BHN for rifle bullets

I have searched and searched and read the books recommended for casting but they all are geared towards pistol. I need to try to find out what the recommended BHN is for rifle bullets. My specific bullets are .30 cal. 115 gr. up to 200.gr for the 30-30 and the 30-06 Springfield 93A3 and Garand. I have dead soft lead and I have linotype although my testing on the linotype does not come back to 22 BHN as I see stated in many places, I am getting around 18 BHN and these were factory linotype pigs. I used to work in the printing industry and ran a linotype machine occasionally so I am well aware of what they are. No matter, I am looking for what I should aim for in my alloy, if I need to buy super hard from Rotometals I will and mix it in. I want to get all the lead I have consolidated down to two batches, one for pistol and one for rifle. So any help or references to printed matter would be greatly appreciated.

Rick

There is a big window of hardness that will work for you depending on what you are doing. Velocity with gas checks up to the high teens is easy. Faster than that you may need to work on the details.
For velocity in the teens, assuming normal good chamber and bore numbers, 10 to 18 BHN can be made to work for most loads. Bullet design will play a large part so maters a lot too in the final outcome.

IF you are looking for one true hardness number in all cases, it does not exist.

I am aiming for 16 BHN. I am running gas checks on everything and I am not planning on going out of the teens. I would like to go with one number for everything but I realize that 16 is a bit high for pistols and I could end up with fouling. I do not powder coat and don't know if I ever will. My dad used a lubrisizer and I still have his old Lyman 45 plus a newer RCBS model so I will be doing it old school for lubing. If I can get away with 16 for gas check 30-06 then I am a happy camper. I never remember my dad ever checking hardness or mentioning it. Most of his lead was old Bell Tel phone cable sheathing since he worked there and he got miles of the stuff for free. I still have nightmares about pulling all that damn wire out!!!!!

Yes. That cable sheathing is good stuff, with some tin added you can get up to maybe 12 BHN.

I don't think you will even need to be at 16 BHN for what you describe. We used to "do it all" :lol: with age hardened clip on wheelweights. As cast they were about a 9 on the scale and air cooled a week or 10 days hardened to about 12-13BHN.

This is from page 162 of the Lyman Reloading Handbook 46th Edition. Copyrite 1982. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...6c8da707cf.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...52fb09526d.jpg

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Originally Posted by Chill Wills

Yes. That cable sheathing is good stuff, with some tin added you can get up to maybe 12 BHN.

I don't think you will even need to be at 16 BHN for what you describe. We used to "do it all" :lol: with age hardened clip on wheelweights. As cast they were about a 9 on the scale and air cooled a week or 10 days hardened to about 12-13BHN.

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Well, I just made up 75 lbs. of an alloy that tests at between 18 and 20. It is 50/50 Linotype and some stuff I had called my "mystery metal". I finally had it tested because it would not fill out a mold for anything. and it came back looking pretty much like wheel weights. I think the iron in the sample was due to my use of a grinder right above where I had the ingots on the floor. ( see test results below) But I mix it with the lino and it fills out perfectly. So now at least I have an idea of what to do with the other three 60 lb. weights I have! Or maybe just add a little tin to them but this was half a load from one of them which netted me 75 lbs., I have three more at double that. I don't think I will be needing any more than that! I do only have 100 lbs. of linotype though. I look at it this way, The hardness of this as it is is still workable down with my dead soft lead so I can always bring it down. Bringing the soft up is the problem. The readings I took on the lead I was working with today were done as I was doing it so I would cast a bullet, put it in the vice before it was even cool and file a flat on it and take inside and check it with my Lee tester. So from what you are saying the readings may change after a week or so?
AI <LOD 80.000
Ba <LOD : 0.116
Sb 2.444 +/- 0.097
Sn 0.732 +/- 0.057
In <LOD ' 0.028
Cd <LOD 0.023
Pd <LOD 0.017
Ag <LOD 0.080
Mo <LOD 0.120
Nb <LOD 0.066
Zr <LOD 0.061
Bi <LOD . 0.279
Pb 95.427 +/- 0.618
Hg <LOD ' 0.080
Br <LOD 0.046
Se <LOD 0.125
Au <LOD 0.080
W <LOD 0.002
Pt <LOD 0.330
Zn <LOD 0.046
Cu <LOD 0.074
Ni <LOD 0.085
Co <LOD . 0.101
Fe 0.910 +/- 0.121
Mn <LOD ' 0.233
Cr <LOD 0.230
V <LOD 0.451
Ti <LOD : 1.010

80% AI??? what is AI, I could not find that symbol on the periodic table.

But then again I couldn't find the symbol for Chinesium either and I know for a fact it is a commonly used material for almost everything.

I think you will find that is aluminum but what you are looking at is the error column. The only percentages shown are tin, antimony, lead and iron. And the iron could have been from my shop or as the guy who did the testing told me it may have come from the saw blade used to cut the ingot. Pretty much know there is no iron in the lead and if there was it would come right out at melting time. Same with aluminum.

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Originally Posted by Rickf1985

I think you will find that is aluminum but what you are looking at is the error column. The only percentages shown are tin, antimony, lead and iron. And the iron could have been from my shop or as the guy who did the testing told me it may have come from the saw blade used to cut the ingot. Pretty much know there is no iron in the lead and if there was it would come right out at melting time. Same with aluminum.

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I considered Aluminum (Al) but that didn't make sense. Got it on the error column.

Don't get hung up on BHN. You can get the # a bunch of different ways with wildly different alloys which some will work and some will not.
Basically you have 95-.7-2.4 which I consider a little on the soft side. If you want one alloy to cover say standard handgun loads and gas checked rifles loads to up around 1850 or so, I would raise the tin to between 1.5 to 2 percent, and raise the antimony to 3 or 4 percent.
My personal alloy for the above stated purposes is 94-2-4. The only other alloy I use is 20:1 for 32/38 low pressure target work. The BHN on my alloy tested on Lee tester hits 14.0/14.5 air cooled. I have dropped the tin down below 1.5% and the rifle accuracy suffered but the handguns loads were about the same.
I use the downloaded alloy calculator from this site to determine my mix amounts add pure tin or superhard from Rotometals to arrive at the final alloy. The calculator has all the type metals listed as well as most Rotometals offerings.
The older COWW metal with a little tin added has been an excellent alloy for decades and depending on which decade it was made was roughly 3 to 4% antimony. Now that COWW is on the endangered list I make mine from soft sheet lead, pure tin, and superhard.
Using your alloy as a base I used the calculator and came up with this-- using one pound or your alloy, add .016/lbs of tin and .065lbs of superhard gives you 1.1/lbs of 93.8-2.13-4.02 alloy.
Hope this helps.
Tony

It will take some experimentation, but shoot them as soft as you can get by with as long as accuracy is good and leading is not a problem. At speeds of no more than about 1700 -1800 fps, a BHN of around 12-14 works very well.

Tony, Here is what I came up with after mixing the alloy I had tested with linotype. The copy/paste did not come over very well but it is 2.37% tin, 7.22% antimony, 90.4% lead, 10 lbs. and 15.9 hardness.

Here is the kicker, when I test it with the Lee tester both with their scope and with a caliper I come up with 18-20 hardness. I have 73lbs. of that and I would like to bring that down to around 16 and that would set me up for a very long time. I might send some of this out to see exactly what is in it before doing anything else with it. It casts very well, I just do not want to have a leading issue due to lead that is too hard.

Mixed Alloy Tin % Antimony % Arsenic % Copper % Silver % Lead % Weight Est. Hardness
2.37% 7.22% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 90.4% 10.0 15.9

Depends on how fast you want to push them. Your 2% Sb is good for 30/30 and probably the garand up to 16-1800 fps. The 06 and 24-2700 would need 4% and WD. For close plinking with light stuff, cut the 2% down to 1%.

Rick, I must misunderstood something, sorry.
Using your new numbers, 1.0/lbs of that cut with .85/lbs of pure lead will give you 1.28% tin and 3.90% antimony. This will be fine for handguns and plain base rifle but I don't think it's enough tin for the 1800 on gas checks but it might be, depends on the gun and what powder you use.
Now if you are willing to add back some pure tin this gets a little closer to what I use. 1.0/lbs your alloy cut with 1.0/lbs of pure lead and add .015 pure tin your at 1.92% tin and 3.58% antimony. Air cooled should put you in the 13/14 brinell range(just a guess on brinell).
This should fly in a 30 gas check to 1850 or so without leading. The only reason I use 4% is some of my Lyman molds won't cast big enough for nominal sizing below 4%.
I apologize for throwing so many numbers at you. I will tell you how I measure these small amounts. I use stainless steel measuring spoons to pour out a wafer, then measure on your powder scale in grains, then ask Google to convert to lbs. Or a 255 grain boolit mold with pure tin is.025/lbs. of tin. Tin is lighter than lead. I know everyone doesn't want to invest what I have invested but I have a lee pot, 4lb I think for tin and Lee 10 pounder for superhard. I hope I didn't didn't make you eyes cross.
Tony

Rick, I strongly recommend downloading the alloy calculator, it's free, I think it's in the lead and alloys section in the sticky's.
If you know what your starting with, it takes all the guess work out. Just remember its in pounds.
One more thing on the calculator, ignore the brinell, sometimes it's close and sometimes it's way off.
Tony