Re: Heat treating jacketed bullets??

14 November 2004, 09:43

To soften the case you'd have to go to at least 450F.For the core some lead alloys can be hardened and some can't. If you are not satisfied with the jacketed bullets you have just find another, some are pure copper jacket , some are gilding metal[ various amounts of zinc].Some cores are pure lead some have antimony.Lots of choices out there.

15 November 2004, 04:38

<eldeguello>

Quote:

What if someone were to try heat treating lets say a 180 gn .30 cal hornady RN? Cast bullet makers know that lead alloy can be made much harder this way. Could that possibly make a bullet as tough as a Woodleigh?
What do you think?

To be able to be heat-treated, a lead alloy must contain some antimony and at least a trace of arsenic. IF your cores were made of the appropriate metal, not just pure lead, I see no reason why the bullets, if heated to 465 or so degrees and held at that temperature for say an hour, then quenched in cold water, could not have their cores hardened this way. The question then would be "will these bullets now expand at all??" If not, then the bullet would perform like a solid, not a softpoint!

When I was living in Colorado Springs CO I used to shoot at the Isaac Walton League range there. One day a couple of guys showed up who were shooting .338/.378 Weatherbys. This round was a wildcat at that time. They had melted the rear cores out of .338" 250-grain Nosler Partition bullets and replaced the cores with a hard lead alloy. Their contention was that the factory Partitions were too soft for the impact velocities that these monster cartridges produced, so they had to toughen up the bullets! I don't know if their theory and corrective approach was valid, however.

15 November 2004, 04:52

Matt_G

Quote:

To be able to be heat-treated, a lead alloy must contain some antimony and at least a trace of arsenic. IF your cores were made of the appropriate metal, not just pure lead, I see no reason why the bullets, if heated to 465 or so degrees and held at that temperature for say an hour, then quenched in cold water, could not have their cores hardened this way. The question then would be "will these bullets now expand at all??" If not, then the bullet would perform like a solid, not a softpoint!

Very true. I have tinkered with shooting cast bullets in my .270 Win.
With an alloy consisting of Wheelweights plus 4-5% antimony and 1.5-2% tin they were still to soft for my taste. Heat treating in the oven at roughly 450F for 45 minutes did harden these bullets considerably. I figure BHN was in the high 20's after heat treating.
For some reason when I answered the original post, I had the notion of heat treating the jacket on my brain.

15 November 2004, 05:59

Wstrnhuntr

[quote The question then would be "will these bullets now expand at all??" If not, then the bullet would perform like a solid, not a softpoint!

Yep! I suppose a few of them placed into some water jugs at various speeds could be pretty revealing. That was also part of my purpose for pointing to a hornady RN, what with the large frontal area and the fluted tip, if any bullet will still expand they should.

There is another thing about the Hornadys that made me consider this. When the cores are swaged past the interlock ring it does something not many folks are aware of, it alters the size of the core to fit past the ring, that negates the purpose of the ring and could make seperation even easier. If the cores are heated that would fill the void making the most of the interlock design.

I may have to get a BHN tester and give it a try.