How to 'temper' the nose of a hardcast boolit?

[Walstr]

My custom .461" x 405gr Mountain Mold does a great job using COWW+additional 2% Tin, then water quenched out of the mold. Very nice indeed, but not suitable for deer hunting as the nose is very hard.

Anyone care to share a good 'recipe' to soften/temper the nose? Thanks much.

Wally

Can't seem to delete a 'thumbnail pic' I accidentally added? Just ignore it.

[Wayne Smith]

You will have to use BruceB's process of casting a soft lead nose to your boolit. This involves a very hot mold as you first pour a small nose of pure lead, and, while keeping this molten, cast the rest of the boolit with your alloy. This provides a strong weld between the two and does not separate when done right. Yes, it is quite involved, but you only need five or ten of them because you can practice with your regular cast boolits and only use these for hunting. Because it's the same boolit from the same mold it shoots the same.

You can do a search here for Bruce's original post and the comments to it.

[RickinTN]

Don't water drop would be your first step to a softer bullet. Cut your mix with about the same amount of pure and you should have a pretty good hunting alloy.
Good Luck,
Rick

[Dusty Bannister]

I recall some thought that if you placed the bullets on their base in water up to the first driving band one could heat the nose with a torch until the water at the water line just started to bubble, it would reduce the hardness of the nose of the water quenched bullet. The water would keep the rest of the bullet cool enough to retain quenched hardness. I have not tried this.

While this "might" work, it would be a lot more consistent to just cast the small number of bullets needed for hunting out of the previously suggested alloy and enjoy the hunt.

[TurnipEaterDown]

If it goes fast enough, the meplat will do the job anyway. No need for SN on deer. It's a big bullet.

If you want it soft, here's the easiest way I have done it:

2 pots up to temp at same time, one w/ soft, one harder for the body
Pour a Measured amount of soft in for the nose (use a cut off casing for a dipper) - let harden w/ the mold level
Pour the base full of the harder alloy. Let sprue stiffen up.
Set the mold on top of the pot (just base on the melt) until the sprue puddle changes appearance to that softened / "don't cut yet" look -- this fuses the nose w/o defect (almost always...)
Let sprue harden and drop. I still drop into water. Non alloyed lead will not harden.

Slow, but works better than a SN mold or "hurry and swap pots" method for me.
Also makes (pretty well) a knit line perpendicular to the bullet axis -- some other methods won't.

I tried this several times on expansion media and game, and found it just wasn't worth it, but that wasn't what was asked (for an opinion) and so the method above is offered as easiest I found.

[BLAHUT]

My custom .461" x 405gr Mountain Mold does a great job using COWW+additional 2% Tin, then water quenched out of the mold. Very nice indeed, but not suitable for deer hunting as the nose is very hard.

Anyone care to share a good 'recipe' to soften/temper the nose? Thanks much.

Wally

Can't seem to delete a 'thumbnail pic' I accidentally added? Just ignore it.

Just cast the hole bullet in pure lead ? Then you will have the best hunting bullet available....

[popper]

Heat nose with base in h2o doesn't work, tried it. Nope. Lead conducts heat too well, by the time you get a temp to change grain structure the entire 'chunk' of lead is at same temp. Even tried it with 185gr RD 30/30 (long) bullet. Nope, doesn't work.

[dverna]

What is a SN mold?

[TurnipEaterDown]

What is a SN mold?

Soft Nose. The mold casts only the nose. Pour this in lead, poke in "whole bullet" mold, pour the body from alloy.
It's a PITA in my experience, and using the LBT method which I was exposed to produced flawed bullets that too often came apart.

[fredj338]

Stand the bullets in a shallow tray filled with water & put in a 400deg oven for 15-20m then air cool. I bet the noses get softer. You may have to keep adding water as it comes to boil.
I wonder if heating the entire bullet to 400 & then grabbing them with forceps & water cooling just the base would work?

[country gent]

I have cast soft noses in the past. While not hard there is some pre work that needs done.

A small dipper needs to be made that holds a measured amount of lead. A rimless cartridge case can be used but a pipe cap or heavier steel tube holds heat better.
I made my dipper with a angled end to pour easier, Once you have the dipper made long cut off a nose and melt it in the dipper, let cool, then cut and file the angled end. You want a longer handle than powder dipper. A small file handle makes a nice handle thats easy to handle and control.

I vented my sprue plates so when pouring the base I can pour a full ladle letting the excess run back in the pot keeping it hot much longer.

In use heat the ladles in their respective pots and the mould to temp. Dip the small ladle raising vertically the excess tuns out the low side of the angled end. Fill and pour the base lead with the mould over the pot letting the excess run back into the pot. Let sprue harden and cut.

[dverna]

Soft Nose. The mold casts only the nose. Pour this in lead, poke in "whole bullet" mold, pour the body from alloy.
It's a PITA in my experience, and using the LBT method which I was exposed to produced flawed bullets that too often came apart.

Thanks for the information. I have no use/need for cast hunting bullets but I like to learn stuff.

BTW got a chuckle from your first post..."I tried this several times on expansion media and game, and found it just wasn't worth it" I appreciate honesty.

[Walstr]

I have cast soft noses in the past. While not hard there is some pre work that needs done.

A small dipper needs to be made that holds a measured amount of lead. A rimless cartridge case can be used but a pipe cap or heavier steel tube holds heat better.
I made my dipper with a angled end to pour easier, Once you have the dipper made long cut off a nose and melt it in the dipper, let cool, then cut and file the angled end. You want a longer handle than powder dipper. A small file handle makes a nice handle thats easy to handle and control.

I vented my sprue plates so when pouring the base I can pour a full ladle letting the excess run back in the pot keeping it hot much longer.

In use heat the ladles in their respective pots and the mould to temp. Dip the small ladle raising vertically the excess tuns out the low side of the angled end. Fill and pour the base lead with the mould over the pot letting the excess run back into the pot. Let sprue harden and cut.

Hey Pard; I like your idear of "...cut off a nose & melt it in a case, then..." yeah, then trim it to the "nose volume". Very creative. Thanks. I mean to try that approach and mixing a small batch of 50% SOWW + My alloy. Now what makes a functional nose mushroom range test?

How 'bout 2 layers of tanned bovine leather in frt of moist book, sans cover of course. Wally

[mnewcomb59]

Shoot gallon milk jugs. 3 jugs or less is a varmint bullet. 4 jugs is a "deer bullet" or "self defense" bullet like a 124 9mm HST, 45 acp 230 gr XTP, a 100 gr .243 or a 150 gr .30-06. 5-7 jugs is an "elk/bear bullet" like a .30-06 180 gr bonded JSP or 165 TTSX or 150 gr JSP 7mm Rem Mag.


Deer bullets penetrate 3-4 jugs and elk bullets penetrate 4-7 jugs. Hard cast, heavy for caliber 357 through 45 colt penetrate 9-12 jugs, which is twice as far as your standard elk bullet. The wound on these deep penetrating loads is narrow.

[country gent]

Not sure what would be the medium to test in. But Im thinking for comparison tests the same medium with the original and then the soft nose cast.

When you set up you want both pots close together so you can move quickly from pot to pot. If you have 2 moulds the same this is a big plus here as while one is cooling you are filling the other.

I cast from a big gas fired pot ( 120 lbs) when I do this I set a 5 lb pot in the middle and thats the soft alloy the hard alloy is around this pot. I can pour the nose then the base and the over flow with out shifting the mould. I want some tin in the nose to aid in bonding between base and nose.

Leave the nose ladle a little proud you will lose some to the saw cut. As I said a brass case will work fine but a heavy walled brass or copper cap is better as it holds heat better. I also think a .223 case will be better than an 06 size from a pouring aspect. The other thing that might really be useful on the nose ladle is instead of cutting it off drill a hole at the lead leaving the neck and shoulder for a spout to pour into the mould.

[justindad]

I’d be shocked in tempering with the base in water helped, but I’ve been wrong before. The reason I expect it to fail is because it is a thick mass of reasonable thermal conductivity. A thin wall shell or cup can be controlled with water because there is practically no thickness. It’s conceivable that tempering in water could produce a case harness, but you won’t be able to measure that via BHN.
*
Try powder coating.

[mnewcomb59]

5-6 milk jugs seems to be the sweet spot for large northern midwest deer. These deer are often 80-90 pound yearling does, 90-100 pound button bucks, 130-160 pound mature does and 160-240 pound bucks.

5 jugs you can take any quartering-to or quartering-away shot, get through one shoulder, and still pass through or at least get caught in the offside skin on larger deer. 5 jugs will pass through a broadside shot on a big ol' deer and make a much larger wound than a hard bullet that penetrates 12 jugs. I have recovered a few 5 jug bullets from deer that were shot through the back ham and the bullet was in front of the shoulder in the neck meat or the bullet was in front of the shoulder in the backstrap. Another 5 jug bullet I caught was a frontal shot with a 2.5 year old buck. His head was low and I clipped him under the chin, passed through about 10 vertebrae and the bullet was recovered between the shoulder blades above the spine. That 5 jug bullet only penetrated about 15" of deer, but went through a lot of bone and still had 98% weight retention.

[Dusty Bannister]

[QUOTE=justindad;5631121]I’d be shocked in tempering with the base in water helped, but I’ve been wrong before. It’s conceivable that tempering in water could produce a case harness, but you won’t be able to measure that via BHN.

NO, quenching or annealing will not leave a skin or layer of altered alloy hardness. The process will proceed through out the casting. A long term concern "might" be that the entire casting will soften to the original alloy hardness once you start the annealing process. I have never tested for that so could be wrong. I have never needed to test it because I try to use the correct alloy for the task.

[MT Gianni]

You're after deer. You have no need to water drop and should probably be concerned about slowing the velocity too.

[mehavey]

1. The OP needs the whole bullet of uniform softness to hold together on impact. Not just the nose.

2. Using very simple powder coating, there's no reason at all to go past 30-1 in a hunting 45-70 at normal ranges for soft-skinned game -- up to including elk.

3. Even PC'd pure lead works fine, and at considerable velocities:
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...=1#post5001471

4. And at those velocities, even 30-1 expands just fine.
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...=1#post5592837

Bottom Line?
- Keep it simple
- Keep it soft
- Keep it PC'd