Air cool or water drop?

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Last Post 12 February 2010

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grayowl posted this 22 November 2009

I like to match my practice loads to my carry loads ( a Speed Gold Dot at 890 FPS) Should I air cool or water cool? I check hardness with a Saeco tester.

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jhalcott posted this 22 November 2009

WHAT is your alloy? If it is too soft and you are shooting an auto pistol, they MAY hang up on the feed ramp. I use air cooled wheel weight for 200 grain .45 ACP bullets(SWC) A round nose would be better if cast from a bit harder alloy.

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grayowl posted this 22 November 2009

I'm using wheel weights. My Saeco tester read 6. I'm not sure what that is in BHN. The Saeco instruction sheet list Saeco 0-1 as 5 BHN and Saeco 7-8 as 10 BHN. Does anyone have a more conversion sheet?

Bruce

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hunterspistol posted this 23 November 2009

For pistol bullets at that velocity, wheelweight is hard enough, almost too hard. Recently did a 9mm load with wheelweight,air cooled, it's hard enough.

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testhop posted this 07 December 2009

ww air cooled

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jhrosier posted this 07 December 2009

I water drop everything that I cast. A little extra hardness does not seem to hurt and I prefer to handle cold bullets rather than hot ones. They are “tumbled” in an old bath towel to dry them before lubing. I cast a bunch of .44s from 4-4-92 alloy the last time around and they came in at a hrdness of 16 bhn when I checked them. The water drop seems to give high hardness on the outside of the bullet and leaves the core relatively soft. Probably a good combination for hunting loads. I've been doing this for quite a while and have no issues with leading in any of my guns. BTW, I size them large, if at all, and lube with Lar's Carnauba Red.

Jack

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CBA Member

Duane Mellenbruch posted this 07 December 2009

The water drop seems to give high hardness on the outside of the bullet and leaves the core relatively soft.

Sorry but this is not correct. The heat treating or water quenching of lead/tin/antimony/arsenic bullets is not a surface treatment. At least this is what the metallurgist says. Duane

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Dicko posted this 22 December 2009

grayowl wrote: I like to match my practice loads to my carry loads ( a Speed Gold Dot at 890 FPS) Should I air cool or water cool? I check hardness with a Saeco tester.

The hardest cast bullets are softer than jacketed so there's no harm in making them harder by water quenching. But then there's no need for 45ACP velocities. Although I think wheelweights ( max 4% antimony ) are not hard enough for any but the slow calibres they are probably OK for 45 ACP.

You don't need to check the hardness. That is controlled by the antimony content and if the wheelweights are up to spec ( 4% ) that's all you need to worry about. In any case the hardness testers I've tried have been wildly inaccurate. The best hardness tester is the double ingot and ball bearing device. Costs nothing and much more accurate that Saeco, LBT or whatever. But why bother, just get the antimony content right.

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Bongo Boy posted this 10 February 2010

I cast with wheel weight lead and air cool. I've shot a couple hundred 200gr at 880fps, and maybe 100 at 1,050 (hollow-pointed to 185gr to simulate Speer Gold Dots) and saw no problem--certainly no leading. I've also shot about 10,000 255gr, same lead, but at lower velocity obviously, and no leading whatsover there, either. I've used White Label's BAC lube for 1/2 of the slower rounds, and Jake's Purple Ceresin for the other half and for the hotter loads.

I know it's not a LOT of comparable data, but it's what I've got. You could do a couple hundred each way and look for something, but I'm betting there's no perceptible difference.

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kokojoe posted this 11 February 2010

My experience with water dropped for a 9MM resulted in it being too hard, failed to obturate properly, and resulted in a lot of leading. Air cooled, properly lubed with 50/50 and the right size reduced leading to almost zero. I try for about 11-12 BHN on these.

I just started on 45ACP. I cast those at under 11BHN and they work very well - no leading.

With lower pressures in the 45ACP, they should do fine with a lower BHN.

I am using a Lee 452-200-RFN. I put about 1/4 to 1/3 pure lead (pipes) and the rest WW for this batch to keep it a tad softer than the 9MM.

I read a recent article (sorry can't remember where) that indicated that some 45ACP in guns with shallow rifling may strip if too soft and they could benefit from a harder alloy. It might have been Veral's book but I can't remember right now.

Duane also pointed out to me that water quenching will result in a wide variance in the batch because each drop has a slightly different temp.

I just stuck some 12BHN rifle bullets in the oven at 425 for 45 mins, quenched in cold water and got a consistent batch at just over 20BHN.

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giorgio de galleani posted this 12 February 2010

I have shot two or three times my weight in bullets cast in old wheel weights,(ah, in the good old days they were free and plentiful)and softer cheap alloys.

In the good and reliable 45 auto I succeeded seldom in the task of leading the bore only using unpublishable high pressure p-in loads.

I had to water quench WW only shooting 1800-2000 fps loads for M14 and Garands.

And of course the 9x21,a high pressure round,may be this is one of the reasons for which I do not love it.

I am tolerating the 9 only because I get buckets of free brass and its low lead and powder consumption.

I suspect my 223 win 70 HB needs harder bullets,I tried it with cast only once,too little experience with the rat gun.