Factory JHP lead BHN

[burbank.jung]

Has anyone compared the BHN between lead in 9mm, 38, 357, 40, and 45 JHP or FMJ factory bullets. I read somewhere online that the lead is 3% antinomy and am wondering if the bhn is the same. If so, the change in bhn would be random hardcast lead bullets shooters shoot at the range and which has a different alloy. I've retrieved a few sacks of range bullets and am beginning to short through it now. It'll be a few weeks before I can melt the lead and cast each type of bullet caliber into separate ingots. Currently, I have ingots from lead pellets and other ingots from .22lr. From what I've found both have 1/2% antinomy.

 

[burbank.jung]

Does commercial jhp lead primarily have antinomy in the alloy and no tin? So to insure a cast bullet is more pliable, I have to add tin?

 

[RBHarter]

Ok bhn per alloy isn't helpful. There's 5 ways to get 16 bhn and none of them will behave the same way on impact .

What I have found is that jackets and more particularly plated bullets and copper washed with tin over about 2.5% will draw copper into solution and that completely changes the the behavior of the alloy . For some applications it's a great thing for others not so much . The copper held can be as high as half of the tin . It can cause growing bullets , and unanticipated hardening ......

 

[Bret4207]

You going to go through and test each individual recovered bullet? It makes a lot more sense and a lot less work to melt it all into one big batch and juice what you end up with to get what you want.

 

[burbank.jung]

I collected about 6 sacks of bullets from a range. After removing the debri and slag I might have 4 sacks of bullets. Of them, I can separate the .45, 40, and 9mm bullets. I'll take the most similar in jacket shape and color. Then, I will melt each batch to make an ingot and mark them for future reference. After a month or so, I'll return and measure the BHN of each. If one or more batches are consistent, I can separate them from the scrap lead with hardcast bullets I get after washing out the debri. Ingots from that batch seem harder.

 

[burbank.jung]

Ok bhn per alloy isn't helpful. There's 5 ways to get 16 bhn and none of them will behave the same way on impact .

What I have found is that jackets and more particularly plated bullets and copper washed with tin over about 2.5% will draw copper into solution and that completely changes the the behavior of the alloy . For some applications it's a great thing for others not so much . The copper held can be as high as half of the tin . It can cause growing bullets , and unanticipated hardening ......

So, it's better to make a hug batch, mix the alloy up, and know that within that large batch of unknown percent of Sn and Sb, and Cu, that you'll get a certain result and leave it at that?

 

[Brad]

I have 6 five gallon buckets of spent bullets from the berm at my club to melt down. I can assure you I will not be sorting them.
I have roughly 1K pounds of ingots from similar range scrap. Near as I can tell they are consistent as I need. I don’t sort ingots, they all get dumped into storage bins and are taken out as needed.

Getting wrapped up in small variations in alloy for most shooting just isn’t worthwhile.

 

[RBHarter]

That's kind of the general consensus. I have sorted mine in to slugs/buck/ML , WW , harder than WW , and jacketed . It works for me but I have kind of a general direction I'm going with everything I cast .

It's just not worth the time and effort if your goal is to poke holes in paper or knock over pins or plates inside 50 yd .

I load every round like it's going to be the one that I take the world record by 50&7/8 Idaho moose that cost me $8,000 to get one shot at .........ok that was a little dramatic but meat on the table in lean time sounds kind of Grapes of Wrath ish .

It just seems to me it's about your goals and the realistic uses .
WW is generic all purpose lead .
Add the jacketed stuff to it at 1/4 and you're moving toward a water dropped bullet at 18-20 bhn that you can run almost like lino but stays together even if it hits an entry bone . Sort of an FMJ only no jacket .
Cut it 50/50 WW/shotgun/ML now you have magnum expansion allow . Drop the WW to 30% and you get a workable HP alloy .
Mix it all up and you have something like WW that does stuff WW won't do and goes faster .

 

[Axman]

The last big melt I did from range lead that contained cast, fmj, 22’s and just about everything else was 900 lbs after fluxing.
The bhn was 10 to 12.

 

[fiver]

the only thing i'd sort out is commercial cast bullets.

everything else gets mixed up into as big of a batch as i can get my hands on, modified slightly to cast better if needed, and off it goes into some dirt or whatever.

 

[358156 hp]

I went to buying 20-1 & 30-1 lead/tin for handgun hollowpoints from Rotometals because I wanted consistency. RBHarter said it best, "There's 5 ways to get 16 bhn and none of them will behave the same way on impact". Stick on wheelweights and salvaged pewter wasn't getting me consistent results. I'd venture a guess that almost all of the"pure" lead we see for non-foundry sales isn't pure at all. For example, most swaged lead, lead pipes, lead sheeting, and so on contains some percentage of antimony. Antimony makes lead swage more consistently and uniformly. And there are at least 'lebenty nine to 'lebenty leben different formulas for pewter. Lots of trace metals there.

Most of my non-specialty casting is with range scrap.

 

[Bret4207]

So, it's better to make a hug batch, mix the alloy up, and know that within that large batch of unknown percent of Sn and Sb, and Cu, that you'll get a certain result and leave it at that?

You have no idea what you get out of anything you salvage from the range! Bhn tells you exactly one thing- what the Bhn your tester says that material you are testing is. It doesn't tell you what it's made up of, what the percentages are, how it will react to anything you do to it, what the trace elements are or what percentages they're at, etc. I will say this again and hope you listen because it's meant to aid you- forget Bhn as an indicator of good/bad, better/worse, faster/slower, etc. Yes, melt it all up, see what you have, get the BHN reading if you want and then start SHOOTING what you have because that will tell you a heck of a lot more than a Bhn reading. You can take most any tertiary lead alloy with SN/SB and make it give a half dozen different Bhn readings based on what you do to it. You add elements (juice it) or dilute them or heat treat in multiple ways. It's still the same alloy.

Bhn is the biggest bunch of hooey circulating in this game, bar none!

 

[RBHarter]

It's a number . As such it's a tool . As a tool it can be useful. Mostly it's a 1" (25mm) long "stubby" screwdriver that has 1 or 2 very special 2 finger , blind , touch it , but can't turn it , screws inside a left handed baffle box you can only reach right handed .

 

[Bret4207]

It's a number . As such it's a tool . As a tool it can be useful. Mostly it's a 1" (25mm) long "stubby" screwdriver that has 1 or 2 very special 2 finger , blind , touch it , but can't turn it , screws inside a left handed baffle box you can only reach right handed .

"But, but, but.....it's HARDCAST!!!! It's 7 Zillion BHN!!!!!!! That HAS to be better!!!" Freakin' great advertising copy, but that's about it. Sure did fool me for a few years.

 

[burbank.jung]

But can't these spent hardcast bullets be used like alloy pills? Your lead is too soft and drop a few of these in your pot and walla, you bhn went up.

 

[Dusty Bannister]

Hard cast does not necessarily mean it was by an alloy to provide a specific hardness. It could be quenched during the casting process and the result is "hard cast". Many who purchase commercially made bullets load them and shoot them and age softening is not even a part of the thought process.

 

[Brad]

My take on it is this- if it is labeled hard cast it is likely 92-6-2 alloy. Casts well, doesn’t get beat up in shipping. BHN has value but is not the only determining factor. I view it as a tool to measure where my alloy is- did it age harden, did heat treating make a difference, etc.

I don’t sort because I am inherently lazy and also value my time over the potential benefit. Anyone who wants to come and sort 5 gallon buckets for me is welcome to do so, it won’t be me.

Most of my shooting is of a sort where specific alloy just doesn’t matter.

 

[358156 hp]

It really isn't about specific actual hardness anyway. Hard cast really only meant that lead alloy is strengthened with the addition of other elements that are harder than pure lead. Keith was basically a 16-1 kind of guy who hated linotype because of its hardness.

Human nature being what it is, this simple idea got overdone manyfold over time. From there, it expanded to be some sort of necessity, then the lack thereof became a deficiency. And from there it became some sort of social requirement, "don't talk to him, his bullets aren't hard enough".

My usage is simple, I start out with clean scrap and if it works well I cast a lot of them, since the next batch will likely be different, I track stock by lot. As mentioned before, this doesn't apply to hollowpoints (and some hollowbase) where everything has to be the same, time after time. If I shot cast in rifle matches I would probably use a harder certified alloy for that as well. I've also used powdercoated hollowpoint lino bullets on steel targets as a sort of home made frangible with AR15s.

 

[Ian]

You can tell a lot from the people here who discuss alloy in terms of its constituency rather than its hardness.

 

[burbank.jung]

Consistency is important and if I find it among the jhp and chunks of remainder lead with hardcast then I can use the remaining lead dust and small particles for fishing weights. I think I found my answer. Attached is results I acquired from a caster on castboolits. He did what I am interested 10 years ago. The bullets can vary but at the range I collect me lead, most shooters shoot the same inexpensive fmj pistol ammo. I will use that for my wadcutters. I expect 12bhn average for the other lot of large chunks of lead and will use that for my 9mm TC and 40TC bullets and .357 bullets. Do most of you purchase tin for your your hollow point bullets using soft scrap lead? I have ingots made from pellets and ingots made from .22lr lead.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...ed+range+scrap