HARDENING PURE LEAD

[Snakeoil]

We shoot a lot of .45-70 and similar BP cartridges with smokeless in both vintage and replica rifles out to 500 yds. Those who are serious cast using somewhere between pure lead and 20:1. No Sb used, ever. There may be a few using range scrap or wheelweights. But they are not serious about accuracy. They just like to shoot.

 

[STIHL]

We shoot a lot of .45-70 and similar BP cartridges with smokeless in both vintage and replica rifles out to 500 yds. Those who are serious cast using somewhere between pure lead and 20:1. No Sb used, ever. There may be a few using range scrap or wheelweights. But they are not serious about accuracy. They just like to shoot.

What velocity range are you guys in?

 

[Snakeoil]

What velocity range are you guys in?

Somewhere between 1400 and 1600 depending on the caliber. Maybe as low as 1300 for some. I never shot my .45-70 with smokeless except for the first 100 shots I used to break in the barrel. My load was 70 gr of GOEX Cartridge behind a 530 gr Paul Jones Postell bullet cast at 20:1. I'm sure you can find the MV for that load here or on the web. Now Dave Hicks had as much BP as possible packed into his cases. The result was he had maybe 1/8" of bullet in the case. His rifle was throated to accept this loading. Dave set records out to 1500 yds with that round.

If you look in the "What did you Shoot today" thread, you'll see my posts on testing loads this week in my .32-40. I was shooting around 1350 fps and the test loads were in the 1400-1550 range.

 

[STIHL]

That is very interesting. I’ll check the other thread out. @Snakeoil

 

[steamjohn]

My thanks to all who took an interest in my initial enquiry re the hardening of pure lead. Due to massive localised flooding as a result of record rainfalls here in the U.K. it will be some time before I can carry out any range tests on the batch I cast recently, which as I said appear to have shown the hardness to be around 15.5 BNH.

I "lurk" on a number of forums related to shooting home loads for various rifles/handguns and, as always seems to be the case, there are posted a great many "expert" opinions and nuggets of advice, the problem is, many are diametrically opposed/contradictory. I posted my question on this forum as it seems, having looked at it for some time, to be populated by rather more level headed and sensible contributors than some others.

Not having the ability to shoot "off the back porch," developing the load that my Sharps rifle shoots best with, is a slow process, but no less of a challenge.

I will perhaps post here again if I have anything to contribute, after having put some lead (of various hardness) down range.

 

[Snakeoil]

The internet is loaded with people who read other posts or articles and based purely on that, act like experts on various subjects. The killer is, they lack much if any practical experience. But they'll never tell you that. What I have always tried to do is relate what I gather from places like this forum and combine that with my own personal experience to sort out the BS from the facts. Urban legends tend to drive many arguments on forums because the have been perpetuated by people who like to tell everyone what the know, factual or not. I'm also a vintage motorycle guy and I can tell you from brutal experience that you need to think long and hard before you ask someone with gray hair a question about a vintage motorcycle. And in most cases, you will have wished that you brought a chair.

My best advice, based purely on my own experience is use logic to do a rough cull of all the info you gather. Then be as observant as you possibly can when you are at the range. Never assume what caused shots to go wild today, causes them to go wild tomorrow. Conditions, wind, temperature, mirage, your state of mind and well-being , the position of the rifle on the rest, cheek pressure, and more can all change and the changes can be subtle. There are a handful of us at Wilton that talk about this stuff a lot. We have all put a lot of round downrange and yet will still make dumb mistakes, have days when we just can't get comfortable and similar stuff. We also have days when we all agree that none of us had any idea what was going on downrange.

The great thing about being in the USA is we have no shortage of places to shoot. So we can pick the day, time, weather, etc. to minimize the external influences on any testing we do. The objective to to pick a perfect day and put as many test rounds/loads downrange as possible. This will tell us what works and what does not work in the rifle. Then when we have to shoot in less than perfect conditions, we can be confident that the load works and concentrate on dealing with the conditions. Today was one of those days. I went to the range to test a load that I know is accurate and proved it to shoot sub-MOA at 500 yds last Wed. Today, same range, gorgeous day, but the wind was howling and changing directions faster than a woman can rearrange the furniture. My goal was to get scope settings for 200 thru 500 yds. So, I just held center while my buddy called the conditions. I got my settings and then observed just how far the wind would push the bullet for a given direction and intensity. Once I had settings, I started to compensate for conditions to get all my shots on the target. All handy stuff for the next match.

Okay, that's enough BS for now. Hope you dry out soon so you can head to the range.

 

[Bret4207]

Still wondering why the OP wants/needs hard lead for a 45/70?

 

[Snakeoil]

Still wondering why the OP wants/needs hard lead for a 45/70?

It was in his original post.

I decided to try and increase the hardness following the advice on the literature enclosed with my Lee Lead Melter.

 

[BudHyett]

Still wondering why the OP wants/needs hard lead for a 45/70?

With the variety of bore sizes (.457 for some Italian imports to .463 for some Trapdoor barrels) and the usage of black powder to fast pistol powder to slow rifle powder, the hardness becomes a factor. With smokeless powder, my experience is a fast to medium burning rate rifle powder and a medium-hard bullet is good place to start with the .45-60 and .45-70.

 

[popper]

huge quantity of light brown dross - I suspect the pure isn't. I used some roof jacks, soft lead but no way pure. Stinky brown dross. Bees wax dross is dark brown/black.

 

[CZ93X62]

The O/P made mention that his Pedersoli rifle was bored to fire paper-patched bullets and had a land height of .002", if I understood him correctly.

I suspect that his hardening process is carried out to prevent stripping in shallow rifling forms. Harking back to our collective experiences using Marlin Microgroove barrels, bullets cast & sized at throat diameter did the best work in my rifles with shallow-form rifling profiles.

Once we get the bullet sizing on spec, the next challenge is to NOT swage that proper bullet down with a too-tight case neck diameter. I use 30-1 Pb/Sn alloy in my 45/70 and 38/55 rifles, and my expander spud is .001" smaller than bullet diameter. These are used in leverguns, so a light crimp holds the bullet in place for the trip down the mag tube. I know, that's anathema for single-shot riflefolk, but I'm an atavistic coarse brush hunter more interested in venison than in style points and 500 yard shooting.

Finally--what I believe is that one of the 'False positives' related to the use of over-hardened castings is that such bullets are better able to resist swage-down in the undersized case necks produced in reloading die sets biased for usage of jacketed bullets in OEM diameters--e.g., .457" for the 45 caliber rifles. The damage concerns during shipping (as mentioned above) is another factor favoring bullets 'Harder than woodpecker lips'.

The small amount of shooting I have done this past year has involved pure lead or 30-1 bullets fired in revolvers. These have run between 700-900 FPS in 32, 38, and 44 calibers and barrel lengths from 2" to 7.5". Lube was LSS 50/50. Sizing was proper--leading was non-existent--and accuracy was excellent. Hard bullets? MI NALGAS!

 

[steamjohn]

Advice on every aspect of home loading is plentiful, on many forums and frequently contradictory, as has been pointed out already on this forum, the most sensible path to follow is to collate all the various bits of advice, try and arrive at a consensus and then get on the range.

I have in the past assembled rounds using factory bullets, home cast: treated with comercial lubes, Alox, pan lubed home made concoctions, paper patched and Powder and Hi Tek coated.

One variation I have not so far experimented with, is altering the hardness of the lead mix. (which I have achieved but not put to the test).

My next shoot, whenever that may, be will compare strings of 5 rounds weighed at 415 grains +/- 0.5 grains, cast with pure lead and string of 5 cast with the harder lead I have achieved. (matching the hard cast factory rounds supplied as 15.4 BNH). from the same mould.
All other components will remain the same. I am loading 'slip fit'. The "pure Lead" is sold as 99% pure. The Trade Descriptions Act in U.K. is very strict and the major supplier of lead products here would not, I am sure contravene the law.

Due to age and some physical shortcomings I no longer shoot anything off hand or even prone, instead using the maximum available support, on the bench, my main interest/challenge is to develop loads which show improved results on the paper.

If I arrive at any significant conclusions I will post them here, if not I will keep my peace.

 

[fiver]

and after all that a plain base bullet still gets all the way to maybe 1400 fps. before falling apart.
kinda like still having a glock.

just sayin,, wanna go 1600+ fps? put a gas check on the things.
why?
i dunno,, it just works that way with the long straight cases.

 

[Bret4207]

It was in his original post.

Well, the problem with that is listening to a really poor source for good cast bullet info. Which is pretty much what I was afraid of.

 

[Bret4207]

Advice on every aspect of home loading is plentiful, on many forums and frequently contradictory, as has been pointed out already on this forum, the most sensible path to follow is to collate all the various bits of advice, try and arrive at a consensus and then get on the range.

I have in the past assembled rounds using factory bullets, home cast: treated with comercial lubes, Alox, pan lubed home made concoctions, paper patched and Powder and Hi Tek coated.

One variation I have not so far experimented with, is altering the hardness of the lead mix. (which I have achieved but not put to the test).

My next shoot, whenever that may, be will compare strings of 5 rounds weighed at 415 grains +/- 0.5 grains, cast with pure lead and string of 5 cast with the harder lead I have achieved. (matching the hard cast factory rounds supplied as 15.4 BNH). from the same mould.
All other components will remain the same. I am loading 'slip fit'. The "pure Lead" is sold as 99% pure. The Trade Descriptions Act in U.K. is very strict and the major supplier of lead products here would not, I am sure contravene the law.

Due to age and some physical shortcomings I no longer shoot anything off hand or even prone, instead using the maximum available support, on the bench, my main interest/challenge is to develop loads which show improved results on the paper.

If I arrive at any significant conclusions I will post them here, if not I will keep my peace.

Okay, just let me throw this out there for you to think on at your leisure- Bhn is just a relative number and unless you are using a decent tool to determine the Bhn you can be off quite a bit in either direction. Beyond that, unless you know the exact makeup of your alloy then what does Bhn tell you? Yes, it's "harder" than the allegedly (hopefully!) 99% pure stuff you are testing against, but WHY and WHAT make it harder and will those elements contribute to better shooting? Or would you get better results using known alloys and starting there?

I'm sure I sound like a broken record on this, but I wasted several years chasing the Bhn fairy, looking for that pot of gold that would lead to tiny groups at jacketed speeds. It's a waste of effort to just shoot blindly for "harder" without knowing the what and why. It takes research, or getting on the good side of someone like Fiver or Ian or someone who has shot a lot of BPCR and bending their ears for the info you need. And as Al said in post 31, you can do a lot with sizing, or rather not sizing!, the bullet in the seating die.

I hope you figure it out and find something that works for you. I just really hate seeing people chasing the Bhn fairy and getting bad advice from Lee, etc. Good luck!!!

 

[CZ93X62]

I hope you figure it out and find something that works for you. I just really hate seeing people chasing the Bhn fairy and getting bad advice from Lee, etc. Good luck!!!

I like Lee's truncated-cone autopistol bullet forms, and some of their rifle bullet designs. Their moulds are usable, but when they play out they will be replaced with 4-cavity clones by Accurate or NOE. Their bullet casting info & advice.....not the company's strong suit.

 

[Bret4207]

I like Lee's truncated-cone autopistol bullet forms, and some of their rifle bullet designs. Their moulds are usable, but when they play out they will be replaced with 4-cavity clones by Accurate or NOE. Their bullet casting info & advice.....not the company's strong suit.

I'm not making any aspersions on Lees moulds, tools or designs. I'm talking strictly the cast bullet info they've put out over the past 20-25 years, everything from his "formula" for minimum Bhn to his sizing recommendations. I own and use a LOT of Lee equipment and enjoy it, and more over, enjoy the cost savings I get. But some of their reloading advice and especially their cast advice is simply trash.

 

[Snakeoil]

I wasted several years chasing the Bhn fairy

I can see someone doing this because of all the various articles written where they mention hardness as the zero in on the best load/bullet.

I think I said this in a previous post, but the general consensus at Wilton amongst the BPCR and Schuetzen shooters is keep it simple and softer tends to be better. A good example of hard lead being the wrong choice was a good friend with a very nice .32-40. He brought to the range to do some testing. He could not get the rifle to group and the more he shot it the worse it got. So, he ran a patch down the bore and the patch looked like it had been dragged across a machine shop floor. The patch was covered with lead slivers, LONG lead slivers. I have to say that I'd never seen anything like. He cleaned it and started shooting again with the same result. Another patch returned enough lead to get a goo head start on casting a bullet. He had thrown some unknown alloy into his pot thinking that he just needed bullets. Never gave hardness a thought. He cast some bullets with 30:1 and the rifle started shooting great.

I suspect that thought that cast bullets must be hard is partially driven by the commercial cast bullet makers. As someone stated previously, they make them hard so they hold up well in shipping. I also suspect that the harder alloys cast better in the automated machines. The other driver I suspect is cost. Back when I shot a lot of pistol, all my bullets were commercially made. I had no interest in sitting in front of a pot for hours on end to make the number of bullets I needed for practice and matches. So, I was always looking for deals on bullets and more than one vendor was using strictly wheel weights. This was when lead wheel weights were the norm and scrap was in every car shop. If enough shooter see nothing but hard bullets and never cast themselves, the mantra amongst all of them is going to be hard is good. And part of that is driven by wanted to be right in using hard commercially cast bullets. I suspect there are a lot more shooters shooting commercially cast than casting their own. Strength in numbers will drive accepted beliefs. I pretty much struggled with soft bullets being better until I actually did the work to prove it to myself.

 

[popper]

https://halldweb.jlab.org/wiki/images/9/98/Lead_spec_B29.pdf

US lead spec. shows Bi as highest 'other' stuff content. Up to 5% allowed. This is what we call 'pure'. Any roofing, sheathing or other lead has higher 'other' content to add mechanical strength. Pure lead sags too much for it to be used without Sb or Zn additives.

 

[358156 hp]

I should have mentioned earlier that a 10:1 ratio of lead to tin will approximate the hardness of Lymans #2 alloy. I've seen the actual numbers shown at between 12 to 15 bhn for this mix, depending on who's writing about it at the moment. If using scrap lead one shouldn't be surprised if they discover that there is a few percent of antimony in any lead sourced from extrusions, such as lead pipe, and some sheathings or sheetings.