Author Topic: How hard for 9mm at 1000-1100fps  (Read 722 times)

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Offline vincewarde

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How hard for 9mm at 1000-1100fps
« on: April 03, 2009, 06:04:27 PM »
I am just starting out in casting and my first load will be for my 9mm.  I am planning on using a 125gr Lee mold with their tumble lube.  Velocity should be about 1000-1100fps max.  Maybe less.

I have two kinds of lead available:

1) WW that according to the source have a BHN of 11

2) Linotype

Here's where I am confused:  Do I just cast from the WW lead?  Water drop the WW lead?  Heat treat it?  Alloy the WW lead with the Linotype?  Just how hard should it be?

Thanks!
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Offline Veral

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Re: How hard for 9mm at 1000-1100fps
« Reply #1 on: April 05, 2009, 02:11:11 PM »
  For your interest, I developed the tumble lube bullet design roughly 30 years ago, and wrote it up in the Cast Bullet Assn newsletter, stateing that i would be offering molds for it soon as I could get tooled up.  Lee 'inovated' it immediately and has been selling it ever since, but they put a drive band on the bottom of the bullet, and non up front so their design sucks both for accuracy potential, and poor ability to control leading.
  Whe I got my mold making equipment up and running I did extensive experimentation and learned that the fine grooves are not an asset, but a hinderence.  A regular cast design works just as well or better with tumble luberication.
  You'll probably get best results with air cooled bullets while keeping pressures to a minimum by using the slower suitable powders and keeping velocity down to whatever is needed to prevent leading.  The alox lube is quite inferior, and if used with hard bullets, will have more friction to combat than with softer alloys which are just hard enough to prevent obturation, except at the very base.
  Try adding about 1% tin to the WW and cool your bullets, keeping them spread out so they don't touch, and with a fan blowing across them.  This will raise the hardenss to up near 14 bhn, after a two week age hardening.  The 11 bhn hardenss is pretty close for cooling in still air on a pad, with bullets not well spaced, and after a two week age hardening.   Use whichever hardness gives you the best accuracy, and highest velocity with freedom from leading.

 
Veral Smith