/Rules of thumb'

[kelbro]

Are there any good 'rules of thumb' for when to air cool WW and when to WD them or heat treat them?

Surely the collective experience here can provide more than my time-consuming labor-intensive method of casting up a batch of each, shooting them and trying to analyze the results.

Are there certain alloys like 50/50 WW-Pb. or WW+ 1% tin, Lyman #2, etc... that behave better one way or the other?

[targetshootr]

My rule of thumb is any straight ww boolit at 1200 fps or less is fine air cooled. They're probably good for more than that but in handguns I don't see the need.

[mpmarty]

Rules of thumb:
Air cool and try it. Boolit too soft? Water drop it. Still too soft? Heat treat it.
I cast hundreds of pistol and rifle boolits and have quit heat treating and water dropping entirely. I had one 45/70 that wouldn't shoot worth a darn with cast boolits. Traded it off and got another; second one loves cast air cooled RD 350s over 25gr of old 2400. DON'T COPY THIS LOAD it is one that works for me and if you blow up your rifle with it I won't be responsible!

[243winxb]

This basic rule applys first.
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. Oven Heat Treat/Water Drop & Water Drop from the Mould are Not the Same. The .5%Tin does not get to do its job when Water Dropping from the Mould. Alloy for Water Drop contains at least 2% Antimony or more + other trace metals that help binding/harding. Air Cooled contains 6% Antimony/2%Tin + other trace metals. Almost any alloy will work at low velocitys/pressures, with proper fit & lube. Remember we are working with SCRAP METALS, who knows what the Alloy might contain. :?:

[largom]

kelbro, We would be able to give better details if we knew what you are shooting { rifle, handgun, and caliber}. Also your purpose, hunting, target, BR, Sil., plinking?
Larry

[kelbro]

Thanks Larry. Just pondering generalities. I have always shot from my batch of Lyman #2. Air-cooled. Aged for ??? Hunting loads that performed fine. 44Mag pistol, 357 pistol, 308, 30-06, and 30/30 rifles.

Found this website and have started experimenting. Stocked up with plenty of lead, WW, lino and primers and have a range close by.

I understand that there are no absolutes with cast but there have to be a few generalities that help speed up the learning curve without blowing through my stash.

[largom]

Others may disagree but I do not favor Hard boolits. I mix 55% lead with 45% WW and add 2% tin [60/40 solder], air cooled and aged 4 to 5 weeks. The aged BHN of my boolits is 10 to 11 . This alloy is for my rifles, 6.5 thru 45-70 cal. shot at velocities up to 2200 fps.
I tried water dropping, to avoid the long ageing period, but found that I still had to wait 2 wks. for my boolits to reach full hardness which was too hard.
Your Lyman #2, air cooled, should have a hardness of 15 to 16 BHN which would be to hard for MY tastes. You can test performance by shooting thru several 1 gal. milk jugs full of water backed by a bundle of rags to collect the boolit.
This is what I do for rifles [except 22 cal.], I don't do handguns at this time.
Larry

[Bret4207]

First you establish good fit. After that I don;t see anyway to say if WQ will help or not. Only by experimenting can you observe what happens with your particular alloy and try and discern any pattern to it's performance. DIfferent alloys repsond differently to heat treating of any type. I'm a bucket quencher. It does change the alloy enough to make a difference, but until you get up in the pressure range it's not needed. Even then it's very hard to lay downa particular pot that a different alloy or HT'ing becomes needed.

Just my opinion.

[44man]

I have found that air cooled WW's need a gas check in my guns and even more so with softer alloys or accuracy goes south.
For accurate plinking loads with fast powders I make them as hard as I can get them.
For PB I make them hard also. I try for at least 25 BHN for PB. These can be shot very fast.
Water dropped or oven hardened 50-50 WW's and pure come out about 18 BHN, these will not shoot for me at all unless they have a gas check. Two identical boolits, one PB and one GC will have the PB scatter all over a target but the GC will shoot nice tight groups with a flier now and then. I have not figured out if the flier was sized when seating or whether it skidded the rifling.

[kelbro]

44man's post is the kind of info that I'm after. I have seen the same thing. All of my boolits were GC so I never saw a problem with accuracy, leading, or killing ability on whitetails or hogs. It was a few PB molds that I purchased that required me to experiment. Bullets all over the target, leading, etc... If I can eliminate GCs, then I figure I am saving time and money plus eliminating one more variable in the stackup.

[MtGun44]

YMMV.

I have only rarely gotten decent groups from GC .44 molds, specifically the two Thompson
designs 429244 and 429215. After having read so much (Taffin and others) about how
great the 431244 was, I tried the 429244 with dismal results. Eventually located a 431244
mold which cast the same diam as my 429244, HMMM?, and same results. Switched to
429421 and instant fix, same alloys and same diameters. Rarely water drop, but have
tried straight lino to 50-50 lino-Pb and straignt WW to 50-50 WW-Pb. Wide range of
hardnesses, is the point. Guns have normal throats, except the SBH which needs fat
boolits to be really happy.

Bill

[runfiverun]

i have three alloys ww's and 25% pure.
ww's and 25% pure waterdropped for h/s rifle.
and ww's and 25% pure heat treated for ultra high vel.
i also use 4/6 and lino.
the first is used plain based in revolvers and leverguns up to 1600 fps and for hunting in rifles up to 2,000 where a minimum of shots and g/c's are used.
but at all times i use the lowest bhn i can get away with.