Gear's 190x

[geargnasher]

...Ok guys, what do we need to do for testing? What needs knowing and how do we learn it?

Brad

I'm going to keep working on the new mould drawing, do more lube and load testing with my .35 Remington as the bullets age, and hopefully do more shooting with the XCB using WD 50/50 + 1% Sn (because that's what I have) and test more lube in it for a bit now that I have a firm baseline established with an accurate load. When mould arrives, bullets are cast and aged, I will have a pretty firm conclusion on the final Extreme Lube formula and will proceed to test it more while pushing a higher SB heat-treated alloy. The plan is to have lube, alloy, and a sub-MOA 2600 fps load combo developed before my birthday. That's four months and some change.

After that I'll probably play more with alloys and keep filling in cells of the spreadsheet. I'm interested in finding what works for the loads I want in the guns I have, not necessarily every conceivable bit of minutia about alloy constituents. I'm obsessive, but there is a limit to it.

Gear

[popper]

Doc. I have a PID controlled convection toaster oven I DT-PC in, just dump the boolits into the water off the tray. Takes about 2 seconds. EDIT: Stood vertical on steel plate, anywhere from 100 -300 on the tray. I've drilled the base of a boolit to cover the temp probe so I know the boolit temp. My water tank holds ~ 1 1/2 gal, 200 165 gr doesn't change the temp much but 400 definitely does, maybe 30F.

cbrick, I've got lots of pics of alloys I could send you. Not the thread to discuss this.

[geargnasher]

A question for the people that heat treat their bullets with a toaster oven and then quench. What kind of tray are you using to place the bullets on and how many bullets or how much room between bullets so the water will be able to reach all the bullets surface for even quenching?

Rick posted some pics of his really slick, triple-decker setup on the thread Brad linked earlier on this thread (LASC alloy article). I noticed he commented about drilling the holes out to get water to the bullets faster. I use a cake pan with two coathanger-wire bails intersecting at 90 degrees. Grab it out of the oven with some pliers and dunk away. I drilled a series of 1/2" holes around the side and a section in the middle of the bottom with several dozen much smaller ones so the water can flow in from two directions.

Gear

[btroj]

A question for the people that heat treat their bullets with a toaster oven and then quench. What kind of tray are you using to place the bullets on and how many bullets or how much room between bullets so the water will be able to reach all the bullets surface for even quenching?

My testing was on a smallish scale so I used the trays my oven came with after they were covered in 1/4 in mesh hardware cloth. I layed the bullets in a single layer. Being a convection oven the mesh lets the air circulate well so the temp is pretty even. I use one tray at a time even though I have two and could use both at one time.

I need to get some sort of digital oven probe that will show max temp to see how much temp variation I get during the heat soak time.

I think Rick used pans with bullets nearly aligned in rows, or at least I think I saw a photo of that on the LASC website. Rick can speak to his method far better than I can.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

A question for the people that heat treat their bullets with a toaster oven and then quench. What kind of tray are you using to place the bullets on and how many bullets or how much room between bullets so the water will be able to reach all the bullets surface for even quenching?

I packed them in a tuna can...as I wanted the boolits vertical in case I got near slump temp.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...671-Heat-treat

The can-O-boolits moved quickly with my gloved hand into the water, then quickly (a split second), while submerged, the boolits were dumped out of the can with my other hand. The 5 gallon bucket was full of cold tap water, fresh out of the Minnesota ground in July...I suspect it to be about 55º to 58º F, but I didn't use a thermometer.

[geargnasher]

I do vertical too, I think Rick does as well. Hence my straight-sided cake pan choice. Dang thing is HEAVY when packed full of 180+ grainers. Tuna can sounds more manageable.

Gear

[btroj]

I didn't worry about slump as my oven won't get that hot. Sure wish it would, Lord knows I tried. Mine seems to max at 440 F. It might go higher but not set to convection which is something I think is pretty important for even heating.

When, or if, I decide to get into mass production I will most likely do like Gear did and use a cake pan with lots of holes. I can use a hot pad to get it from the oven and into the water quickly.

[btroj]

Tuna can is awful small, might need to try a threena can.

Gear, you said your obsession has limits. Since when and what are they?

[geargnasher]

People like me are extraordinarily obsessive, but usually about only one thing at a time. Not finished with bullet lube yet. Probably never will be, but I see it playing second fiddle to alloy in the future.

Gear

[cbrick]

I do vertical too, I think Rick does as well. Hence my straight-sided cake pan choice. Dang thing is HEAVY when packed full of 180+ grainers. Tuna can sounds more manageable. Gear

I stand them up on the base (check) with all bullets touching to help keep them standing. I searched around restaurant equipment supply places until I found aluminum spaghetti pans that had flat bottoms. I attached brackets on the sides so that they could be stacked & not touch the nose of the bullets in the pan below, any bullets too long need to be in the top pan. I did enlarge the holes on the side to enhance water flow. With 357" bullets each pan holds 300 bullets so with the 3 pans that's 900 bullets at a time, yeah, that's kind of heavy but manageable. Since not competing anymore one pan at a time is all I ever use. The handles that are on the bottom pan only are pop riveted on.



Rick

[btroj]

Obsessing over too many throng sat once is not good. It tends to drive one batty.

I was going to shoot Friday but since the monsoons are back I may spend a day casting and starting some alloy tests.

[Doc Highwall]

I want to thank everyone for their response as to how they stack/align the bullets accompanied with pictures that say a thousand words about their quenching methods.

[popper]

Btroj - I disconnected 2 of 4 elements in mine so temp never gets over 430F on a avg 100F day.

[RickinTN]

'Ya know guys.....Day before yesterday I left the computer to do a little farming and when I returned this thread had literally dwindled to nothing. Yesterday I left the computer for a few hours to shoot some clay targets and when I returned the thread is thriving. I think the moral of the story is I need to shoot more clay birds!
Thanks for all the info guys,
Rick

[cbrick]

It be time to back this thread up, in fact right to post #1. A picture or at least a drawing of 190X would be good for those of us that have no idea what it is. I've been sitting here quietly figuring someone would bring it up.

Now that I think about it someone did . . . Me!

Rick

[geargnasher]

Somebody asked in post #4 and was addressed in post #8. Here ya go, Rick: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-06&highlight=

I think Brad forgot about that one when he started this, we probably should have just resurrected the other thread. Anyway, here we are, and we've drifted to other designs, alloy, and heat treat, all very interesting stuff, I figure the thread will go wherever it needs to with a little encouragement regardless of the title.

Gear

[cbrick]

Somebody asked in post #4 and was addressed in post #8. Here ya go, Rick: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-06&highlight=

I think Brad forgot about that one when he started this, we probably should have just resurrected the other thread. Anyway, here we are, and we've drifted to other designs, alloy, and heat treat, all very interesting stuff, I figure the thread will go wherever it needs to with a little encouragement regardless of the title. Gear

Thanks,

I addressed your Sn questions (in post #8) in post #30, the percentages of Sn were talking about will have little effect on heat treating. I got the impression that Brad assumed his lack of expected HT results was because of 1% or less Sn in his alloy. That's pretty doubtful. In post #52 I addressed what I believe will cure his HT woes.

Rick

[geargnasher]

Somehow I completely missed post #30, must have been distracted by someone else's post. The first paragraph is what I was interested in, the other stuff I had read in essence before several times over the years at LASC.

Something else that took me on a tangent was the old CB thread from 2008 that Brad linked.

Gear

[cbrick]

Oopsie . . . Brad's HT was addressed in post #52 . . . NOT post #40. I'll edit that minor, insignificant little error I made in post #77.

Rick

[btroj]

Ok, I wouldn't say I didn't get results with HT. What I got was results that varied from what I expected.
I expected HT to 440 to give a higher end BHn than HT to 375. With my plain old range scrap I found that the end BHn at both temps was the same. This was evident from Day 1 on, essentially no discernible difference.
What I want to see is how does an increase in tin alter the end BHn at a variety of HT temps. Will it makes a difference at all?

If HT temp doesn't alter end BHn then why does water dropping give a range of harnesses in one session rather than all bullets being the same.