Time between casting/shooting

[rockrat]

Just wondering how long you wait from casting a boolit, to sizing and shooting it? Also, air cooled vs. water cooled.

[btroj]

Depends. I like to let them sit a week or two. What I won't do is let a shortage of aged bullets keep me from shooting!

I tend to water drop everything out of habit. If I air cooled I would want 2 weeks min of aging of I could but again, I shoot when I want, not when the bullets are aged.

[histed]

I'm fairly new to this, but I don't wait long at all. Cast, let them cool, tumble lube, load and shoot - often within 24 hours. At this point I'm shooting as cast. Mine are COWW or 50/50 COWW/Pb, air cooled.

[Shiloh]

Ten days-two weeks.
I usually have enough to load by planning ahead.

Shiloh

[tazman]

I like to wait at least 2 days before loading. If I am trying something new I will often load and shoot in 24 hours. I water drop so most boolits are tough enough in a day.

[Bryan527]

I wait 24 hours before I size them. I only size and lube what I intend to load immediately, though.

[Foto Joe]

I can't find my air cooled data but with water dropped COWW's I've found that an initial hardness of 17.2 and full hardness of 21.8 after seven days. A three week test showed no more hardening than the 21.8. The only data that I can find on my air cooled COWW's was 9.5 on day one and 10.1 on day four. I believe that it took almost two weeks to get up to the 12.5 which is normal for the COWW's that I use.

My daughter and her boyfriend showed up last Friday from AZ and she brought with her close to a thousand 9x19 brass that she wants to load while she's here. I only have about 300 of her boolits cast up and lubed and I told her I'd be happy to cast for her but she's gonna get real familiar with a 4500 Lube Sizer if she wants to load all that brass before she leaves. Dads have to draw the line somewhere.

[just_shooter]

Interesting question is what happened with powder coated boolits. Because they are heat treated during curing process is this affect there hardness? I guess this will decrease hardness unless you wather quench them again right after the owen. But this is just my thought. Anybody measured that?

[Dave C.]

I keep about one year ahead for my center fire pistol (38spl) and my 45 acp. So I have 1yr of loaded ammo, 1 yr of sized and lubed, and one year of as cast. So three years+-.

Dave C.

[prs]

The OP question was how long from casting to shooting. If I am testing a new bullet design for function in an auto loader or such, I will test right away. For general shooting, I am shooting ammo now that I loaded months if not years ago and new inventory is placed behind the old. BUT, then we have what others have answering which is how long from casting to loading. For me, I often size, lube and load the same day. I reckon they can age in the case as well as in a box. Then again, I usually have some good number of bullets left to load some other day. If this is bad practice, at least it has not jumped-up and bit me on the ****. yet.

prs

[waco]

I'm more picky about rifle boolits. I let them age at least a week or two. Handgun stuff I try to do the same, but I'm not that fussy with them.

[merlin101]

I'm not picky or fussy and for sure not in a hurry! I've got a few thousand boolits sitting around that if they were children would now be in school. Oh well they'll get loaded up and shot sooner or later.

['74 sharps]

I wait till mine cool off to load..........

[Yodogsandman]

For AC COWW+Sn boolits, I wait a week to size and lube, 3 weeks to shoot.

For oven heat treated boolits, I size before HT'ing and then add the GC, size and lube ASAP after HT. I shoot these anytime after 24 hours but, prefer to wait 5+ days.

[Ricochet]

I've cast, lubed, loaded and shot 'em the same day. But usually they get to age a while.

[Garyshome]

I water drop everything. I use them when I need them, it doesn't hurt them to set for a long while. I usually cast way more then I need. I also cast in the winter, not usually in the summer.