burbank.jung
Active Member
How long do you leave your cast ingots and cast bullets sit so the molecules settle and the bhn stabilizes before you determine its bhn and use them as testloads?
Lead and tin is 24 hours. The question is how much antimony.How long do you leave your cast ingots and cast bullets sit so the molecules settle and the bhn stabilizes before you determine its bhn and use them as testloads?
I don’t age them but I do cast to keep a supply on hand. That means I may be shooting 3 month old to 5 year old bullets.
I really don’t like shooting stuff less than 2-3 weeks old but sometimes one does what one must.
I tend to store bullets, unsized, in bulk. I usually powder coat them and dump them in a bin for storage. I size a few hundred ahead and then load.
Ingots don’t need to age, like a Rick said melting them down eliminates and changes made.
I agree. But wouldn't it be logical to say that if I cast the ingots into bullets and PC'd them, then let them age, the final BHN would stablize to be the same or close to the ingot BHN? Atleast I have a better working number to work with than a random ingot. How much variation in BHN have you found in your cast bullets before your accuracy changes? eg: +/- XX BHN.Like Ric said, it's all the percentage of Sb related. But ingots? Age them all you want but as soon as you melt them, you're back to ground zero.
I heat treated bullets one time to 30 BHN as an experiment and put them under the bench. Found them again 10 years later, they were 26 BHN. Alloy was CWW+ 2% Sn. Sn also will effect final BHN by reducing the hardness and increasing the rate of age softening, but it takes about 5%+ to do so.
Have you experienced resizing issues with a freshly PC'd bullet vs an aged bullet?Same as Brad on this one. I try and keep a backlog on bullets so they are coated/sized and sitting for some time before I end up using them. When I know I am running out of a certain bullet I make sure they are a priority for making more.
Of course, there are times when you can't do that like when you get a new mould. In that case I try and be patient after coating and casting and wait at least a week or two before loading.
I agree. But wouldn't it be logical to say that if I cast the ingots into bullets and PC'd them, then let them age, the final BHN would stablize to be the same or close to the ingot BHN? Atleast I have a better working number to work with than a random ingot. How much variation in BHN have you found in your cast bullets before your accuracy changes? eg: +/- XX BHN.
Not at all. Might be because any bullet I know will be sized down much at all gets sized before PC and again after. It adds work but gives me better results than sizing down a bunch after coating.Have you experienced resizing issues with a freshly PC'd bullet vs an aged bullet?