Water dropping

[fatelk]

It works pretty good, I think.

I've learned a lot from this site and everyone here. I had never tried water dropping before, thought I'd see how it worked. I don't have a hardness tester, so I just used the old bench vise test. The softer boolit is air-cooled wheel weight, and the other one is the exact same alloy water dropped. I was surprised to see this much difference.

I'm thinking maybe I should try water dropping 9mm slugs from now on.

[DLCTEX]

Just depends what your particular gun/load wants. Hard is not always better. Commercial casters like them as they don't get dented in shipping. Hardened boolits can actually contribute to leading in some instances. Boolit fit is more important.

[sqlbullet]

My alloy is 96% PB, 3% SB, 1% SN. I cut the sprues as hot as I can without a smear, and get a little bit of tear similar to what I see in your picture. Cast from a 700° pot, water dropped, and aged 1 week before testing, they test an average of 29.5 BHN over 10 bullets tested. Air-cooled cast the same session tested 11.3.

As DLCTEX says, that much harness is usually only good for shipping, not shooting. In my 10mm I had leading issues unless my loads were max. Bullets would seal the bore properly at lower operating pressures. Air cooled work fine.

For my Garand, I am back to water dropping. But I haven't gotten to the range yet to test those.

[Shiloh]

I water drop just about everything. For rifle my alloy is pretty much 50/50 Wheel weights/range lead.

It is harder than air hardened, but you can still get a light scratch with a hard push of a fingernail.

Shiloh

[Ole]

I water drop pretty much everything. I add pure lead to the WW alloy if I want it softer.

1:1 WW:PB water dropped is what I use in my SKS and it works like a champ all the way up to 2000 fps. The few times i've tested this alloy it's between 16 and 18 BHN on my Lee tester.

My 9mm boolits, I water drop a 1:2 WW:PB alloy and they come out around 10-11 BHN.

I figure 10-20 years from now, WW alloy is going to be hard to come by, so I mix it with dead soft as much as I can to make it go farther.

Besides, you cant burn yourself on a water dropped boolit. :mrgreen:

[XWrench3]

i waterdrop almost everything i make as well. my alloy is usually (95% of the time) straight ww, or with a little tin for better fill out. i have a HARD time finding soft lead. at least at a reasonable cost. so i use what i can get.