My first hardness tester reveals...

[Tedak]

My first use of any type of hardness tester revealled that my WQ'd range scrap is 20-25 BHN. I was expecting to get readings in the 12-14 range, so I'm a little surprised. I collect about a 50/50 mix of naked lead and jacketed stuff, so I was figurin' that the hardness would be lower. I've been casting this scrap for a year and I've never dropped AC'd boolits.... yet.

The big-brown truck delivered my Lee tester today, and I tested three different batches for readings of 20, 24 and 25. Does this sound about right to you veterans?

[357maximum]

Range scrap can an will be anything. It all depends on what the majority of the shooters shot into it. I have a 20 yd pile of sand 440 yards from where I am currently sitting. I would bet it would test about 20 to 21 waterdropped if you screened all the gold out of the pile.

[excess650]

Your water dropped bullets will increase in hardness over several days. Check 'em when first cast, after a day, two days...etc, and make notes.

[Tedak]

OK, you guys are not surprised by the measurements that I took... GOOD! I was concerned that I might be doing something wrong.

I "cherry pick" the scrap from the berm. If it's big enough to be picked up with fingers or pliers, then I'll grab it. Not a whole lot of .22's make it into my pot.

I just finished casting a batch with the same alloy, this time... AC'd. I'll see how much softer these set up.

[fryboy]

that tester is a new toy lolz ( i looked at much more than boolits ,helped get the lil metal sliver out of my finger lolz ) there's a thread where a guy made a microscope stand for his ,one never knows who was shooting what at a public range ,i always liked the big 45/70 slugs when i found them ,i believe the hardest thing i have dinged so far is a lil bar of pewter i smelted down .044 27.2

[454PB]

I've done some long term hardness testing on heat treated boolits using various alloys. Your readings are not unusual, but as excess650 has said, they will continue to harden over time. In my tests, they hit maximum hardness at around 6 months of age, then gradually resoften.

None of that is really important because it happens so slowly and is not a drastic change. For the average shooter, they can be used after a week or so without any noticeable hardness difference.

[MtGun44]

Why are so many people water dropping??????? Is this related to the old wives
tale that we can't seem to kill that 'harder is better', which is not true.

Seems like an epidemic. Not necessary for the huge majority of pistol boolits, it is
extra work and mess. Seems like many think this is the normal way of casting,
get started and do it for everything. Strange.


Bill

[fredj338]

Why are so many people water dropping??????? Is this related to the old wives
tale that we can't seem to kill that 'harder is better', which is not true.

Seems like an epidemic. Not necessary for the huge majority of pistol boolits, it is
extra work and mess. Seems like many think this is the normal way of casting,
get started and do it for everything. Strange.


Bill

I have to agree. WD is a good way to get a harder bullet on the cheap, but just isn't needed for most handgun applications. I air cool range lead, about 10-11BHn, use it for everything under 1200fps.

[Tedak]

Why are so many people water dropping???????

Bill

In my case, I started off WQ-ing and it worked fine in my .30-06. Then tried it for my .357 mag, and it worked fine, then the .41 mag, etc... For the most part I have been getting good results with the unknown alloy that I have been using and I was under the impression that it was quite softer than it actually is.

Now that I have a means of comparing the hardness of my boolits..... let the fun commence!:cool:

[cajun shooter]

For most shooting that involves handguns a BHN of 10 -12 is good enough. A lyman #2 is around 15 BHN and you can even use that for lead in rifle shooting.

[justingrosche]

Dig through the berm at the range and it wont take you very long to find a Cast Boolit that has impacted the dirt and not deform at all. Getting the Boolit there is only half the battle. Has everyone forgot about terminal performance?

[MtGun44]

Tedak,

WD is likely appropriate for the .30-06, but depending on the gun, barrel design and your
velocity, may not even be necessary there. Certainly not needed for the others in most
situations, altho I refuse to say it is never necessary. Extra hassle and actually may increase
your chances of getting leading in situations where you are slightly undersized for the
barrel.

It seems that there is somehow an impression being given to a fair number of new casters
that water dropping is the norm and necessary for success. Couldn't be farther from the
truth. WD is sort of a special technique for certain applications. Back to the old " hard
cast is good" stuff. Elmer always talked about "hard cast" for his magnum handgun boolits,
but he was using straight tin-lead at 16:1, so (IIRC) was around 13-14 BHN. Modern commercial
hard cast is like 20-25 BHN or even harder in some examples.

The comment about digging in the berm is right on. Most commercial boolits are essentially
undamaged by firing into a typical sand berm.

Bill

[TCLouis]

Most if not all of the cast boolits I have picked up in the berm are harder than anything I cast, load or shoot so they could harden things up a bunch fairly quickly.

[Elkins45]

Why are so many people water dropping??????? Is this related to the old wives
tale that we can't seem to kill that 'harder is better', which is not true.

Seems like an epidemic. Not necessary for the huge majority of pistol boolits, it is
extra work and mess. Seems like many think this is the normal way of casting,
get started and do it for everything. Strange.


Bill

I do it because it reduces the chances I'll damage the ones I drop on each other accidentally, and because it keeps the pile of boolits off my already crowded bench.

[303Guy]

Elkins45 has nailed it when he says;
I do it because it reduces the chances I'll damage the ones I drop on each other accidentally, and because it keeps the pile of boolits off my already crowded bench. I don't water drop and I'm considering doing it for the above reason!

My present alloy which was supposed to be quite soft and ductile turned out to be a little different to what I expected and water dropping hardened the castings a little but after a few hours there was no measurable difference! Go figure?:?:

[Changeling]

If you are worried about whether you are getting accurate readings, why not just send it (bullet) to one of the guys and have him check it on his tester.

[Tedak]

If you are worried about whether you are getting accurate readings, why not just send it (bullet) to one of the guys and have him check it on his tester.

Sorry it's been so long to reply... it's the first time I've checked my "user CP" in a while.[smilie=b:

I was going to take some boolits over to a caster in my gun club that has a Saeco tester. I didn't bother though, because further testing of other boolits revealed that I was using the tool correctly; an ingot of sheet lead allowed for a big ol' dent that measured off the chart in the Lee table (the chart only indicates down to 8.0 BHN). I also discovered that the same alloy that WQ'd to 24 BHN, is a 10.4 BHN when AC'd.

A VERY COOL TOY!!!

[Edubya]

Elkins45 has nailed it when he says; I don't water drop and I'm considering doing it for the above reason!

My present alloy which was supposed to be quite soft and ductile turned out to be a little different to what I expected and water dropping hardened the castings a little but after a few hours there was no measurable difference! Go figure?:?:

Does your alloy have any antimony in it? If your using a lead and tin mix water dropping is not going to harden them.

EW

[cajun shooter]

303 Guy, I have been casting since 1970 and I drop my bullets into a box that contains a towel and I have never bent a bullet to where it needed to be rerun. I usually cast my bullets between 10 and 12 BHN for my cowboy shooting so they are not some super hard alloy. I am with MTGun44 on this. It seems as if in the last few years this WD has become almost cult like in that you must do this to be correct in casting. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have read more about WD since being on this forum than the other part of my life and I am 63. Up until then I think that I read an article on it and thought why would you need that for handgun bullets. Later David

[303Guy]

If I think my castings are a little hard I take steps to soften 'em. I wand fairly soft for my rifle and paper patching - I have this notion that the core needs to be soft enough to upset and pressurerize the patch in the bore. I also (and most importantly) want my boolits to expand AND hold together on impact as I use them (intend to anyway) on small game to deer/pig size game. So I want tough and ductile. I'm getting there!


Does your alloy have any antimony in it?I tried to avoid antimony so if there is any, it's by accident - it's scrap lead pipe and lead sheet with a chunk of solder joint with some copper (tiny amount but it seems that's all that's needed - the uetectic for copper in lead at melting point is 0.06%).

[cbrick]

Why are so many people water dropping??????? Is this related to the old wives tale that we can't seem to kill that 'harder is better', which is not true. Seems like an epidemic. Not necessary for the huge majority of pistol boolits, it is extra work and mess. Seems like many think this is the normal way of casting, get started and do it for everything. Strange. Bill

Yep, harder ain't better just because it's harder, it's just harder which can and does lead to it's own set of problems.


It seems that there is somehow an impression being given to a fair number of new casters that water dropping is the norm and necessary for success. Couldn't be farther from the truth. WD is sort of a special technique for certain applications. Back to the old "hard cast is good" stuff. Elmer always talked about "hard cast" for his magnum handgun boolits, but he was using straight tin-lead at 16:1, so (IIRC) was around 13-14 BHN. Modern commercial hard cast is like 20-25 BHN or even harder in some examples. Bill

Couldn't have said that better myself.

The term hardcast is evil, it is used by commercial casters like it was a good thing and it confuses both new casters and purchasers of commercial boolits. [smilie=b: Make the boolit fit the firearm and that alone will cover up a lot of ills, even too hard up to a point.

Rick

[Cowboy T]

Proper hardness for the application can also make up for a slightly undersized boolit. I ran into this just recently with casting 250gr LRNFP's for my "Magnum" .45 Colt load. Once they're cool, the boolits mic out at .4505-.4515", just a little small (some Lee-menting is in order). Working up the load, precision was terrible...until I hit the magic point of proper obturation. Then the groups tightened right up. I tried half a grain more, and same thing, tight groups.

The BHN for this, BTW, was 15-16, as measured with a Lee Hardness Tester. This is the same alloy I use for my .357 Magnum and .38 Spl "HV" loads. It's a mix of 50/50 Linotype/pure lead, air-cooled.

Now, for my light .38 Spl and .45 Colt loads, I use straight WW, again, air-cooled. Works great, every time. BHN is 11-12.

Using the proper hardness for the application also helps prevent bore and chamber leading. My bores and chambers remain shiny and lead-free.

[montana_charlie]

an ingot of sheet lead allowed for a big ol' dent that measured off the chart in the Lee table (the chart only indicates down to 8.0 BHN).
If you are still reading, and if you want a chart that goes all the way down to 'pure lead'...PM me an email address to send it to.

CM