15 BHN still too hard

Decided to mess around with see what I could do with my current alloy. Quenching after casting and PC gives me 19-20 bhn. Needed that for my last project but since it's shelved right now dont really need it. Actually need something more .... pliable. Some more expansion. Because really these 20 bhn GC PC lil lee .225's might as well be FMJ . Just zip though everything.
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Well air cooled this batch after power coating for 30min and I see there 15bhn. Awsome ! Apparently that's a good harness.... Well apparently not with small boolits lol. Excuse to poor power coat job it's been a while and I'm a tad bit rusty.
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Anyhow 30yd three new 1gal water , basically a foot and some change of water. Boolits sould about be running 1300fps tops I thinks with this load. And yeah.... You can see what good all that did lol
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Then I tried a five gallon bucket of wet news paper and cardboard at the same distance and it zipped though that.
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Went right though that then finally since all the things where still half full I decided to shoot though the bottom 1/3's of them with the bucket or cardboard behind it aannd .. yeah no
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Sooo yeah apparently small meplats + any semi hard alloy = FMJ abilities lol ! Been told by many this same alloy at this hardness is amazing in larger boolits as far as expansion, but apparently not on those little .225's This however has me curious as to what could happen with a HP version of this bullet... Because I know people have complained about how with soft alloy having the noses basically ripped if in the .30 cals but could it be different with the .22cals ? Makes me wonder.

Anyhow reckon I'll be ordering some pure from rotor metals along with some other ingredients to mix up some custom stuff. Eventually lol

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Nice action shots going through the water jugs.

I think at your guesstimated velocity of 1300 fps, even plain old clip on wheel weights at around 12.5 BHN will be too hard for expansion. Since you are somewhat close to .22 LR speeds, I am going to guess something closer to 10 BHN will be needed.

I do know that ACWW does not expand in a possum when fired from a .32 S&W Long (approx. 750 fps). I was not impressed, and I don't really think the possum was either.

Robert

Everybody has a different approach to developing lead hardness; I tend to go on BHN instead of percentages. I have straight linotype down to pure lead, along with 50/50 bar solder and scrap wheel weights. I’ll make up some arbitrary batch and check hardness with my Lee tester, using the same bullet mold every time (in order to remove another variable). The other day, I was looking for about 18 BHN, so I took a few ingots of 14 BHN and added a little linotype, then cast a few slugs to test. The first try didn’t change hardness at all, so I kept adding small pieces until I started getting readings of 17.8 to 17.9. I emptied the pot and got 6 one pound ingots. I stamp those ingots and keep everything in groups so I can make a custom alloy - or just stick with whatever worked in the past. Most of my pistol loads run 10-12 BHN and rifle runs 17-22, depending on what I’m doing.

You can add pure lead to your current alloy and eventually start to see the BHN go down to whatever you want.

Wolfdog: There's an easy way to see if you're chasing your tail on this. You're shooting a 40 grain slug at around 1300 fps. A 22lr solid roundnose is also 40 grains, at about 1200 fps, and is made from the softest alloy this side of pure lead. Repeat these same tests with a 22lr and see what the results are. If you don't get much expansion and the bullet just pencils right through, that's pretty much the baseline for what you'll be able to do with a softer alloy. If the 22lr has the performance that you're looking for, then the hardness of the rimfire bullet is what you should be looking for. Remember, if the 22lr doesn't give you the performance that you want, replicating those ballistics with a 223 won't either.

Powdered?

Go pure lead.

IMO about the only way your going to get expansion with 15 BH is hit a rock.lol. I went to down that rabbit hole a few years ago. I zipped right through deer with a 15.4 BH HP at 1750 fps. I am happy with 50/50 COWW and pure mix with another 2%pewter added in my 35 Rem using a HP at 2100 fps. Your running a GC and PC so you will be good with softer alloys. I’ve run 40/1 in 7.5 BH in the same gun at the same speed with no leading. Its the current alloy im using in my Ruger 77/44 and a Lyman devastator at 1600 fps. I like big holes and dropping animals in their tracks if at all possible. If your doing water bottle tests I only get around 3 or so 1 gallon jugs before my soft alloy gets caught. As other will tell you water testing is a pretty hard test media. My soft alloy in a HP still blows right through deer as you can see below in my 35 Rem post.

Here’s a 10.5BH HP ran at 2100 fps…

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...n-HP-group-buy!

And to hard of alloy imo…

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...my-devastators!!!


And some alloy testing posts I did…

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...my-ruger-77-44


https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...man-devastator

Can you make hollow points for that caliber? Would they make a difference? Ballistic jell will give more realistic results than water bottles.

I don't know if this works for 22 cal. but it does work for 30 cal. ...
A mix 50/50 of COWW and soft lead ... Air Cooled ... I have not hardness tested this
but have been told (so grain of salt here) it should be a 8 bhn .
It does expand in 30 cal. rifle boolits and I have started using this mix in all my handgun ammo . Tested a 155 gr. (358156) cast SWC (solid nose) in 357 Magnum load and it mushroomed into a nearly 1/2 " perfect mushroom .
Wont hurt to try it ... might be just the ticket !

That photo of boolit going through water bottles ... AWESOME !

Keep On Keeping On
Gary

I think the pure, or close to pure, with PC should do what you want at that low velocity.

If you have a scrap metal yard near you go and see if they have some plumbing roof jacks. they are just about pure lead. They have tons of them at the scrap yard near me.

I know this is about cast boolits but I am a big fan of “exploding” ballistic tip projectiles in .224. My favorites are ballistic tips and Vmax. I use 60 grain vmax with 25 grains of benchmark in my POF and 27 grains with a 40 grain Nosler ballistic tip in my LTR. Both coyote droppers. You know when things get hit with them because what ever get shot drops in their tracks and varmints “explode”.

Wolf,

I plink a lot of donated water bottles at 50 yards with my .22 LR's, and the reaction is typically "solid round noses zip through; hollow points make them jump". This is of course with standard .22 alloy of a low antimony percentage.

Unless you're deliberately going for a low-noise load, I'd suggest keeping the hard alloy and step on the gas to see if you can get some displacement effect off the meplat that you have. 2000 fps out of my K-Hornet with a bullet a little more WFN than yours seems to do the trick, and you have a bigger boiler.

Veral Smith said you need 1400 fps for expansion.

At 13000 fps I've run BHN 8 boolits in 762x39. You'll be surprised how well they hold up with PC and a gas check. I use pure scrap very soft.

13000 fps!!! Wow!!!

LOL

Stop water quenching. Just cast, PC and air cool. Load and shoot. Probably still will not get any expansion without a hollow point at that velocity.