Here is something I ran across on another site. It would be great if it worked on hard cast SWC's for the 44 mag:

A Paco secret...

Here’s a trick I write about often...to get soft nose and hard body cast bullets, cast them hard and hot, frosty bullets are better no matter what the experts say... drop them from the mold into water to temper....then place your bullets standing in water to their shoulder just above the top crimp groove, so the nose is exposed....take a butane torch and run it over the noses sticking out of the water...this detempers just the noses, so you in effect have a soft nose-hard body, cast bullet. It takes a little practice...but as soon as you see the bullet noses change color at all, pull the flame...or the nose will slump over...it doesn’t take much flame time, especially on small caliber bullets. Cast bullets made this way will resist fouling but will expand in any size animal....from rabbits on up.

Anyone ever tried this?

Yup, I've done that. I've been water dropping cast bullets longer then I care to remember. That method is sure alot easier then those old two part bullets Lyman made moulds for or using the double pour method.

Joe

It's just past 06:00 so it's OK to be a contrarian, and I've had my second cup of coffee.
Seems like this a lot of trouble. I don't have a 44 mag, I shoot a 45 Colt I can't remember anything I shot with 255 grain or 300 grain bullet doing much of anything besides just dying. Now I will admit no big game has been shot.
A big flatnosed 445 grain aircooled or water dropped slug out of a 45-70 was not disputed by whitetails as being ineffective.
Jim

Starmetal,
Paco mentions dropping the slugs into water. I cast mine from lino, without dropping into water. Will lino soften? Maybe I need to cast from WW and drop into water for this to work. Have you tried this with a hard alloy like lino or #2?

As a side note - I can shoot soft bullets and not get fouling; they just aren't accurate.

Max503

Linotype is too good to waste shooting it straight like you are. Wow, you could blend up a bunch of good alloy using your lino, lead, WW's, etc. That's not a blend, I'm just saying you could mix portion of lino with lead, some tin, and antimony and get a good shoot blend. The old NRA Cast Bullet book has blend formulas and I believe the Lyman cast books do also. More to your question though, WW's for example water quenched come pretty close to Lino's hardness. Quenching lino will harder it more but gosh it's so brittle as it is. In it's not quenched state it stays at the hardness it is for quite some time. You can harden it more by quenching, but like WW's over time it will gradually get softer. Take a long time though. You can harden you bullets by heating them in an oven that you can accurately control the temperature, making sure it's well below the melting point of the alloy of course, for 2 or so hrs, and then quenching they fast. If you drop into water right from the mould it's best to size and lube those bullets right away before they become hard. Upon quenching they are softer then what they will become in say about two weeks. They gradually get harder for sometime, reach a point of hardness, then start to become softer. So get them sized in at least 1 or 2 day. That's one nice thing about oven heat treating them. You can size them anytime, then when you need a batch, heat treat them, quench, then lube, then let them set a week or two to fully harden. If you harden a bullet, then sizing afterwards will take some of the hardness out of them. Some say this is only skin deep.

Soft bullets can be made to shoot accurate, takes a lot of fitting to the throat, right powders, good lubes, staying within a velocity range, and type and twist of the rifling plays an important role too. Look how accurate swaged hollow base full wadcutters shoot and they are really soft.

Joe

I've never tried the torch method but don't like the sound of it. Such as:

-- the best you can hope is that the nose will drop to the fully annealed hardness. For WW that is BHN 8. Store bought "hard cast" are commonly WW+2%tin or even richer alloys which are going to be that much harder. So you are talking 8 - 12 BHN depending on alloy. That might be about right for expansion in a rifle but don't hold your breath waiting for it to expand at handgun velocities. Even pure lead noses don't always expand much at handgun impact velocities.

-- I have to wonder how accurately you can control the temperature just by flashing it with a torch. Even if you get the temperature just right on the surface, it probably won't be hot enough inside.

I guess the only way to know is try it and do some kind of expansion test with your particular load, and hope it is representative of what happens in the field.

Where you need expansion the most is on high lung shots that whistle between the ribs without hitting a bone and creating bone fragments. These shots are the low velocity cast bullet's achilles heel. However, these shots are also the least likely to expand since so little resistance is met. Hence, you need something that expands very easily, otherwise, it's probably a waste of time.

The time involved to make a big game hunting bullet isn't important because you aren't going to be shooting very many of them.

I used to play around with soft noses, and enjoyed it (I had more time on my hands then), but I am getting lazier in my old age so now I just use a big fat meplat and drive it as fast as I can. That, and try to aim for the heart/aorta instead of high lung. A heart/aorta shot is always effective even if the bullet does not expand.

I like the idea of a pure lead nose and quenched WW body. When I first tried this after reading about it I would set up two melting pots and try to use a small pistol case "ladel" to measure out how much soft nose I wanted. Basically I ended up with a big mess and messier bullets. Now for my 340gr 45-70 bullets I like to have about 100gr worth (the nose down to the crimp groove) in pure lead so I cast up a few 100gr 9mm bullets with pure lead so I have pre measured amounts. When casting, I get my wheel weights and mold up to temp than drop the 100gr bullet into the ladel and hold it in the burner flame til it has melted well. Then I pour it right into the cavity and fill with WW and drop into water. May seem like a lot of work but 20 will do me for a year and I practice with basic cast bullets with WW.

Hope others find it useful.

This idea may be the Rube Goldberg of the week,
How about a means of heating the nose through induction? Using flat nose bullets, because that's the easiest. Set the bullets on an aluminiom plate nose down and raise the temp.?
Once the system was worked out, I would think it would repeatable.
Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Max503:
Starmetal,
Paco mentions dropping the slugs into water. I cast mine from lino, without dropping into water. Will lino soften? Maybe I need to cast from WW and drop into water for this to work. Have you tried this with a hard alloy like lino or #2?
.

Max, I don't think this will work with lino since I don't think it can be heat treated.
From what I've read arsenic has to be present for HT to work and I don't think lino has any, if it won't harden it can't be annealed. I've never tried to HT lino because I don't use it but would be willing to bet that after passing the torch over the nose it would be back to it's original state as soon as it cooled. I also wouldn't think lino would lose hardness over time either although supposedly HT WW will but exactly how long it would take I can't say since I shoot them long before it happens. I've cut a HTWW bullet in half to check the idea that HT was only skin deep and the middle of the sectioned bullet was 16 BNH while the nose was 19 so HT effects more than the skin of the bullet in my tests. I checked my results with both the LBT and Saeco hardness tester so assume it's right.

Although I do HT all of my bullets I have to agree with arkypete that a big flat nosed bullet of the LBT style cast in WW or HTWW would be just as effective with a lot less variables. Probably have some merit with one of the smaller calibers but not really required with the 44 in my opinion.

LBT puts out a book that has a lot of good information about HT and bullet design in it and I'd highly recommend it.

Pat

Any alloy containing antimony or arsenic can be hardened.

Check this site out: http://www.lasc.us/HeatTreat.htm

I don't think linotype can be hardened appreciably, but more importantly for this discussion, it cannot be softened merely by annealing it.

As NBHunter pointed out, it really isn't a big deal to make a lifetime supply of pure lead nose bullets, because 20 - 50 bullets will last a lifetime if they are only used for big game (use regular bullets for practice and load development). There are various ways to make the pure lead nose and they all work.

Thanks for the replies. I shoot a 429421 Keith style SWC cast from lino out of my 44 Contender because that is what's most accurate. I've tried softer alloys and they are less accurate at the velocity needed to (legally) kill a deer. I was just wondering if there was a simple way to increase the effectiveness of my load. Seems not. I will try to avoid high lung shots, as has been suggested.

Max503

That lino is probably the most accurate from your TC because they are noted for a terrible throat or put more simply they don't have a smooth transition into the rifling. A lot of them tend to tear up cast bullet.

Joe

Last time I checked, I believe the bullet travels about .5 inches before it hits the rifling. I thought about getting some 445 cases and trimming them to length in order to get the seated bullet into the rifling. Maybe then I could use a softer alloy. But that's a whole 'nuther project. Right now it will keep all shots on one of those baseball-sized shoot-n-see targets at 65 yards, as long as I use a very hard alloy.

Max, If you're seriously looking for a way to increase the effectiveness of your Contender you should email Veral Smith at LBT and explain what you have and what you're trying to do. Because of the design of his bullets, especially the WFN, you should be able to fill up a lot of the .5 jump and the meplat is so big and flat it'll be much more effective than one the SWC designs. Might take a 300 gr bullet to get the length necessary to get up to the rifling but that's not a bad thing. You could also look at the 310 gr. Lee 44 cal mould since it might work out for you with having what looks like two crimp grooves.

Don't know if you have or have used an LBT mould but they're real nice and cast like a dream.

Pat

I tried the torch method of softnosing a bullet but as someone suggested, it was difficult to get a nice even anneal. Typically, the soft part would only be skin deep and would slough off, leaving a misshapen, lopsided round nose in the target material.

What I found that worked best to make soft noses was to use the same mold, cast up a bunch of pure lead bullets, clamp the bullets in a vice (after they cool!) and carefully cut the noses off where you want (hacksaw), and clean the burr with a razor knife. Then, heat your hard alloy and mold up HOT and as you cast, take a nose, put it in one side of the mold, close the mold, use a dowel to seat it firmly forward in the cavity and then pour the hard alloy on the base. Water drop them or even oven heat treat later. The pure lead won't harden and the base will. If you keep your hard alloy and mold hot enough, they'll fuse. It's also possible to get the works too hot and mix the alloys but it's not hard to avoid. This technique is a Veral Smith invention by the way.

In the end, I'm with the rest of the guys. Give me a hard flat nose going lickety split and put it where it belongs. I've not seen where expansion adds that much to the killing effect.

PWS

I've always thought about the soft nose design, but then I come back to the fact that I like to put as little effort as possible into casting, hence my bullets are straight ww's and either air cooled or water quenched.

Of all the methods I've read of, Ross Seyfrieds seems like the best. You have a pile of pure lead round balls of a weight roughly half the bullet weight, for a 44 that would be something like a 32 cal. You run two lead pots, one with ww/s for the base, the other is run hot and just for melting the pure lead nose. The round ball is dropped into a dipper to be heated by the hot melt, when molten, it is poored into the mold, followed by the ww base, then dropped into a bucket to quench.

Personally for a 44 I'd just go with an LFN or WFN design with a gas check, and try and get a good load with an air cooled ww bullet. You'll get some upset, and even if you don't, the meplat will still give a good wound channel.

If I decide to develop a new load, I think I'll go with the 310g Lee.
I too like to keep my casting as simple as possible. That's why I gave up the gas checks and went with the 429421. The downside is that I have to use a hard alloy. The deer I shot this year went maybe 50 feet. If they all keep doing that I will be OK.

If you need more performance out of your cast bullets,most likely you are using too small a caliber. Big cals don't need to expand---they are big already. But if you need more performance from cast easy solution is well--get a jacketed bullet.

Idea!!!! I am going to try to cast some 255 and 310 gr .45 bullets like this; I am going to get some swedge .440 dia muzzle loader round balls, place one in each cavity of the mold then cast a hard lead (linotype WW) blend on top of the ball. My guess is that the hard lead will wrap around the ball and create a soft nose .45 with a hard casing that can be pushed in a .454 or .45 colt to a high velocity. Will let you kow of the results after the casting and firing is done.
Mike

You need to melt the soft lead nose to get it to attach to the harder base. Pure lead melts at a higher temp than lead alloys, and you won't get good adhesion unless the pure lead is molten when you add the harder base alloy.

I kind of like my idea of using a case that gets the bullet into the rifling. This will prevent skidding - you know, where the rifling marks smear. I read an article that said if the bullet hits the rifling at such a velocity that it continues to go straight for a short distance before it rotates into the rifling, that this smears some lead on the bullet and ruins accuracy. I think its worth a try. I just don't want to buy 100 445 cases in case this experiment did not work.

Pual H, your right the 45 round ball wouldn't adhear to the casting, I tried a 32 round ball, it may have worked if I could have keep it centered as the casting lead surrounded it. I was casting flat nose bullets and the RB would go to one side or the other. I am tinking about taking a ball end mill and modifing the mold to center the 32 RB. What do you think?
Mike

Im with pete as far as im conserned its just a waste of time. It might be somethig worth trying in say a 30 cal rifle that could stand a little expansion but in a handgun a good swc or lfn or wfn will kill well just as is. Max id sure like to have a bullet trap set up at your range!!! Dont wast your lineotype like that its getting to hard to find anymore. A mixture of 5050 with wws will handle any cast bullet chore. Im a firm believer in alloying and not heat treating. Ive allways got better accuracy with alloyed bullets. If your going to heat treat use the oven method as its alot more consistant. I see myself having to heat treat in the future again someday as im sure in my lifetime linotype will be about like gold.

quote:

Originally posted by arkypete:
It's just past 06:00 so it's OK to be a contrarian, and I've had my second cup of coffee.
Seems like this a lot of trouble. I don't have a 44 mag, I shoot a 45 Colt I can't remember anything I shot with 255 grain or 300 grain bullet doing much of anything besides just dying. Now I will admit no big game has been shot.
A big flatnosed 445 grain aircooled or water dropped slug out of a 45-70 was not disputed by whitetails as being ineffective.
Jim