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Fired up old "Sputnik" my old Lee lead pot for the first time what feels like centuries! For the past week I've been practicing and breaking in my new NOE molds that I picked up for my 35/30-30 and 7.62X39. So far it's coming out pretty good just need to tweak a few things.
I acquired a bunch of heat treated cast bullets over the years and was planning on re-melting them to use in the new molds. Since they have been heat treated I'm assuming that have a certain amount of arsenic and/or antimony in them. Pretty much all of them that I've tested are running between 22 to 25 BHN.
A week ago I made a small batch to practice with I did a few air cooled and water dropped but when I tested them yesterday to get an idea on the hardness level both air cooled and water dropped were the same at 15 BHN. So the question is do I need to replenish the arsenic/antimony to get the desired hardness back up?
No problem and no need to add anything. Melt and recast as if you were starting with fresh alloy.
I sometimes add a few (6-8 oz. in 20# alloy) extra hard bird shot to the mix to make them heat treat good. Remember the hardening process takes a week or two to fully harden the bullets. I have oven hardened wheel weight bullets that test close to 30 BH. Lube and size early before they get hard.
Mainhunter, the bullets have to be REAL hot when you knock them out of the mould and into the water. If the mould is just hot enough to get good castings they won't be hot enough to get a good heat-treat. Pick up the casting pace until the bullets come out frosty and perfectly filled out. This will be after they are dropping out frosty and not well filled out. If you don't like to cast this hot, heating in the oven at 450-465 deg. and quenching will get them as hard as possible.
If they were 22-25 BHN before, they will harden up there again, but as Chuck said, adding some hard shot will improve the hardenability of soft alloys. The hotter they are when quenched, the quicker they will reach full hardness. If they are going to harden, you should be able to measure a difference in 24 hrs.
Glenn is spot on on water dropping. I never did like the water drop method because I don't like to run my molds and pot that hot.
When oven heat treating ,set the oven as hot as a bullet can stand without slumping and let soak at that heat for half an hour or so. Remove and quench quickly in a sink full of ice water. I made a little wire basket that holds about a hundred .30 caliber bullets standing on their bases.
Those oven heat treated bullets can be driven at jacketed bullet velocity without leading. That does NOT mean they make good hunting bullets though. They may just disintrigate on bone. Bullets in the 12 - 15
Hardness range are best for hunting game unless loading for BP and then,the softer the better.
Have fun.
When you melted the heat treated bullets you didn't skim off any dross did you. If you did you would have removed some of the additives, leaving a purer lead which may not treat as well as before.
Bob
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Thanks for the feedback! I kind of thought I may have to add a couple ounces of led shot to the mix or just try it the way they are and see how it goes. I don't think I skimmed too much off the top, just the lube that was on the bullets was burning off plus I had to fish out the gas checks. One of things I needed to tweek out was I upgraded my old Lee led pot to a PID control since my original rheostat was on it's last leg. Also my RTD temp probe that I was using for my molds wasn't working out to well so I ordered another one. I'm hoping this weekend I could make a batch or two.
