Quenching vs Heat treating???

[Ramslammer]

G'Day All
Big question could you quench your bullets out of the mold instead of heat treating them after casting? I think it would be worth a go as I have lots of ww and want to shoot the bullet unsized.
Juddy

[JeffinNZ]

Yes, it's called water dropping. They will not end up being as hard as oven heat treating but all things being equal you should still get 20BHN (ish) which is heaps hard.

[stubshaft]

G'Day All
Big question could you quench your bullets out of the mold instead of heat treating them after casting? I think it would be worth a go as I have lots of ww and want to shoot the bullet unsized.
Juddy

You don't have to size when heat treating boolits.

[runfiverun]

cutting ww's with pure25=50% and some tin 1% and water quenching into tap water gives right between 16 and 20 bhn but is a nice hunting alloy cause it isn't brittle.
get your mold to temp and keep it there, try for consistency. and wait about 3 weeks for them to gain their final hardness.
add your g/checks and size asap, same day if possible.
i have pushed the 25% alloy over 2300 fps with good accuracy. and have been considering doing an offshoot of bruce b's soft point with the quench.

[HeavyMetal]

Been water dropping since the 70's!

Figured it was a lot easier and less time consuming than heat treating!

If you play with your alloy you can get anywhere from 16 BHN to 28 BHN. Please be aware that to hard an alloy is just as bad as to soft!

Try to adjust your alloy, and BHN, for the load & caliber your shooting.

[AZ-Stew]

Ths only issue with water dropping/quenching is that if you have a recalcitrant mould that occasionally takes its time dropping the boolits, you end up with differing temperatures of boolits hitting the quench fluid, and therefore you get a variation in hardness. Heat treating gets all the boolits to the same temperature and they're all quenched at the same time, resulting in more uniformity.

Regards,

Stew

[Slow Elk 45/70]

Water quench is the way to go, IMHO, I've done both for a long time, but as stated above,
The WQ works great for most applications, and is not half the work as heat treating.

[Ramslammer]

G'Day All
I intend to use this method for .375 win bullets. They will only be loaded @ 1600fps for shooting CLAS. I could mix #2 with some tin but just thought straight WW would be the cheap way to go. I tend to shoot a lot of shots and cost saving always helps.
Juddy

[Bret4207]

If you use the search feature you'll find scads of info on water quenching, water dropping and heat treating.

Keep in mind you may not NEED to WQ or HT your alloy to get fine shooting. HARDER AIN'T NECESSARILY BETTER!!!

[runfiverun]

in my 375 win with a plain base, i could get near 1500 with just plain ole ww's.
h-322 worked the best [think i used a filler also]
mine is a marlin,it worked better with 38-55 brass and sized at 379

[pdawg_shooter]

Ths only issue with water dropping/quenching is that if you have a recalcitrant mould that occasionally takes its time dropping the boolits, you end up with differing temperatures of boolits hitting the quench fluid, and therefore you get a variation in hardness. Heat treating gets all the boolits to the same temperature and they're all quenched at the same time, resulting in more uniformity.

Regards,

Stew

+1 on what he said. I have tested a lot of bullets treated both ways and heat treating is way more uniform. I will take the right way over the quick way myself.