There's a dirt cheap test method that's widely used industrially for measuring the hardness of paint films, and I've used it with good success for lead alloy bullets. All it takes is a few art pencils from the nearest hobby shop.
Art pencils are made with a range of core hardnesses, designated (soft) 6B, 5B, 4B ... B, HB, F, H, 1H, ... 9H (hard) You'll mostly want the B pencils. Some of the H pencils can measure the hardness of sluminum alloys.
Anyhow, they're easy to use: Peel away some of the wood and expose the core. Hold the pencil straight up, and rub it on a bit of fine sandpaper to make a wadcutter tip, with sharp edges. Wipe the loose dust off on a bit of cotton, and then try to dig the shapr edge of the core into your bulet or ingot. If the lead is harder than the pencil, the pencil will just slip on the surface. If the pencil core is harder, it will cut into the lead alloy. By matching the hardness of the pencil that will cut, you can duplicate alloy hardness from batch to batch. Works great.
This pencil hardness test is actually an ASTM (American Standard Test Method), but I forget the test number. Look it up at teh library if you're interested.
HTH
kbmoly
