Casting Mistake

[steg]

Been casting for many years now, and I just came to find this Forum, quite a wealth of information, but to get to my mistake, the last couple of batches of 38 caliber bullets that I cast were dropped onto a wet towel, thinking that this would prevent bullet distortion when they were dropped. After reading this forum, all of it that was of interest to me, I read about hardening bullets using the water drop method, and after dropping them on a wet towel, I suppose that I have alot of half hardened bullets. Do you think that sizing and lubing the castings would remove the hardened portion, or should I start over, their are a few thousand bullets done this way, all are sized and lubed, on a Lyman 450.

[jhalcott]

  I'd just load them and shoot them in MY revolver! I've done this myself and found no problem with "half hard" bullets. IF you are loading them for a high velocity arm like a 357mag there is no reason to waste all that work before you try them. I don't THINK you can half hard bullets by dropping them on a wet towel. The process requires a complete submersion and a quick lowering of temperature. Do these have a gas check installed? You MIGHT have a problem dropping RIFLE bullets on a wet towel. Rifle bullets are usually long and thin compared to revolver bullets. The sudden change in temps MAY cause the rifle bullet to bend a bit. BUT sizing and lubing could straighten them back up.

[Darrell Davis]

I like to drop my bullets into a 5 gal. bucket of cold water, in which I have a bath towel suspended.

I found that dropping the bullets into the water without the towel causes dings on the bullets when they hit the bottom or each other.

The towel will stay suspended to some degree and slowly sink to the bottom as more and more bullets are dropped on to the towel.

Just reach into the bucket every so often with a stick and pull the towel up, allowing the cooled bullets to settle to the bottom of the bucket while again floating the towel..

AND, as Jhalcott said, load and shoot the ones you have already cast!

Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!

Keep em coming!

CDOC