Alloy Question

[unclenick]

Veral,
 
I notice some outfits sell ammunition that employs water-quenched hard cast bullets that they say are low antimony alloy to avoid shattering.  I recall reading somewhere that what makes it possible to water harden lead alloys is the inclusion of a tiny amount of arsenic, which wheel weights apparently have.  My objective is a water-hardened bullet alloy that won't be brittle enough to disintegrate when it hits bone in cold weather.  
 
Of course this raises a half-dozen questions:  
 

How low does the antimony percentage in a bullet alloy have to go to avoid cold weather shattering?  
 
Can wheelweight alloy bullets shatter hitting bone in cold weather?  
 
How much arsenic has to be present for water hardening to work?  
 
Is the degree of water hardening a factor in the tendency to shatter in cold weather (BHN 20, 25, 30, 35)?
 
Does the addition of a couple percent of silver help (I've seen some bullet makers advertise this alloy)?  
[/list:u]
 
Thanks,
Nick

[Veral]

I've answered this question in several other forum answers.  However, to keep things simple for most cast bullet hunters, a hardness of 20 bhn or higher will not deform or break up when used in magnum revolvers, of if muzzle velocity does not exceed 1500 1600 fps.

For High velocity use keep antimony low as necessary to reach the hardness desired, when water quenched or oven heat treated, and don't exceed 16 bhn if muzzle velocity is 2400fps or higher and temperatures of 0F and colder are possible when hunting.

A small amount of silver makes bullets more shiny and helps castability, but has no effect on ductility that I can detect.  I'm quite sure that if adaquate amounts of silver were used as the hardner, ductility would be superior, but the amount would not be practical financially, and I believe if the alloy contained antimony in appreciable amounts. 2% or greater, brittleness would not be overcome.  I've considered experimenting with high silver content alloy but never did because of the impractical aspect.

Manufactures who advertise silver content in their alloy have a very small amount or you could not afford their bullets.  I would expect less than one tenth of one percent.

[unclenick]

Veral,

If you look at the date of my question (January 9th) you will find the reason it is so familiar is you answered it before, then I responded with some information on alloying material I had available and what I intended to try, and you responded to that as well.

I don't know why the original responses disappeared?  I had the forum refuse to let me submit the edit of one of my own posts, claiming I wasn't the original author, despite the fact it had allowed me into the edit menu.  I think we are having a data issue on the server.  GBO forums, take note.

Nick

[Veral]

I believe editing on this forum is confined to me and the GBO staff only, so if in the future you would like to edit a question and can't do it, email me and I'll fix it for you to your satisfaction. Otherwise, I don't edit questions, but give the broadest answer I can to answer what I understand to be the question and cover as many readers questions as possible.  (I've been answering cast bullet questions/problems for 20 years, so I see quite deeply into questions!)

I frequently delete answers which readers submit, if I don't agree with them, because the readers who come to this forum are supposed to get an answer from me.  Yet I leave many because customers with experiance with LBT can  often say things better than I can.  -- But never a question.  So I suspect the loss of previous questions was some computor error, which I don't understand any better than my wife does the car when the 'key don't work'!