Jacket hardness & accuracy

[BT Sniper]

OK guys a ? for anyone that may have any ideas or knowledge as to the possible differences in performance of a hard brass jacket vs. soft jacket.

I will post some pics of 410 bullets I made from mil 8mm brass using the shoulder and top of body for jacket. Same technique I have used to make my 44 cal bullets.

I did not anneal the brass first and some may be fairly hard. I could anneal them, making sure they are all the same hardness and therefore probabbly getting better accuracy.

Will forming the bullet work harden the brass jacket?

What effect do you guys think a hard jacket will have compaired to a soft annealed one?

Kind of deep end of the pool questions but I am curious. Any one have some technical knowledge on these subjects?

Thanks

BT

[shooterg]

The steel barrel probably won't know the difference.

[BT Sniper]

I thought there might be a difference similuar to using cast boolits of pure lead vs. lynotype. Harder equaled more FPS and less fouling. I suppose the best way would be for me to test it out with bullets made from both jacket hardness.

[sagacious]

BT,
A few years back, I got into swaging 44cal bullets from 40SW cases, much as you are. I have enjoyed reviewing your progress and developments with the various brass-jacket bullets.

I annealed all of my cases to a dead-soft condition. I wanted everything as consistent as possible. I did not ever test annealed vs unannealed, but since "engraving" happens at relatively low pressure (even just a primer will often run the bullet fully into the rifling), jacket hardness may not be a significant factor in accuracy in this instance.

Only way to test it, is to test it, but getting an even hardness on all your un-annealed brass may prove difficult, and render any testing results moot. This is especially so if one uses different headstamps and different lots of brass. Annealing helps to level the playing field.

Keep up the good work.