger.)

[southpaw]

What I can add is that my LHT said that you are supose to use the side of the ingot that was in the mold. File a flat spot on the ingot, test then measure. The microscope is a pain. You have to have the angle just right the light just right and planets need to line up and..... But after a few test you get it sorta figured out. Getting it to fous is the big pain.

The numbers look about right. my ww was ~12-12.5 and my lino was 22-23 ( I thinks there was some mono in it ). It doesnt look like the kd ingot came from the kd other tho.

May try fileing a flat spot on the ingot and testing or make a boolit out of it file it and try that tho I havent seen any differance between ingot and boolit readings.

Good luck!!!

Jerry Jr.

P.S. The reason for fileing is to make sure that there is a flat spot and that there is no porus spot that would make the area softer. I cant remember why they said to use the side of the ingot that was in the mold.

[JIMinPHX]

As a rough comment, from just looking at your pictures, your harness numbers sound reasonable, although I would have expected the KD ingot to have been a little higher & the KD other to have been a little lower.

Your post makes me think that the indents we are looking at were made by your arbor press & a ball bearing. If your friend had the Lee scope, did he not also have the rest of the Lee gizmo for making the indents? The Lee scope & the chart that goes with it are calibrated to be used with the Lee indenter. I forget what the exact specification was. I think it might have been a 5/32" ball at 20 pounds or something. I'd need to look that up. If you use a different diameter ball or a different pressure then the results will not be the same.

If you are having trouble reading that little Lee scope, you can also put a pair of calipers across the dent & just measure the diameter that way. The same Lee chart still applies if you made the dents with the Lee gizmo or an equivalent force & penetrating tip.

You are supposed to apply the force to the lead for 30 seconds before measuring the dent. As others have said, you are supposed to measure on a flat surface.

[Fugowii]

As a rough comment, from just looking at your pictures, your harness numbers sound reasonable, although I would have expected the KD ingot to have been a little higher & the KD other to have been a little lower.

Your post makes me think that the indents we are looking at were made by your arbor press & a ball bearing. If your friend had the Lee scope, did he not also have the rest of the Lee gizmo for making the indents? The Lee scope & the chart that goes with it are calibrated to be used with the Lee indenter. I forget what the exact specification was. I think it might have been a 5/32" ball at 20 pounds or something. I'd need to look that up. If you use a different diameter ball or a different pressure then the results will not be the same.

If you are having trouble reading that little Lee scope, you can also put a pair of calipers across the dent & just measure the diameter that way. The same Lee chart still applies if you made the dents with the Lee gizmo or an equivalent force & penetrating tip.

You are supposed to apply the force to the lead for 30 seconds before measuring the dent. As others have said, you are supposed to measure on a flat surface.

I should have been a little clearer. The indents with the circle and the indent
in the lead were all made with the LHT. The other indents were made with the
ball bearing and arbor press. I did use the 30 second force on the LHT indents.

The BB indents were made with a fixed time and a fixed force so I could equate
those indents to each other.

I think that the KD-other isn't the same as the KD-ingot even though that was what the
guy told me. The KD-other is much softer (thuds when dropped vs ring for KD-ingot).

[Bret4207]

Not trying to be a wet towel, but why the worry about hardness? Are you wanting to cast "hard" boolits? Why? What are you shooting the REQUIRES hard (harder than WQ WW) boolits? If you have some specialized need then I'd invest in one of Gussys Cabine Tree testers or an LBT tester as a second choice. If you want to separate the alloys then again, get the better tester. While I like Lees stuff his hardness tester seems like a real bear to use.

If on the other hand you think you "need" hard alloy then I respectfully suggest you read up a bit here. I know I'm exceeding 2000 fps with straight WW alloy in several rifles of 30 cal and larger. I'm not trying for warp factor 8 or anything, it just worked out that way.

[Fugowii]

Not trying to be a wet towel, but why the worry about hardness? Are you wanting to cast "hard" boolits? Why? What are you shooting the REQUIRES hard (harder than WQ WW) boolits? If you have some specialized need then I'd invest in one of Gussys Cabine Tree testers or an LBT tester as a second choice. If you want to separate the alloys then again, get the better tester. While I like Lees stuff his hardness tester seems like a real bear to use.

If on the other hand you think you "need" hard alloy then I respectfully suggest you read up a bit here. I know I'm exceeding 2000 fps with straight WW alloy in several rifles of 30 cal and larger. I'm not trying for warp factor 8 or anything, it just worked out that way.

I'm not worrying about the hardness per se. I bought over 100 pounds of lead in
various forms from two people, one of which was a third party removed from the
fellow who owned the lead, and the other who was pretty sure what he had was
a lino/mono mix as he worked at a printer and would on occasion "take a handful".
On the other hand I found a note in one of the lino/mono bags that he gave me
that said "lino-60, lead-40" and he said that he mixed it thirty years ago and
doesn't exactly remember what he mixed it with. My only purpose in finding
out the hardness as that would give me a clue as to what I really had. I'm not
worried about zinc as both the purchases of lead were from caches from over
25 years ago.

I am interested in casting .30 caliber bullets for my .30-06 as well as my pistol
calibers so I am presuming that I would be better served by keeping the
harder stuff for the rifle mixes rather than squandering it in pistol loads.

Besides a couple of buckets of WW, that is all the lead I have since I am relatively
new with this stuff.

[Fugowii]

The numbers look about right. my ww was ~12-12.5 and my lino was 22-23 ( I thinks there was some mono in it ). It doesnt look like the kd ingot came from the kd other tho.



Thanks Jerry,

F

[Recluse]

Even Richard Lee didn't use his own lead-hardness tester. He uses one from LBT.

:coffee:

[oldtoolsniper]

I copied this idea.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=40521&highlight=lee+tester

[Fugowii]

I copied this idea.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=40521&highlight=lee+tester

Thanks,

largom is a genius! His post gives me great ideas as I'm still not crazy about the
Lee 'scope.

F

[Bret4207]

I'm not worrying about the hardness per se. I bought over 100 pounds of lead in
various forms from two people, one of which was a third party removed from the
fellow who owned the lead, and the other who was pretty sure what he had was
a lino/mono mix as he worked at a printer and would on occasion "take a handful".
On the other hand I found a note in one of the lino/mono bags that he gave me
that said "lino-60, lead-40" and he said that he mixed it thirty years ago and
doesn't exactly remember what he mixed it with. My only purpose in finding
out the hardness as that would give me a clue as to what I really had. I'm not
worried about zinc as both the purchases or lead were from caches from over
25 years ago.

I am interested in casting .30 caliber bullets for my .30-06 as well as my pistol
calibers so I am presuming that I would be better served by keeping the
harder stuff for the rifle mixes rather than squandering it in pistol loads.

Besides a couple of buckets of WW, that is all the lead I have since I am relatively
new with this stuff.

That makes sense. Save the hard stuff for specialized loads, don't waste it on under 1800 fps stuff.

[JohnH]

Sometimes I think hardness is misunderstood. A hard boolit does not equal one that does not lead. Hardness is primarily about the amount of pressure required to make the boolit upset. Preventing leading has as much, prolly more to do with lube and barrel condition and sizing as hardness. The alloys in your chart, if blended into a single alloy, will yeild something on the order of 15 BHN which is plenty hard for rifles at 2000-2400 fps. I easily drive simple WW to 2200 without leading in a 25-06 and 2000 fps in a 30-30. 15 BHN is also quite a good hardness for moderate to heavy magnum pistol plain base boolits If you are shooting 38 Spl, then set aside the pure lead for that alone if you desire, but I do quite well at standard pistol velocities with 12-15 BHN. If you are shooting a 45 ACP then alloy the pure lead with the 13 BHN, aiming for a hardness of 10-11 BHN and shoot till your hearts content, again, if you feel you must have different alloy for different applications. But if I had the hardness range you have, I'd simply mix it all together and send it down range. Make up a good size batch of FWFL, it is very forgiving of hardness/pressure/velocity mismatches and will make your boolit shootzen life much easier. Never forget KIS, Keep It Simple, it makes life easier and more enjoyable.

[jbunny]

[QUOTE=Fugowii;566384]I obtained some lead from different sources and wanted to ..

I subsequently obtained a Lee hardness tester from a friend and measured the
indent following the instructions and obtained the values. The only problem I
had with the LHT was with the microscope. It was miserable to read. I read
somewhere that I could scan the images in at high resolution and measure them
i fixed a lee tester for a friend by mounting the microscope on an old magnetic
base dial indicator holder. u cannot hold the microscope steady enough in your hand.
with the holder it's a piece of cake. hope this helps
jb

[Jumping Frog]

The only problem I
had with the LHT was with the microscope. It was miserable to read.
I have the .452 Lee Size & Lube kit for my .45 ACP.

I just put the microscope inside the sizing die. Then I place the boolit on the sizing ram and raise it up to the microscope. I can move the boolit around on top of the ram to get it lined up with the microscope scale.

The whole "up means down, left means right" reversal of the microscope took some getting used to, but at least this holds everything steady. Certainly much steadier than quavering hands.