Hardness tester Info?

[Mike W1]

Other than the obvious of knowing the BHN of your batch of bullets, I'm wondering why I bought one back when I was even DUMBER than I am now.

Not useful in determining alloy makeup far as I know. A number of things contribute to hardness including sample size. An ingot won't test the same as a bullet due I understand to different cooling rates.

So what am I missing out on about this business? If it's not leading the barrel it's neither too soft nor too hard.

 

[david s]

I can't answer your question but I'm sorta in the same boat. I have a tester that says my alloy is a couple of points harder than it should be. So follow the instructions and recalibrate the tester. Still says I'm a couple of points to hard. So either my alloy has some additions I'm not aware of the tester isn't working properly or I'm using it wrong or all three. There are of course other possibilities. All these possibilities and I've changed nothing. So why did I bother?

 

[JonB]

I have scrounged lead from several sources and sometimes I don't have a clue what it might be. Besides the Drop test, testing hardness gives me one clue to what it might be, Also melt/freeze temp gives me another clue.

Since I have the Lee hardness tester, I do test batches of bullets that I cast, to confirm what I think they should be. There have been times I was surprised with a measurement that isn't what I was expecting, then I have to back track to figure what I might have done to have that happen.

Also, a hardness tester is handy to have, when you step into the Heat treatment of bullets...to confirm your technique is doing what you want it to do.

Does the typical bullet caster need a hardness tester?
Answer: Nope.

 

[Kevin Stenberg]

A set of art pencils are cheaper and easier than a tester.

 

[Dusty Bannister]

I began testing hardness on cast bullets and ingots before the pencil method was ever discussed. I was able to obtain tests on a number of bullets with the LBT tester, and always followed the instructions on sample prep, and timing the dwell time for applying pressure.

I later obtained a Cabin Tree tester and have followed the sample preparation instructions as described by LBT and have even dedicated a large flat nosed bullet mold to casting samples ladle cast from batches of melted scrap. Some times the scrap will test 5 BHN and other times 7 BHN. The harder test result indicates to me that it likely has more antimony.

The most common use for me these days is to get a hardness comparison when ingots come into my possession. If an unknown ingot tests 12 BHN I will likely add it to other known source ingots of similar hardness. I recently came into some really nasty ingots that were believed to be zinc contaminated and had a foamy surface texture. After some consideration, I decided to lay out several of the ingots and file a clean spot and apply acid to see if they had a reaction. There was no vigorous reaction, so I prepared another ingot as I would a sample for the hardness tester and found it to read quite hard. That made it worth the time and effort to send a sample off to have an xrf scan done on the sample. Turns out to be slightly off grade linotype. Apparently, the original owner, had done a quick and dirty melting of scrap lino and spacers and poured the ingots with out fluxing and reducing which resulted in the foamy surface.

While a hardness tester may not give you all the answers, it will give you some pretty clear indication of what you might have if you care to put in a little thought and effort. I would say that if you have an incorrect reading from your test unit after testing and adjusting, you might have a problem with the sample prep.

 

[Brad]

I have a hardness tester. Haven’t used it in a few years.

 

[Rick]

A set of art pencils are cheaper and easier than a tester.

Not all testers.

 

[Winelover]

Rick lent me his LBT tester. I use it quite a bit. I recover my lead from my backyard range, about once a year. I shoot a lot. This year I reclaimed almost 70 pounds of smelted ingots. I call it RBA = recovered bullet alloy. It's a hodgepodge of different bullet alloys............ pure, older RBA, 3-1 alloy (pure to lino) as well as some commercial bullet alloy. It's a crap shoot, as far as what the hardness will be every year. However, using the tester, I find it stays pretty constant at 14-15 BHN.

Knowing this, I am able to adjust my RBA, according to it's intended use. For most applications, I use it uncut for 9mm, 38/357, 44 Spl & 44 Mag and 45 LC. I will heat treat it for rifle bullets, not intended for hunting. Hunting bullets are a 50-50 mix of RBA and pure. Currently, I'm casting air cooled hunting bullets. Mixing fifty-fifty, I'm getting about 12 BHN, after three weeks. Not the 10 BHN, I would prefer. Still need to add more pure ingots to the melt.

 

[Bret4207]

Other than the obvious of knowing the BHN of your batch of bullets, I'm wondering why I bought one back when I was even DUMBER than I am now.

Not useful in determining alloy makeup far as I know. A number of things contribute to hardness including sample size. An ingot won't test the same as a bullet due I understand to different cooling rates.

So what am I missing out on about this business? If it's not leading the barrel it's neither too soft nor too hard.

At least you recognize that Bhn alone is near meaningless in relaitve terms. Wish more folks could grasp this.

 

[Rick]

I use the BHN to determine consistency from lot to lot of alloy. Nope, won't tell you a thing about the combination of metals in an alloy but it will tell you if your alloy is varying from lot to lot and that can be a valuable clue. One more piece of the puzzle.