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I 'thought' I read somewhere that cast bullets need to sit awhile before being either sized or fired (a mind is a terrible thing to lose)
I usually cast in the morning and size in the afternoon. If the bullet blisters my fingers I wait awhile longer to size.
Any truth/thoughts on this seasoning?..or is it an old wives tale?
thanks
walt
I have read the same thing Walter. I don't have any empirical evidence that it is true though.
I will be interested to see what our resident gurus have to say.
BTW, howdy neighbor. I am at 290 and Huffmeister!
Tim
Quote:
Originally Posted by Walter Laich
Walt,
Truth and lies. Depends on how you cast them.
If you are air cooling, bullets may be too soft for the method you are sizing. They can bend or bow or swell on the nose. Or the nose punch can engrave a line. If a PB, you want a strong enough bullet not to deform the base. So it's best to wait for awhile if your mix will be harder later.
Now if you water drop, then you may want to size before they get too hard TO size. The hardness will come on all of a sudden. So in this case, waiting is unnecessary and may be detrimental.
So it all depends.
Bullets may reach full hardness a day after heat treating and quenching. So size these right away to reduce wear and tear on your lubrisizer. If it's a durable Lee push through it doesn't matter, just more effort required on the handle. These nose first methods tend to have less issues with soft bullets than lubrisizers which require a nose punch and go in base first.
If you want ACWW's back up to full hardness before firing, which is BHN 12 or thereabouts, then wait about 3 weeks or so before shooting.
ACWW's that are referred to as "well aged" (you may have heard the term before) are old enough to have reached hardness stability.
I'm with them, kinda! Air cooled, antimony alloy, I size after one day and shoot after 10.
Water dropped I size right away, but still don't shoot them for 10 days.
24/1 Lead/tin (black powder) I size/shoot anytime. It's reported that they actually soften some in a few days. That doesn't seem to make any difference.
wow
i have cast checked sized lubed loaded and shot in same day
with wcww's.
but they do harden up to normal over a few days.
I usually do both in the same day. Mine air cool. I don't water drop, so it makes sense to me to size while they are still soft. it doesnt make much difference, but in my eyes, the least resistance the better
I size next day for my air dropped, but that's just waiting for the LLA to dry for sizing.
Air cool, size when ya want( 50/50 WW/pure = soft), THEN heat treat, wait a few days.
Thanks for all the info. I do remember some of this now--old age is a wonderful thing.
I sometimes cast for a couple of days and then do a resizing marathon. Since shoulder surgery a long time at the casting pot is 30-45 minutes with a like time for sizing. I still can get a bunch of .45 Colt bullets cast in a short amount of time.
Walt
All this time I thought you were supposed to let them harden in the berm.
Paul