hardness

[jd45]

I'm curious...........I've read that people use wheel weights for casting their lead bullets. I'm wondering where they fall on the Brinnell hardness scale? Thanx for the info, JD45

[Smokin Joe]

Anywhere from 9 to 11

[dubber123]

Those #'s sound about right.  You can harden them somewhat by droping them while hot into water, or by an oven heating and water quenching method.  I drop straight from the mold into water for any of my faster stuff.  My .475 shoots 1350 fps. (440 gr. bullet, 4 3/4" bbl)., My 45-70 1625 fps. with no leading to speak of.  My brothers 45-70 goes 1800 fps., likewise with no leading, all with great accuracy.  Wheelweights work very well for me and are cheap.  Good shooting to you.

[jhalcott]

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm    read this page ,there are answers to questions you haven't even thought about

[jd45]

Thanx guys, JD45

[Gavinator]

The .458 bullets I've been casting from wheel weights are running as high as 33 BHN (Lee), dropped from the mold into cold water (4 gal. in a 5 gal bucket with a pad on the bottom), size/lube and wait at least two weeks for them to harden up.

[Brithunter]

The articles on that site are mainly related to handguns and revolvers. I went looking for information of casting bullets for rifles and velocites in exccess of 2000fps. Oh well time to search some more.

[HL]

I've been using WW metal for all my cast bullets since 1986, when I first purchased Veral's book.

The majority of time I have heat treated my 44 mag bullets and have consistently attained between 33-35 on the BH scale with no leading.

OUt of the mould and dropped in to ice water will give you around 16-18 BHN.

If you are going to get serious about casting, Veral's "Jacketed Performance with Cast Bullets" is a must for creating the right cast bullet for the intended use.

Good shooting,

HL

[Rum River]

I am just starting to accumulate equipment/lead to begin my casting career.

Here's a really dumb question, what can be done to "anneal" lead? To feed my Sharps I don't have a consistent source of pure lead to alloy. Is there a way to soften up wheelweight lead?

[Lloyd Smale]

not much you can do to make lead softer.

[Rum River]

I thought so, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

[HL]

I will have to look, but Veral's book does explain how to anneal WW metal to get it to it's softest state.

From what I remember, if you heat it in an oven to approx. 450 degrees and turn the oven off and wait until it has completely cooled down, without opening the oven. This will take several hours, but from what I remember, will anneal the wheel weights.

[cbrick]

The articles on that site are mainly related to handguns and revolvers. I went looking for information of casting bullets for rifles and velocites in exccess of 2000fps. Oh well time to search some more.

Very little of the info on this page is directed to "mainly handguns and revolvers". It is a page on alloys and casting. There are some references to revolvers, most of the info is valid for rifles or handguns.

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

I have an email link at the bottom of the page for anyone that has valid and pertinent bullet casting info they would like added to this page.

Rick

[Will52100]

If your looking for soft lead, save the stick on mag rim type wheel wieghts.  They are close to pure lead.  I've got a couple hundred pounds of WW and everytime I pick some up I I sort out the soft wieghts.  Also just got a couple hundred pounds of soft lead from cable sheathing.  A hardness tester is a good investment for scavaging scrap lead.  Roof flashing and pipe is anouther good source of soft lead.