I'm looking for some heavy bullet molds for my 41's, 44's and 45's. Any recommendations? - Dan

Dan,
I like the Lyman 429650 for my 44 Magnum. It weighs in at 315-320 grains depending on alloy. It is a very good shooter out of my Ruger SRH. Good-luck...BCB

After losing an Elk to a factory jacketed soft point ammo in 44 Mag, years ago I reread Elmers book.

In the 44 Mag I only use two bullets now.

Lyman 429421, 245 gr Keith type
RCBS 44-300 SWC, that I modified and removed the Gas Check from the mould.

These are cast from wheelwieghts and quenched into water to harden them. Loaded back to Elmers old load of 2400.

Sorry to say but stopped Elk hunting for a few years as I lost my Hunting partner. However since He had eye surgery last year he is thinking of giving it a try again.

These just plow right thru the Blacktail deer we have out here.

If you want to try some of the 300 gr bullets drop me a line as I currently have some extra on hand.

Jim Wisner
Custom Metalsmith

Jim,
Just curious. Do you quench/harden your WW bullets for increased accuracy, or for decreased deformation/increased penetration? I haven't found any problems with air-cooled WW bullets, but I'm always learning.

Jim, I'll happily take you up on that, let me know you're email address (mine is danbelisled@netscape.net) and we'll communicate about the bullets (and some of your safeties as well). Thanks - Dan

Bug

I started qenching them years ago for the big calibers.

On the 50 cal bullets this will give you a hard out side and a softer core. I have sat them on a steel plate and with a hammer beat on the nose to flatten them, the nose will swell out and shorten the overall bullet. Then as the bullet gets shorter and shorter you will get petals form on the side of the nose, but they will not break off, or shatter.

I ran some of the 300 gr SWC 44 bullets thru a Saeco, and LBT hardness tester the other night. They run right at 16-17 bhn.

As cast they run .4305 dia and I size them back to ,430 to fit my cylinder throat.

Jim Wisner
Custom Metalsmith

I believe I read in Veral Smiths book,once you water drop the WW lead bullets, then size you loose the hardness of the bullet, because of the hardening only being on the surface.

Have you found that to be true?

Thanks,

ML

The hardening is all the way through on typical calibers. Perhaps very, very large calibers would have a soft core, but I have never seen this investigated, and it wouldn't hurt anything, anyway. To answer the question, the hardness is more than just skin deep.

Sizing a heat treated bullet softens the skin only, while the rest of the bullet remains hard. You can see a picture of this in the NRA cast bullet manual. No tests have been done, that I know of, on how the softened skin affects performance in the gun. I have not observed a difference, myself.

A more important factor that many people do not seem aware of is that heat treated WW will gradually anneal at room temperature. After about 18 months the hardness drops off noticeably, and after about 30 months it will be as soft as air-cooled WW, so it is best to shoot them within a year of heat treating.

I find it more convenient to store bullets as-cast and air-cooled, then when I am ready to load some, I size them, oven treat them, and then run them through the sizer again to apply lube. This eliminates the skin softening issue and lessens the worry of annealing in storage.

The heaviest conventional bullet that I ever cast was a NEI that weight roughly 2800 grains. NEI makes a number of moulds for bullets weighing over 1000 grains and when I was young and foolish (and opposed to being an old fart now) I couldn't resist. REALLY interesting casting problems.

The only cannon balls I ever cast were 3 inchers. The moulds are vagely similar to bullet moulds but the casting process is sure different.

The largest moulds that I know of were for casting 8 inch lead cannon balls. That would be hard. A conventional casting furnace can be forced into casting 3 inch cannon balls but you'd need a special furnace for an 8.

Veral Smith wrote that very thing, and added however hardness will not fall below 20-22 bhn with heat treated WW metal if stored at a maximum temp of about 100 degrees.

I know that air cooled wheel weights get harder over time, but I had no Idea an annealed ww bullet would get softer?

Yes, heat treated WW aneals at room temperature. I have observed this in my own bullets and it is well documented in some editions of The Metals Handbook, by metallurgical engineers not by a convicted felon.



Perhaps other lead alloys behave differently but I don't think so.

Who's the convicted felon?..

All chemistry will become a steady state affair after some time period, and that period can be quite long when temperature (any external energy, actually) is quite low.

This means soft boolits will become harder, and hard boolits will become softer during this same period. Now, if the chemical composition is the same for eacb boolit batch, then each batch will end up at the same hardness without regard to heat treatment of any type. It's just a question of time and chemical composition. ... felix

Great Felix...

But could you give another analogical explanation in terms of Audio Engineering?

Being a retired audio record engineer, I liked your discussion on the harmonic vibration and distortion of cast boolits..