Guide for bullet hardness per gun/caliper

I have looked all over the site and I cannot find anything definitive ,or should I say "informative", on what hardness is best for what guns. I have read Fryxells book and it is all revolvers. I have read all through the facts section and just about everything I can find that even comes close to bullet hardness in the Cast Boolit section. Nothing really addresses guns like the 45 acp or 9mm. The 30-06 or .223 are also not represented. Those are just the ones I am looking for so I am sure there are plenty more. I have seen some individual references of what some people have used but nothing as a general guide. Such as a 45 acp is best when used with BHN of xx. I am not looking for all of the thousands of recipes for mixing the alloy, that is what the alloy chart is for. I am just looking for a general figure to tell me what is a good number to look for. It may be on here but my search in the search box went nowhere, I have never had any luck searching forums, including my own forum.

First of all, I am no expert. So many things enter into boolit hardness so it is hard to give one answer. What do you want to do with the boolit? How fast do you want to push it? What type of lube or is it powder coated? Will it be gaschecked? Personally I think what is called Lyman #2 which is 15 on the hardness scale is a good starting point, adjusting up or down from there.

There are too many variables for just one answer . The most important being velocity .
The faster the speed ... the harder the boolit . How rough or smooth is the bore . Gas Check or plain base . Lubricat used or coated boolit ... they go on .
Guidelines ... Look in Lyman Bullet Casting Handbook ...the 3rd Edition is better than the 4 th Edition . My usual place to start with rifle boolits and auto-loading handguns was COWW + 1% Tin ... see how that worked . Another good all around alloy is COWW / Soft Lead in a 50/50 mix + 1% Tin, if needed for castability .
You can also find guides for Tin / Lead mixes ...no wheel weights required :
1 part Tin / 20 parts Lead - Most revolver , light and normal velocities up to 999 fps .
1 part Tin / 16 parts Lead - Heavy and magnum revolver loads , over 1000 fps
1 part Tin / 10 parts Lead - Auto-Pistol
Gary

The problem I see in attempting to answer your question is that every firearm is an individual and will require its own set of data. That said, the place to start is fit. FIT is king, first, last and always. Bullet fit-to-firearm is the key to almost (if not absolute) initial key to getting satisfactory performance from cast bullets. So, you need to determine the interior measurements of your individual firearm. You can do this in several ways i.e. chamber cast, pound cast, passing a soft slug through the barrel and/or cylinder etc. Once you know the required dimensions you can start to try different alloys to find out what will give you the desired accuracy/velocity. Many of the answers you seek can be found by reading the "sticky's" at the top of the appropriate sub forums. Good luck in your endeavors.

Don't sweat the hardness when shooting less than 1200fps. Plain wheel weights will work fine (11-12bhn?).

For rifles I buy my alloy, usually Lyman #2 (16bhn), and I use gas checks most of the time. I also powder coat but lubed bullets work just as well.

Again, fit is king!! Measure your throat and bore and size accordingly.

first don't let the BHN numbers get your brain wrapped around the axle.

I find this "guide" helpful (it's a banner link at the bottom of this page)

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

scroll halfway down and study the two charts labeled:

"Approximate "Maximum" Chamber Pressure For Lead Alloys (PSI)"

"Bullet BHN / "Minimum" Chamber Pressure For Lead Alloys (PSI)"

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Originally Posted by JonB_in_Glencoe

first don't let the BHN numbers get your brain wrapped around the axle.

I find this "guide" helpful (it's a banner link at the bottom of this page)

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

scroll halfway down and study the two charts labeled:

"Approximate "Maximum" Chamber Pressure For Lead Alloys (PSI)"

"Bullet BHN / "Minimum" Chamber Pressure For Lead Alloys (PSI)"

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Thanks JohB, That is the kind of info I was looking for. Not exactly the format I was looking for but getting there. The biggest problem I see with that info is the way it is laid out in "Plumbers lead" Wheel weights" Lyman #2 and quench cast WW. With the exception of the Lyman #2 which can be bought from Rotometals the Wheel weights are a crapshoot. Especially nowadays. I just got a huge load of them of which I ended up with 48# of lead weights and as I was checking them with side cutters I noticed that they varied a LOT in how hard they were from one to another. And no, I am not talking about the zincs. Consequently quenching those same weights will also give drastically varying differences in hardness. What I would LIKE to see is a chart with numbers on it. I initially said I want to see comparisons of hardness to particular guns but I realize now that considering the number of calipers and guns would make that unreasonable. BUT, if it were put in FPS then that would be totally workable all across the board.
Something like BHN 8-10 - 500-850 FPS.
That is something that could relate to all firearms. Of coarse I have to add to that the wording "within reason" Because sombody will say "but if I use Accurate #2 in my 06 will it work with BHN 5?" Well Mr. Darwin, I don't think this chart would be for you.:twisted:

So, one general guide that I kind of go by is 1 bhn per 100 fps. This is kind of what I go by. So if you plan on 1500 fps, a safe hardness would be a bhn of 15.
I do tailor certain projectiles. For instance, I have a Svarog slug mold. This guy is supposed to fragment so I cast it with really hard lead and sure enough - it fragments. :D Hollow points, I tend to go softer on the lead so they don't fragment...

So for an example of where my boolit failed is in a Marlin 1895. The boolit was a 350 grain GC boolit that I powder coated. They were generally about 15 bhn. This boolit was fine until about 2100 fps and then it leaded the crap out of the barrel.

Don't know if this is much help or not.

I've cast with range scrap/hill pickins since the 1980's making 100#+ batches at a time. The range scrap typically runs 8/9bhn when air cooled. And 12/13bhn when water dropped. I've cast countless 1000's of bullets with nothing more then the range scrap alloy.

I could care less about velocities (unless reloading hollow points) and have always delt with pressures. For loads that are 25,000psi or less (including 30cal rifle bullets) I use air cooled range scrap 8/9bhn alloy. For loads up to 35,000psi I use water dropped range scrap 12/13bhn alloy. Anything over 35,000psi gets 14/15bhn lyman #2 alloy.

Most of my casting is done with water dropping the bullets/range scrap so it really doesn't matter what load I use with those bullets. I can load +/- 14,000psi 38spl/44spl/45acp loads or full house 357mag/44mag with the same bullets. I like to use the 8/9bhn alloy/air cooled bullets when loading hollow points to be used in loads up to 1000fps.

There's no right or wrong answers to this. IMHO: The use of harder alloys is over rated. There's casters on this website that are doing fantastic things with very low bhn alloys & pure lead.

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Originally Posted by Rickf1985

Thanks JohB, That is the kind of info I was looking for. Not exactly the format I was looking for but getting there. The biggest problem I see with that info is the way it is laid out in "Plumbers lead" Wheel weights" Lyman #2 and quench cast WW. With the exception of the Lyman #2 which can be bought from Rotometals the Wheel weights are a crapshoot. Especially nowadays. I just got a huge load of them of which I ended up with 48# of lead weights and as I was checking them with side cutters I noticed that they varied a LOT in how hard they were from one to another. And no, I am not talking about the zincs. Consequently quenching those same weights will also give drastically varying differences in hardness. What I would LIKE to see is a chart with numbers on it. I initially said I want to see comparisons of hardness to particular guns but I realize now that considering the number of calipers and guns would make that unreasonable. BUT, if it were put in FPS then that would be totally workable all across the board.
Something like BHN 8-10 - 500-850 FPS.
That is something that could relate to all firearms. Of coarse I have to add to that the wording "within reason" Because sombody will say "but if I use Accurate #2 in my 06 will it work with BHN 5?" Well Mr. Darwin, I don't think this chart would be for you.:twisted:

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Boolit speed isn't relate-able to pressure most of the time...yes sometimes it is...here inlays the problem with a BHN-speed chart. None of the alloys in that LASC chart are a "crap shoot", you just need to know the composition of what 'was' typical of them, then translate to what you have in your stash.

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Originally Posted by Forrest r

SNIP>>>

There's no right or wrong answers to this. IMHO: The use of harder alloys is over rated. .

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This is true if you never load any castboolits that will be subjected to over 34,000 PSI

The ironic part about range scrap.............. I live on the firing ranges of Ft. Dix, Literally. I drive down range road to my street and one block in. If I were to pick on those ranges I would go to federal prison! Those ranges have been there since the base opened in 1919. Can you imagine how much lead is in there? I have even asked friends who were MP's there before they went to DOD cops and they told me it is a liability as far as the military is concerned. But they will pay hundreds of millions of dollars to have one of those ranges decontaminated of lead.:veryconfu My range that I use they have poles and trees stacked end on for backstops at the mid distances and only a mound at the ends and we are not allowed to mine the backstop thanks to some people that used to do it and dig huge holes and not have the sense to put the dirt back in the holes.

A "best" answer is going to be dang near impossibly due to the zillion variables that other members have already hinted at. Also, when you look at certain cartridges like the .38/.357 and .44 Special/Magnum combinations that can be loaded anywhere from "barely-realize-it-went-off" to "turns-your-socks-into-cotton-puddles-around-your-ankles", you'll quickly realize that one metal mix won't work always full spectrum in even ONE cartridge.

Hotter will require harder and more attention to detail. While Fryxell is primarily concerned with revolvers, I think he relays that general concept well. A good way to think of it is to compare it to aerospace. If all you're looking to do is get airborne (light, .22-surrogate target loads for handgun), you can get by with some scrap lumber, canvas, and a lawnmower engine. If you plan to dogfight Nazis over Europe (hotter duty pistol or magnum handgun), you need to start dealing in aluminum, plexiglass and superchargers. If you're planning to punch through the sound barrier or fly to Mars (generally, life above 1600 fps), you have to start sweating increasing amounts of the small stuff.

But if you want the easiest answer, wheelweight with 2% additional tin will give you a mix of about 94% lead and 3% each of tin and antimony at roughly 12 BHN. As is, this is a little overkill for the mild .38 Specials, but is about perfect for the duty autos, .357's and .44's. It can also be oven-heated and water-quenched to attain BHN's up in the 20's to serve into the low 2000's fps arena, nicely duplicating the late 1800's/early 1900's roundnose battle rifle rounds like the .30-40 Krag, .30-03, and .303 British MKI through MKVI. This is also where you'll likely want to be if playing with the "super magnum" revolver rounds that are accelerating large masses in handgun length barrels at high pressures.

There are a few applications which will benefit specifically from softer stuff in the 8-10 BHN range like the Webley MKVI revolver that wants a hollow base bullet to deal with its deliberately weird cylinder-throats-smaller-than-groove-diameter arrangement. For pokey stuff like .38 wadcutters (for play, rather than competition), .44 Specials or .45 Auto Rim you can generally get by with "whatever" and save your hardening agents for where it matters.

Don’t get too wrapped up on specific numbers.
Soft lead for handgun target loads.
Clip on wheel weight type mix for hotter handgun loads and light rifle loads.
For hot rifle loads you need for than just the correct BHN.

Realistically for 45 ACP you could use anything from 8 to 20 BHN depending on the load. A bullet with 20 BHN would be excessively hard and a waste of money but it’d work OK for hot loads.