Water quenching lead bullets made from wheel weights

[Mikeinkaty]

After quenching in cold water my fingernail will not leave a mark on the bullets. When I let them cool in air, my fingernail will leave a mark. After powder coating at 400°F for 20 minutes my fingernail will not leave a mark on the water quenched bullets. So, I cannot say that I have observed any annealing done by the powder coat process. Has anyone?

Mike

[BC38]

Next batch you bake, how about baking one of your quenched slugs bare - without any powder. Then test it with your fingernail.

I'm curious if maybe the baking actually is annealing the quench hardened lead, but the hardness of the powdercoating is covering it up.

[Ed Fowler]

Sounds like some fun times ahead!!

[Forrest r]

If you ever tried to swage your own bullets you would tell real quick what's annealed and what isn't when using cast cores to swage bullets with. When you start cracking nose forming punches in the swaging dies you'll anneal the cores then heat treat the swaged bullets to bring the hardness back.

A testing method that's 1 step better then the thumbnail scratch test.



Pretty much anything over 14/15bhn & a thumbnail won't scratch it. you're water dropped ww's could be dropping from 26bhn to 16bhn and you would never know it.

[Ivan the Butcher]

When you use the quench method, the extra hardness is a temporary condition. Your bullets will become the same hardness as air cooled in about 6 months.

I believe the hardness of the powder coating will be permanent, but is only a hard skin. Bullets will deform on impact with the performance of the alloy they are cast from (Just like plated bullets!) But coated bullets will retain the same ability to not lead and have the same "Slickness", weather 1 week or 3 years old.

The permanent hardness of a cast bullet is in the alloy. If you are looking for non-deforming / deep penetrating bullet, make your castings from Linotype or Stereotype.

Lyman loading manuals have lengthy sections on alloy formulas, properties, and characteristics. #45 edition and Cast bullet Handbook #4, both have references on Ideal/Lyman mold issue dates and as cast size with different alloys. Very useful to know when powder coating, how to get different diameter bullets without running through a sizer!

Ivan

[fredj338]

Water quenching affects vary with alloy. Clip wts quench to about 18bhn, then in 6m bacj diwn to 14bhn or so. If you powder coat,the 400degbaking is removing some of that tempering.
I dont bother water dropping when coating. I do sometimes water drop the coated bullets out of the oven. Seems to give a bit harder bearing surface.

[Mikeinkaty]

I did some testing with H hardness pencil lead.

It would dig in quite easily to my WW ingots. It just basically skittered across the bottom of quenched lead bullets. I could not feel that it was digging in. I heated some uncoated bullets to 400°F for 20 minutes. After cooling I could tell they had lost some of their hardness, but not nearly to that of the ingots. The H pencil lead was digging in a little.

A #2 pencil lead made scratches on the ingots, but did not on the quenched bullets or those that were heated to 400°F.

[rwsmith]

.....so don't quote me but I read that any hardness in lead brought about by temperature and cooling isn't permanent. But some people have written that it takes a year or so to go away completely. I suppose that depends on what the components of the alloy are.

[Mikeinkaty]

Originally Posted by rwsmith

.....so don't quote me but I read that any hardness in lead brought about by temperature and cooling isn't permanent. But some people have written that it takes a year or so to go away completely. I suppose that depends on what the components of the alloy are.

I am wondering why old wheel weights don't appear to lose hardness.

Edited later
Ok, lead wheel weights contains pure lead, antimony, tin, and arsenic. The tin is to make pouring easier. The antimony is to allow hardness treating. The arsenic is a catalyst to the antimony, providing additional hardness and to allow the alloy to retain its hardness. The arsenic content in wheel weights is about 0.25%.

[fredj338]

It is all alloy dependent. Lead & tin alloy wont heat treat. Pure lead wont heat treat. Your alloy needs antimony & a bit of arsenic for best results. The bhn increase diesnt disapear but does diminish some, again, alloy dependent, as well as the temp & time used to heat treat.

[Forrest r]

The big picture:

You have to think a little bit to actually grasp what annealing a bullet's alloy does. Making it softer (what most people think when the word annealing is used in a sentence) is only part of the equation. Giving the alloy elasticity/flexibility/malleability is the true advantage of the heating process that's used in pc'ing bullets.

Typically I water drop everything I cast anymore. 95%+ of my casting is done with nothing more than range scrap. I water drop the cast bullets simply because I cast a lot of hp & hb bullets and the water keeps them from getting banged up/dented/smashed/de-formed. While this is excellent for casting bullets with very little rejects it affects the performance of the alloy's elasticity.

Doing some testing with a snub nosed 44spl. The hbwc on the top right I was using as a standard for the test bed. I've loaded/tested/shot a lot of those 220gr hbwc's turned backwards. I used water dropped bullets in that test & as you can see they didn't expand. The bullet on the lower right was made from 1 part linotype and 3 parts range scrap and water dropped. As you can see the bullet didn't even think about expanding & that load went thru 12+"'s of wet newspaper. The 2 bullets on the left were cast with the same method as the upper right 220gr hbwc (range scrap/water dropped). The only difference was they were annealed in the pc'ing process.


Same 220gr hbwc bullet as pictured above, same range scrap, same water dropped during casting. This time they were annealed in a oven for 20 minutes @ 400*'s. Now the bullets expand instead of shattering. The only difference is the heating/annealing of the bullet. Both those bullets were cast from the same alloy at the same time.



Some extreme bullets made using different alloys and heat & water to enhance the bullets performances.
Some jacketed wc's for the snub nosed 38spl's & 44spl's. The cores were bonded and water dropped making them extremely hard. The exposed brass turns into slicing pedals while the bonded core remains with a huge wc meplate nose.



225gr jacketed hp's for the 45acp that have hard cores (water dropped range scrap) that are not bonded. These bullets are designed to explode causing multiple wound channels. They make huge holes and go thru 9+"'s of wet newspaper. All's that's left of the bullet is the base.



265gr jacketed bullets made with an annealed core for the 44mag. Tested @ 25yds to simulate the velocity (1100fps) of a hunting load @ 75yds showing the impact/performance of a 100yd hit. Note the soft alloyed (heat treated cast core that was water dropped) stayed intact.



Water dropped cast bullets from range scrap that were pc'd . They are shot from a 3.2" bbl'd 9mm chronographed @ 1050fps. The annealing process of the pc'ing process soften the bullet & give it enough elasticity to expand.



Some 130gr 30cal bullets that have a huge hp. Water dropping them makes them vaporize on impact. As you can see the bullet is brittle.



That same bullet in a 308 playing around @ the 50yd line with 1700fps loads. They would leave holes like this 4 1/2" to 5" long in bundles of wet newspaper. The only thing that is recovered is the bullets base with the gc still attached. The bullets vaporize.




What's all this have to do with heating bullets???

Elasticity & malleability are huge in the bullet world. The annealing process does soften the bullets alloy. But there is a lot more to what the annealing process does than meets the eye. A bullet that has the ability to obturate and absorb rotational torque is far more useful that simply looking at bhn #'s.

You can take two different alloys:
97% lead 3% antimony
93% lead 7% tin

Both are 11bhn but the lead/tin alloy is a superior alloy because of it's malleability. The tin lead alloy will take rotation torques from high pressure rifle loads better, obturate better & and run circles around the lead/antimony alloy when it comes to hp/hb bullets and how they perform.

When it comes to pc'ing bullets the alloy bhn is secondary. The alloys elasticity/flexibility/malleability performance allows the caster to use simple alloys that take their cast bullet performance to the next level.

I can use nothing more than 8bhn/10bhn alloy and cast bullets for 9000psi target loads or 50,000psi high powered rifle loads. All's it takes is a little shake & bake pc and some heat.

BHN is meaningless

[Mikeinkaty]

I think I'm going to pound on a couple of bullets (pc'd and not pc'd) and see what happens.

[Mikeinkaty]

See pic. On the right are flattened PC'd WW bullets that were water quenched. The ones on the left were not PC'd.

My ingot's have a BHN somewhere between 10 to 13. After pouring the bullets and water quenching the hardness jumped to something above 20. After PC'ing, the hardness dropped to somewhere in the 16 range. BUT, those bullets also became more malleable (less brittle). This means a more likelihood they would mushroom without fragmenting at high velocity.

The flattened PC'd bullets on the right did not split. Those on the left, without PC, did.

[Forrest r]

That's 1 way to look at it. Another way is the bullets on the right are better for bullet obturation. The bullets on the right are far more forgiving and will mask ant bbl imperfections better than their brittle counterparts.

The bullet on the right is better suited for the long rifle bullets that have their noses in the riflings and are starting to twist while the back of the bullet is still in the freebore of the throat, IE rotational torque.

At the end of the day a bullet that is more elastic is better then their brittle counterparts. They do better overcoming reloading errors, bullet fit, bbl imperfections, rotational torque and they do better at conforming to cylinders, throats, leade's, bbl's.

Been annealing lead alloys for decades for swaged bullets. The annealing process is nothing more than a side benefit of pc'ing bullets.

[GypsmJim]

Lots of good info here. I just started water quenching last year and have been quite pleased with the results. Aside from hardness I have found that the bullet diameter as cast is a little larger. What I see from that is much better uniformity after sizing. In particular, I can now get a full .454 when sizing for a 25-5 with large cylinder throats. It has improved the accuracy immensely!

[smithywess]

I like what you say here about tin/lead alloys at about 11 bhn obturating well and with the ability to rotate well in a rifle. As I get older, and near my 8th decade, I have found that my interest in vintage rifles (Marlins predominantly) and their cast bullet loadings increases. I am quite satisfied with soft lead bullets which travel at 1400 f.p.s. If folk want to obtain speed then why not shoot jacketed bullets ? Of far more interest to me in a cast bullet is it's diameter in relation to the gun's groove diameter. It must be one to two thousandths of an inch over groove diameter or it's performance will be lousy and leading will abound. If I get a load which gives me more than 1500 f.p.s. but less than 2000 f.p.s. I use a gas check on an over groove diameter bullet. If it's impossible to shoot an over groove diameter bullet because it won't chamber etc etc ( typical in vintage rifles built in the black powder cartridge era) then I use polyethylene shot buffer which I compress between the bullet and the powder. This stuff acts as a sort of flexible gas check and stops the blow by of hot gases. Tumbling bullets and leading are thus avoided. This fine trick came to me via the 'Handloader' a number of years ago when Dave Scovill talked of it. I am very impressed with all the science imparted on this thread what with powder coated coloured bullets and what have you but it's out of my league. Any animal that walks this North American continent will succumb, without problem,to a soft 300 grain cast bullet with a flat meplat driven at 1400 f.p.s. from a rifle in .40-65 Winchester. I dare say an elephant might suffer the same fate with good bullet placement. If I'm sniping in Kandahar over a distance of 2 kilometres I'll use a jacketed boat tail, because at those distances and speeds bullet coefficiency really matters.

[BC38]

Originally Posted by Ivan the Butcher

When you use the quench method, the extra hardness is a temporary condition. Your bullets will become the same hardness as air cooled in about 6 months.

I have to ask the experts here, how does this work?

I thought I had read that quench hardening/tempering works because rapid cooling changes the crystalline structure in the near-molten solidifying metal. Once the metal is fully solidified and cooled it retains the harder crystalline structure.

I also thought that that annealing softens the metal by allowing that crystalline structure of the metal to break down and revert to a more random arrangement - which makes it softer.

So then the question is, how does the quench hardening process degrade and reverse itself without the metal being heated again? Tempered steel doesn't loose its temper - even over centuries. So how does that happen with tempered (quenched) bullets? I know lead is softer and has a lower melting temp, but unless it gets exposed to temps near its melting point, what causes it to lose its tempering? How it that even possible? Anybody know anything about the actual physical process that causes that to happen? How it works?

[fredj338]

Its about the grain structure settling down the tempering doesnt completely go away, but does reduce some over time, like years.

[Mikeinkaty]

I have an electric hot plate I can setup next to my lead pot. I'm going to try dropping the bullets in boiling water to see what hardness they gain and see how malleable they are. Then I'll heat them in my electric over as if I'm powder coating. Will advise.

[Mikeinkaty]

Quenching in almost boiling water did not produce much increase in hardness. Maybe a point or two. A #2 pencil lead did not dig in as much as on an ingot. But quenching in cold water took the hardness to above 20!

I then took 3 of these bullets and cooked at 400°F for 20 minutes. No noticeable drop in hardness. BUT, the malleability was quite a bit better than one just dropped in boiling water.

I may redo this test dropping the bullets in luke warm water.

After this I would say that if dropping your bullets in cold water, you should at least anneal them afterwards. If you powder coat then that will do the annealing.

[rockquarry]

As someone mentioned, a decent tin content in the alloy will make a bullet more malleable and less likely to come apart when it hits something. Additionally, a fairly soft bullet (8-10 BHN) that fits chamber / throat precisely can often be driven surprisingly fast through a good bore and provide good accuracy with no leading, perhaps as fast as a heat-treated bullet.

I no longer heat-treat, either by water dropping or using an oven; just not worth the effort unless I was going to shoot bullets pretty fast, say 2,000 - 2,500 fps or more.

I know nothing of powder coating as a lube, but it looks as if accuracy enthusiasts still size & lube bullets using the traditional method.

[Mikeinkaty]

In conclusion on this topic, I poured 230 bullets and quenched them in warm water. Say 110°F. I could not scratch these with a #2 pencil lead. An H hardness lead would just barely leave a scratch. So I would say the hardness was between 13 and 16. Earlier when I quenched with cold water the hardness was over 20 and they were brittle. When I quenched with boiling water, there was only slight gain in hardness.

So, if you want to play the middle of the road with hardness, quench your WW lead bullets with warm water. If you powder coat later that will drop the hardness a little and increase the malleability some.

You need to decide where you want your WW bullet hardness. If you want them in the 10 to 13 range then just don't quench; let them air cool. Powder coating later will not reduce the hardness much, if any.

If you want something in the 14 to 16 range then quench with cool water (not ice cold). Then powder coating will bring the hardness down to that range. If you don't powder coat then anneal the bullets at 400°F for 20 minutes to reduce the brittleness.

To paraphrase Forest Gump, I'm beginning to think that softer bullets and powder coating go together like peas and carrots.