simple Hi-Tek coating

[Tazza]

OK
Thanks for the replys to my question on plain base rifle bullets.
And since we are on leading now. When you have had leading is it mostly on the lands or in the groves? I do have a reason for these questions that I will reveal later.

My leading has always been the the grooves, never on the lands. Now i'm interested in where this is going, waiting to hear what you have in store for us.

[Tazza]

Tazza, there are no doubt many reasons for leading and I believe I know a few of them, no 1 is bullet fit, no two is barrel twist as you will find it easier to keep leading at bay with a slower twist, No 3 You are correct in saying that the hardness of the alloy will to a good degree dictate the speed you can expect before leading becomes a problem, No 4 in my view is bore size as I find it much easier to get good velocity and clean bores with larger calibers and will be testing this shortly using cast in 22 Hornet and 223. No 5 a good lube or in our case well applied abd backed Hi-Tek. I also agree that powder gas and heat do not melt base of cast bullets and know this to be a fairy tale, anyone who has used cardboard gas checks will no doubt have found them on bases of recovered bullets and they show no sign of being burned. The bullet is only in contact with the hot gasses and flame for such a short time that it does not have time to melt bullet base, a bit like quickly waving a blow torch flame across your hand you feel the warmth but that is all. I have found some range lead to be good for faster loads but that was in the days when most cast with Linotype and we see very little of that these days. I have high hopes of getting good 30 cal results from my Omark mod 44 when I get around to it as it has a 1/14'' twist barrel, I also have a couple other barrels for it in other twists. Regards Stephen

I never knew there was such a thing as a cardboard gas check, good to know. I'll have to push my 30 cals harder to see just what i can get from them. 1400fps no issues with 3 coats of hi-tek. Bevel base, no lube groove 180 grains. Sized to .308 shot out of a 300 BO 7615 and out a WFA1.

I totally agree it's all about bullet fit, if it's a good fit, you get the best accuracy and less or no leading due to the fact it's almost a perfect seal.

[Avenger442]

Tazza
I'm really not trying to be mysterious or anything. I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to experiment with a new bullet in my .308. It is heavy about 230 grain and a plain base bullet no gas check. I believe it was designed for 300 blackout. Well I took it to the range for first test. Wasn't very successful. The reason I didn't want to get too deep into it yet is that I haven't taken the time to sit down pull everything together and think about what happened.

As to what happened, there were no groups. Terrible accuracy. It is not the first time I have had this happen first time out. I'll get into it more later. Hope to have time to look at it tomorrow.

The reason I asked about others shooting plain base and where leading when there was any I thought I might get some clues to help me. So I appreciate all the replys.

[Tazza]

Tazza
I'm really not trying to be mysterious or anything. I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to experiment with a new bullet in my .308. It is heavy about 230 grain and a plain base bullet no gas check. I believe it was designed for 300 blackout. Well I took it to the range for first test. Wasn't very successful. The reason I didn't want to get too deep into it yet is that I haven't taken the time to sit down pull everything together and think about what happened.

As to what happened, there were no groups. Terrible accuracy. It is not the first time I have had this happen first time out. I'll get into it more later. Hope to have time to look at it tomorrow.

The reason I asked about others shooting plain base and where leading when there was any I thought I might get some clues to help me. So I appreciate all the replys.

Sorry, i didn't mean to imply you were being mysterious, you have been one of the best contributor for advise, any good or bad points you have experienced, you have always told us to not make the same mistakes.

I know there is some science with weight vs twist rates that i don't understand, one twist will work great with light ones, but heavy ones will look like a shotgun was used on the target.

[Stephen Cohen]

I have never had leading with Hi-Tek as yet. I have had leading with the old grease lube and mostly on the lands and I put that down to undersize bullets, but I did see a 357 revolver that was so badly leaded a cleaning rod could not go down the barrel as the clown shooting it never lubed bullets. I used mercury to remove the leading for him. Regards Stephen

[Avenger442]

No worry Tazza. And I appreciate the kind words. Not sure how deserving I am of you compliment.

I had not seen mercury as a way to remove lead. Will add that to the interesting have to try list. Mercury is pretty expensive. But if it works it works.

[Tazza]

The talk of mercury is interesting, i had a very old melting pot with a stuffed temperature gauge on that i decided needed dumping, i was thinking it may have had mercury in it due to it's age, as the sensing tube was almost rusted through, i helped it along and yes, it did contain mercury, now i have a very small amount if it, not enough to clean a barrel though, not sure if we can legally buy it over here too.

How much work is it to refine it back to pure? i watched a video that you essentially use a still to boil it and it condenses back into metallic mercury, no idea how much lead it needs to contain before that's needed though.

[HI-TEK]

The talk of mercury is interesting, i had a very old melting pot with a stuffed temperature gauge on that i decided needed dumping, i was thinking it may have had mercury in it due to it's age, as the sensing tube was almost rusted through, i helped it along and yes, it did contain mercury, now i have a very small amount if it, not enough to clean a barrel though, not sure if we can legally buy it over here too.

How much work is it to refine it back to pure? i watched a video that you essentially use a still to boil it and it condenses back into metallic mercury, no idea how much lead it needs to contain before that's needed though.

Tazza
My suggestion is do not try to use and distill Mercury. It might work, but is dangerous due to inhalation of vapors and my skin contact. The Metal is a poison.
Having said that, dental fillings contain Mercury to allow metal mixtures to be used to fill cavities, The Mercury slowly evaporates and is absorbed into your body, and leaves the residual alloy mix to harden. Something like cement setting.

[Tazza]

Tazza
My suggestion is do not try to use and distill Mercury. It might work, but is dangerous due to inhalation of vapors and my skin contact. The Metal is a poison.
Having said that, dental fillings contain Mercury to allow metal mixtures to be used to fill cavities, The Mercury slowly evaporates and is absorbed into your body, and leaves the residual alloy mix to harden. Something like cement setting.

I have no intention of using it to dissolve lead, it was an interesting way of cleaning a barrel though. The good thing is, hi-tek doesn't leave lead, so i don't need to resort to doing that

I have heard people using hydrogen peroxide and something else to clean lead from stainless steel barrels.

Good to see you lurking Joe, i sent you a text yesterday to check that COVID didn't get you as i hadn't seen you on the forum for a while and i know NSW has been hit hard over the last month. I got a chance to use your bonded release agent about 3 weeks ago, it worked well and the indent that i was getting from when the lead shrinks disappeared, so you get two thumbs up from me on the new bonded release.

[Stephen Cohen]

I also would not suggest playing with mercury as it can be very nasty stuff. I wore Rubber gloves when handling it and just plugged end of barrel and filled it with mercury and left over night, I would then empty barrel of mercury which has absorbed all the lead into a glass bottle and clean barrel with brush while wearing mask. Not something one should really do though. It is all in the past now we have Hi-Tek. Regards Stephen

[Avenger442]

OK I finally had time to go back and look at what went wrong with my latest range test for a new plain base bullet.

Here are some of the specifics:
Mold is an NOE HTC 310-247 FN. Bullet has no place for a gas check and no lube grooves. It can be cast as flat or hollow point. I cast it as hollow point to try and keep weight down. Weight was average 229gn. Which is real heavy for this 1 in 10 twist .308 gun. BHN is 14. Three coats of Hi Tek. One coat then size .309 then two coats. Actual measured size was .3095. Bullet past smash and wipe test. Case is an RP with no prep and Federal Match primer. I had to look through several load manuals to arrive at a load. They are not easy to find with this heavy a .308 bullet. Finally settled on 36 grains of CFE 223. Over all length was just off the lands. Cases and bullets were sorted by weight.

When shot there were basically no groups. Smallest was 8" at 50 yards. If it goes over 6" at 100 yards it is basically no group as far as I am concerned. Bullet holes all over a 2'X4' cardboard that I attached the targets to. Several days after the range trip I cleaned it and three other guns. I had trouble getting the barrel clean. Patches kept coming out dirty using same methods that usually left it with a shiny barrel. Got out the bore light and look down the barrel and discovered some lead on one land from about 2" into the barrel to almost the crown. Also the whole barrel was not it's shiny self. This was probably the reason for the spread out groups. Got out the brass wool and scrubbed the barrel clean.

When I look at this I see a couple of things. Sizing was a good fit for the barrel. So most likely not gas cutting as the reason for leading. CFE 223 powder has an agent that is supposed to remove copper fouling from the barrel. That might be a cause for the leading?? So going to switch to a different powder and a CCI primer. Note at this point I have trouble every time I put a Federal Match primer in an RP case. Probably will use my favorite H4895 or maybe something really slow burning like H1000. I may have loaded this load a little too hot for the bullet. I didn't measure the speed. I wish I had brought that equipment now. Bearing surface on this bullet measures 0.595. That is about 0.252 more bearing than anything else that I have shot in this rifle. I think that I just drove the plain base bullet to fast. If I had to guess it was probably between 2100 and 2200 fps. Going to shoot for 2000fps with next loads. This bullet is about 70 gn over anything I have shot in this gun.

Let me know what you think.

[Tazza]

It could be a bit fast for a 1:10 barrel with those sort of predicted speeds. For lead getting on the lands, something has to be wrong for it to stick there, possibly too fast of a twist?

Being no lube groove, you have lots of bearing surface for the rifling to grab hold of, i'd like to think the cleaning properties of the powder wouldn't take effect really fast. You'd surely see grouping at first then it would open up if it was the cause?

I always assumed that leading "generally" happens closer to the muzzle, as that's where it has the most speed and potential friction to have the lead rub off on the barrel. At the throat, could that be due to it trying to start spinning?

[popper]

Harden your alloy. I've used cfe blk & pistol, no excessive bad crud left in barrel but it does burn dirty. I use 310 in my 308W AR10. Lead streaks are from something getting wiped down the barrel, happens to my plinking stuff in 40sw. Maybe the back end finger of the PB broke off? Slick sided pushes lots of alloy to the tail, that is why I put a groove in my slick sided moulds. HiTek is kinda hard to heat treat. I figure my alloy is 20ish BHN. The ones I did in BO were 30 something, copper added.

[Stephen Cohen]

Popper made a good point as I have never considered slick sided bullets would move lead to tail of bullet, I think that has merit. I have not done much with 308 cast as yet but those I know who have say it is not easy to get high velocity with 1:10 twist barrels, this is why I intend to use a 1:14 twist when I put my 308 together. I would do as you say and drop the velocity and work up from what you consider acceptable accuracy. Regard Stephen

[HI-TEK]

Hi all,
I am lost to understand why there seems a need, to drive cast boolits faster and faster in various calibers.
What is the benefit with driving them faster and faster?
Is this just an experiment, or is there a benefit?
All in the know, please advise..... thanks in advance

[Lloyd Smale]

in handguns not much. Ive killed bison with cast bullets at a 1000fps and see little advantage in killing power with anything over 1200. With rifles (im talking semi autos) it is something we do to get enough pressure to run the action. A 2200 fps load in a 556 isnt running the action. You need more pressure with light bullets or a heavier bullet. I also see some advantage in killing power in calibers 35 and smaller because they have smaller meplats and the velocity increase causes those small bullets to do more damage. With something 41 or bigger you have a big enough metplat to do damage and if anything trying to push them to fast decreases penetration. A big cast bullet with a decent metplat does its damage by penetrating deep and straight and giving a longer wound channel vs something like a jacketed hp that has a much shorter wider wound channel.

[Tazza]

Hi all,
I am lost to understand why there seems a need, to drive cast boolits faster and faster in various calibers.
What is the benefit with driving them faster and faster?
Is this just an experiment, or is there a benefit?
All in the know, please advise..... thanks in advance

The way i see the demand for more speed is for rifle, you want the speed so it shoots flatter, as it slows down, the trajectory looks like a rainbow. All bullets will drop as they go towards the target, but the flatter you get them, the more accuracy you get at distance.

You then have for hunting, the more energy you can hit an animal with, the more damage you can do if the projectile is right, and doesn't simply punch through. You have a 180 grain projectile moving at 1,000 FPS vs one that is 2,000 FPS obviously, the faster one has more energy to strike a target.

Factory loads for .223 and .308 push jacketed projectiles at 2,500-3,000 FPS. People like getting jacketed performance from coated lead, but i don't think you can ever get it, but the goal is to get as close to it as you can.

For pistol shooting, some competitions have a power factor to meet, but pretty much and coated lead can achieve this figure.

I'm sure there are points i missed and parts that can be corrected by others, but this is my understanding of it all.

[HI-TEK]

in handguns not much. Ive killed bison with cast bullets at a 1000fps and see little advantage in killing power with anything over 1200. With rifles (im talking semi autos) it is something we do to get enough pressure to run the action. A 2200 fps load in a 556 isnt running the action. You need more pressure with light bullets or a heavier bullet. I also see some advantage in killing power in calibers 35 and smaller because they have smaller meplats and the velocity increase causes those small bullets to do more damage. With something 41 or bigger you have a big enough metplat to do damage and if anything trying to push them to fast decreases penetration. A big cast bullet with a decent metplat does its damage by penetrating deep and straight and giving a longer wound channel vs something like a jacketed hp that has a much shorter wider wound channel.

Thank you Lloyd, your input is much appreciated.
It just seemed to me that people were trying to push things, may be too far, and this may cause other problems. Previously, I had not realized the reasons why this was being done.

[HI-TEK]

The way i see the demand for more speed is for rifle, you want the speed so it shoots flatter, as it slows down, the trajectory looks like a rainbow. All bullets will drop as they go towards the target, but the flatter you get them, the more accuracy you get at distance.

You then have for hunting, the more energy you can hit an animal with, the more damage you can do if the projectile is right, and doesn't simply punch through. You have a 180 grain projectile moving at 1,000 FPS vs one that is 2,000 FPS obviously, the faster one has more energy to strike a target.

Factory loads for .223 and .308 push jacketed projectiles at 2,500-3,000 FPS. People like getting jacketed performance from coated lead, but i don't think you can ever get it, but the goal is to get as close to it as you can.

For pistol shooting, some competitions have a power factor to meet, but pretty much and coated lead can achieve this figure.

I'm sure there are points I missed and parts that can be corrected by others, but this is my understanding of it all.

Tazza
Thanks for your input.
It seems, that there may be a lot of work possible or required, to make various alloys, with various hardness's, and test them at various speeds, to try to get speeds that they will tolerate, and required from a specific cast, with intent to get towards resembling Jacketed ammo performance.
I think this is a huge task, as so many variations are possible with alloy combinations, powder type and guns used.
There seems quite a few on this site that are experimenting for their own end uses.

[Tazza]

Tazza
Thanks for your input.
It seems, that there may be a lot of work possible or required, to make various alloys, with various hardness's, and test them at various speeds, to try to get speeds that they will tolerate, and required from a specific cast, with intent to get towards resembling Jacketed ammo performance.
I think this is a huge task, as so many variations are possible with alloy combinations, powder type and guns used.
There seems quite a few on this site that are experimenting for their own end uses.

There really is a lot of work to do that, what works for one gun, may not work for another. Avenger has posted quite a bit of great information from his research and testing.

The only long guns i have are .22 and an air rifle, i have not yet bought anything bigger to cast and tune to work well with cast, trying different hardness to get the desired speed. The ones i have cast for friends have been good to 1,400 FPS. The grouping isn't that of jacketed, but it's still good enough for the distances we plan on using them for in our competitions.

I don't go hunting, so the cast i have been making for friends is being used for competitions, punching paper and steel targets so we don't need silly speeds from them at the distances we shoot at.