I "broke" a couple bullets yesterday...

CWLONGSHOT

Well-Known Member
I was dropping on a wet towel in about a inch of water from about 8".

LEE 309-230 so a long skinny bullet.

Im thinking my alloy coupled with the temp (hot) I was dumping them from the mold.

But what happened here?

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Bliksem

Active Member
Still too hot when dropping them from the mold. Rich alloy won’t help as it makes this more likely, been there & done that.

The trouble is when you fracture a bullet and it comes apart when lubing and you realize your whole cast batch needs to be redone. The lightbulb went on as at a previous range session I had a few weird events when 2 dust clouds were raised on the ground before the targets. Bullets must have broken during firing.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Yep. looks to me like the mold and probably the pot temp are too hot. You didn't say what the alloy is but that no doubt is also part of the problem.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
X3 on the above comments. Wait another couple seconds and the problem might be alleviated. Some alloys are more prone to this than others.
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
I once cast pistol bullets from a mystery "linotype" that I later decided was probably babbitt. They cast well, and I water dropped them as well. I wanted really hard bullets and I got them. I cast them for a 40 S&W, and 45 acp. I sized and lubed them, and loaded them with a pretty solid taper crimp. I remember hearing a little creaking sound when I taper crimped them, but thought nothing of it at the time. As the bullets fed into the pistol, I often felt something hit my hand ever so lightly. The bullet holes in paper targets were perfectly round, and recoil seemed lighter than other loads I'd worked up with these bullets. I wrote it off to the bullets being lighter because of the alloy. I was wrong.

It turned out that the bullet noses were most likely fracturing as I taper crimped them. The feeling of something hitting my hand was actually the bullet nose coming off the bullet in the feeding cycle and being launched out of the pistol, and some of them would hit my hand during reentry. I've often joked about inventing the discarding bullet nose wadcutter for semi-auto pistols. I discovered the truth when I accidentally dropped a round while loading and the nose fell off.

You could simply let your bullets cool in the mould a few seconds longer, then drop them into deeper cold water to harden. You have a nice large crystalline structure showing, and I suspect you probably have a higher antimony content in that alloy than you're expecting.
 

CWLONGSHOT

Well-Known Member
I had maybe 40 bullets in the bucket when this happened. I picked out a few and added about a gal of water and looked them over and no more found.
Thanks guys it about what I thought so Im learning!!
OOH, as I said just a few cast when I found. I also had the pot on high!! I set it there and allow melt, then turn back before I start ta cast. Well I forgot. :)

This is my RF Range alloy with lino as hardener. 1# lino to 10# tin rich lead.
CW
 

Bliksem

Active Member
Knowing the actual alloy temperature improves the outcome of cast bullets in more ways than most would give credit for. Casting tempo alone cannot truly compensate for this imbalance. I recommend at minimum to have a thermometer and at best have a PID controller.
 

bruce381

Active Member
I get a crack in the front band of SWC pistol bullets when I go to fast.

Like they stick a bit in the mold then fracture then let go of the mold so yeah I slow down.
 
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Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I once cast pistol bullets from a mystery "linotype" that I later decided was probably babbitt. They cast well, and I water dropped them as well. I wanted really hard bullets and I got them. I cast them for a 40 S&W, and 45 acp. I sized and lubed them, and loaded them with a pretty solid taper crimp. I remember hearing a little creaking sound when I taper crimped them, but thought nothing of it at the time. As the bullets fed into the pistol, I often felt something hit my hand ever so lightly. The bullet holes in paper targets were perfectly round, and recoil seemed lighter than other loads I'd worked up with these bullets. I wrote it off to the bullets being lighter because of the alloy. I was wrong.

It turned out that the bullet noses were most likely fracturing as I taper crimped them. The feeling of something hitting my hand was actually the bullet nose coming off the bullet in the feeding cycle and being launched out of the pistol, and some of them would hit my hand during reentry. I've often joked about inventing the discarding bullet nose wadcutter for semi-auto pistols. I discovered the truth when I accidentally dropped a round while loading and the nose fell off.

You could simply let your bullets cool in the mould a few seconds longer, then drop them into deeper cold water to harden. You have a nice large crystalline structure showing, and I suspect you probably have a higher antimony content in that alloy than you're expecting.


YUPPER!!! Did the same thing with some 30 or 314 200-ish gr jobs some years back. Kept hearing that little "tink" sound as I crimped the super hard WQ bullets. I was using slower powers and trying to get Warp 9 speeds and wanted a clean burn and at that time I was convinced I needed a good solid crimp. I had pieces hitting the paper, didn't make the connection and finally had one nose break away as I tried to chamber a round.

Lesson learned- harder isn't always better!