Hardest bullet you made?

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  • Last Post 04 September 2011
tturner53 posted this 23 May 2010

For those of you who test your alloy bhn(I don't yet), what's the highest reading you've gotten? What's the hardest possible with the usual ingredients? 40? Off the scale? I've messed around with alloys, mostly ww with extra antimony and tin then oven heat treated, I guessed at 35, but it's just a guess. The reason I'm interested is I mess with higher velocity but am too lazy to paper patch. One of these days I'll find a way to launch 'ol 311314 at about 2400 fps AND hit what I'm aiming at. (Because it's there, and they say it can't be done.) I know bhn is more about pressure tolerance than velocity, but it just seems logical to me the harder the better when going for speed.

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jhrosier posted this 23 May 2010

The highest reading that I got was with some water dropped 31141s cast from WW/Monotype 50/50. They were off the scale. I dropped one on the floor and it broke in half at the crimp groove. I struck another with the shank of a small screwdriver and it also broke. I don't think that a bullet that hard would be useful, possibly not even safe to fire, so I added an equal amount of pure lead to the mix. The resulting bullets were still very hard but would not shatter when struck sharply. BTW, I was trying to make very hard bullets to shoot in a rifle with way oversized throat. Softer bullets gave poor accuracy but very hard bullets shot well.

Jack

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CB posted this 23 May 2010

Highest I've gotten and what I use is in the low to mid 30s using WWs with a pinch of tin and dash of magnum shot added then heat treated around 440* in a toaster oven for an hour. They were tested using a Saeco and LBT tester.

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NITROTRIP posted this 23 May 2010

I have a LEE tester. I checked how it was calibrated with a real bhn tester at a machine shop. It averaged 2#'s high. so a 12bhn was a 10bhn. It is adjustable so I reset it and it was within +or-  1/2bhn from 6 to 25. I shoot mostly pistol and black powder cartrage. But spare-mented a bit with mixes and heat treat. WW with some mag shot added and oven heated I hit 29bhn. That was after 3days 2yrs later those samples dropped to 26bhn. I have those original samples I tested and only the pure lead has stayed the same. the others have dropped some. Now I need to re-test the originals to see if it is my spring in my LEE tester or the samples.

Rick

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CB posted this 24 May 2010

I made some bullets out of modern recipe pewter, then heat treated them. My shop's hardness tester said that these were 36 BHN. They were pretty useless, because the bullets shattered on impact with anything like a pine board.

Making an incredible hard bullet isn't that difficult. It is making incredibly useful bullets is where I spend my time.

Jerry

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D.Hearne posted this 24 May 2010

I made a couple of zinc bullets for my 45/70. 41 grain mold, they dropped out at about 275 gr. Not worth the effortm, but extremely hard.

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madsenshooter posted this 28 April 2011

29.9 as cast, air cooled. Used a 23BHN lead based babbit, then used a MPP/OXY torch to add some Cu to the melt. Didn't help me get any more velocity (with accuracy) out of a tight twist 6mm Obermeyer, but didn't make it any worse than the softer alloy either. It was quite ductile, could bend but not break it.

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6pt-sika posted this 28 April 2011

Hardest I've ever measured that I poured was 15 from water quenched wheelweights !

Took my reading with the Saeco tool !

 

But then I've never done anything but aircooled WW's and WQ WW's !

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TRKakaCatWhisperer posted this 28 April 2011

I cast some that measured 42-43 on the Rockwell B scale (same as a copper jacketed bullet). Cast from 96.5% tin, 3% Silever and 0.5% copper.

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Ed Harris posted this 29 April 2011

When I was at Ruger we cast in the foundry a few dozen hollow steel shells from pig iron for a Spanish-American war era 1-pounder Hotchkiss which WBR Senior had in his collection. So, however hard cast iron is. Machined exteriors to .0015 under bore diameter and wound copper driving bands on them using 0 gage copper wire.

Used a .45-70 line throwing blank rigged as point detonating fuse to eject about 1/2 pound of flour as a “smoke” puff to judge impact. Propelling charge was two Chock Full O Nuts coffee scoops of 4831 ignited by 12-ga. blackpowder blank as booster. Velocity estimated from time of flight about 900 f.p.s. Standing behind the gun with the sun behind you could readily watch the shell arcing towards the target. Accuracy was approximately “minute of outhouse” at 1000 yards. Some of the fun things you get to do under the loose category of R&D when the company is a licensed manufacturer of “destructive devices."

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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paulfrehley posted this 26 June 2011

Ed Harris wrote: When I was at Ruger we cast in the foundry a few dozen hollow steel shells from pig iron for a Spanish-American war era 1-pounder Hotchkiss which WBR Senior had in his collection. So, however hard cast iron is. Machined exteriors to .0015 under bore diameter and wound copper driving bands on them using 0 gage copper wire.

Used a .45-70 line throwing blank rigged as point detonating fuse to eject about 1/2 pound of flour as a “smoke” puff to judge impact. Propelling charge was two Chock Full O Nuts coffee scoops of 4831 ignited by 12-ga. blackpowder blank as booster. Velocity estimated from time of flight about 900 f.p.s. Standing behind the gun with the sun behind you could readily watch the shell arcing towards the target. Accuracy was approximately “minute of outhouse” at 1000 yards. Some of the fun things you get to do under the loose category of R&D when the company is a licensed manufacturer of “destructive devices." You know, I wasn't even going to comment in this thread because I'm still new to casting, but....DAMN!!!! That is a truly badass story, and I envy you guys that have had/get to have those kinds of experiences. Thanks for sharing, Mr. Harris!!

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jhalcott posted this 19 July 2011

As mr Harris did, I cast a few 5” cannon balls for the Navy yard from cast iron. They were for display only and I never got to see one shot!! As far as “shootable(?) bullets, I cast many from a Monotype and stereotype alloy. They were so hard they shattered in flight! Leaded up my .44SBH so bad I had to remove it with an electro/chemical treatment.

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bsdger45 posted this 20 July 2011

I shoot aluminum jacketed slugs in my 80% scale coehorn mortar. The alumunum is 43-48 Bhn.....actually 2 5/8” diameter beverage cans filled with cement....no...mortar mix, of course. A 2 oz charge of BP gives a time of flight of 10.5 sec. and 400 yards down range at 50 degrees elevation. Pick your own beverage, some beer cans are 16 to 20 ounce for “magnum” loads.

John

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JeffinNZ posted this 20 July 2011

I oven heat treated some WW alloy up to 34BHN. Unnecessarily hard for even my top end .303 Brit loads but that's what I got. This was prior to 'sweetening' my alloy with some tin based babbit I have. MAX heat then is about 23BHN which is still heaps.

Cheers from New Zealand

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Vassal posted this 20 July 2011

Hey JeffNZ how fast are your top 303 loads?:hijack::hijack:

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JeffinNZ posted this 21 July 2011

Milspec.  2400fps. 

Cheers from New Zealand

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Vassal posted this 21 July 2011

WWHHHOOOOAAAAHHHHH!!!!

somthin' in the air down there! On your advice I'm goin' for it. if the barrel leads I'll send it to you for cleaning!

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billglaze posted this 23 July 2011

Routinely, after oven-baking for an hour, my rifle bullets, (from 6mm up to .30 cal.) routinely test at bhn of 32 or 33 on a LBT hardness tester, and after a 12 hour wait for the “dendrites” to form. This is using WW's, some of which I've had for 20 years, some for probably just half that time. WW's are supposed to be notoriously non-uniform; I'm not going to argue the point, but so far, the hardness/accuracy seems to be uniform, if not world-beating. (Yet!) I've shot them as fast as 2400 f.p.s. with no leading, and also with little accuracy. My cast stuff seems to like about 1600-1700 f.p.s. for accuracy. No hunting involved; strictly paper shooting. Bill Glaze

In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. My fate is not entirely in Gods hands, if I have a weapon in mine.

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CB posted this 24 July 2011

I wish I'd had a hardness tester in my earlier days. My hardest cast bullet were cast for a 40 S&W several years ago. I cast them from type metal, probably monotype, since they were single letters, and dropped in cold water. I tried a few and they shot really well, so I loaded up several hundred for IPSC matches. To make a dime novel a short story, the bullets all fractured slightly at the taper crimp line. They'd stay together until they were being chambered, then the nose would fly out the ejection port (Beretta), and the remainder would chamber as a sort of full wadcutter. It took forever to figure the situation out. I'd have light recoil, great accuracy, and perfect function. 45 ACP did the same thing too. I now claim all rights for inventing the “cartridge, discarding nose, MK I".

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JeffinNZ posted this 25 July 2011

It's not that bigger deal.  I am driving air cooled clip on WW out of the .223 at 2300fps.

All a factor of good bullet fit and pressures in the 'zone' of the alloy.

Cheers from New Zealand

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Chargar posted this 01 September 2011

I feel like a sissy after some of these stories. My hardest were from foundry fresh linotype.

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galenaholic posted this 02 September 2011

tturner53 wrote: For those of you who test your alloy bhn(I don't yet), what's the highest reading you've gotten? What's the hardest possible with the usual ingredients? 40? Off the scale? I've messed around with alloys, mostly ww with extra antimony and tin then oven heat treated, I guessed at 35, but it's just a guess. The reason I'm interested is I mess with higher velocity but am too lazy to paper patch. One of these days I'll find a way to launch 'ol 311314 at about 2400 fps AND hit what I'm aiming at. (Because it's there, and they say it can't be done.) I know bhn is more about pressure tolerance than velocity, but it just seems logical to me the harder the better when going for speed.

I'm gonna gues your allow water quenched is right around 28 to maybe 30 BHN. My current alloy is a bit more complicated than that, but those were thr BHN figures I got when using an allow very similar to yours. My curnet alloy is 10 pounds of clean wheel weights, one pound of linotype, one-third cup of magnum bird shot (any size 7 1/2 or smaller. The smaller shot has a higher concentration of arsenic which helps harden the quenched mix.) Finally I add a three foot piece of 95/5 percent lead free solder. The alloy casts bullets in the 12 to 13 BHN range when air cooled and if heated to about 425 degrees for one hour in an over, then whater dropped will run right at 30 BHN and will age harden to 32/33 BHN according to my LBT tester. I am curious about your bullet though. When I tried to look it up, I could not find 311314. I did find a #311413 though. If that's the right bullet, good luck trying to get any accuracy from it at anydecent speed. Back about 45 years ago, a friend gave me that mold (413) and said if I could get a decent group at any speed, I could keep it. This old boy was a Camp Perry shooter from the late 1920's to sometime in the 1950's. He had a drawer full of medals he'd won in competition so I knew he could shoot. He never got that mold to shoot and neither did I. He told me to deep six it in Ryepatch resivoir the next time I went fishing, which I did. In a way, I kind of wish I'd kept it as the only other thing he gave me was a single cavity Lyman #311284. That one shoots good. Paul B.

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tturner53 posted this 03 September 2011

You are correct, 311413 is the right number.  My thinking was that a very hard bullet would support the spitzer nose and allow higher velocities with accuracy. I've moved on to #308334, an old Lyman Ideal mold I ran across. It shoots well in my 03a3 and has a high bc too, but the bore riding nose is undersize. WayneS has asked me to send some samples of the 308334 to NOE for an upgraded fatter version for a possible group buy on boolits, which I'm doing. Cast 'em yesterday. I've been using it 'beagled' in the 03a3. In The Fouling Shot #45, 1983, Andy Barniskis wrote an article about NEI 195-308, a “stretched” version of 311413 at 195 gr. He won postal matches with it at about 1850 fps and shot sub-moa with it. He noted that a spitzer shouldn't shoot that good but it did, an “exception to the rule". I'm going to look to see if NEI still offers that mold and would be interested if someone has one for sale.

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madsenshooter posted this 04 September 2011

I think we nearly all go through that thing of trying to get the Squibb to shoot like a jacketed bullet. I don't know if it's the balance point or what, but I don't think it can be done. I did things similar to what you've done and I even bought George Hensley's version for the Krag that had an additional band on the front for the Krag's long throat. 1800 tops, 1500-1600 for real accuracy.

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