Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Heat treating and cold hardening plated bullet?

I thought this may be the best place to ask this.

Has anyone tried buying plated bullets such as berry's heating them in an oven, and quenching them to harden them.

I don't have the time to get into casting right now, but for bullets you can buy now days, plated is cheaper than hard cast because hard cast is a trend where people will over pay for the bullets.

If this works, I could take my 10mm RN FP 180gn plated bullets and quench them to essentially make them a hard cast with a thin layer of copper for less deformation and more penetration.

It will only work if you can find plated bullets with a significant antimony content, at least 2% but preferably more. A little arsenic in the alloy is supposed to be helpful too. Most of these are made with near pure lead to make the swaging process easier; pure lead will not quench harden.

Your idea has some merit, but I don't know if anyone makes plated bullets that have enough antimony in the alloy. I've thought about asking our local bullet maker to make some in a harder alloy like that for the same reasons; their bullets are soft and don't shoot as well in my guns.

I sent an email to Berry's to ask if they use antimony in their plated bullets of if it's pure lead. I'm sure it will be pure lead, like you said, but it would be a nice surprise if they did use antimony.

Alas...thy plan no worky...

But harken thee to these glad tidings...

Ye can obtain hard cast coated bullets to accomplish thine same ends in coats of many colors* here ...

And save thine pitiful sheckels as well!



*Excepting Green...:(

It wouldn't hurt anything to try heat treating 5-10 of them and see what your results are. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some alloying elements in the coated bullets, the question is whether or not the percentage of those elements is high enough to allow heat treating.

While I agree that likely most commercially hard cast bullets are chosen because harder must be better, I don't think that it is a trend that causes the higher prices. I think it's a combination of starting with a higher cost alloy and molds that don't have the same high production rate.

Its probably an alloy of lead, tin and antimony but no arsenic.

Any alloy that can be heat treated must have arsenic present.

Not true. While arsenic aids in heat treating, an alloy consisting of Pb/Sb or Pb/Sb/Sn can be heat treated.

Don

Doesnt work for Lino.....

Why on earth would anyone need to heat treat linotype with a BHN of 22? But again, arsenic is not necessary for heat treatment.

Don

Berry's,
"We do have a special spec that our lead has been formulated to and it does include some antimony.

Thank Y"

I put one bullet in the oven for 40 minutes at 430F and quenched it. I just have to wait for it to maybe harden up and then I'll squeeze it with a pliers along with a normal one and see if I can tell a difference. I don't have a harness tester but maybe I can rig up something with a tack and weight under a certain time to compare them. It won't tell what hardness it is but it will tell me if the quenched one is harder than the factory one.

So far the plating looks just fine and in tact but has changed color to a brass color instead of the more orange copper color.

Use a ball bearing or BB instead of a pointed tack, then compare the diameter of the indentation.

I do this in my reloading press with the bullet on the ram, and hang a weight from the handle.

Or break down and buy a hardness tester.

I don't understand the craze for wanting really hard pistol bullets. I always, always, got better accuracy with less leading with softer bullets, in both autos and revolvers. Going to gas check designs was needed in magnums, but I still shot soft bullets. There are a few things that are counter-intuitive to a lot of guys, I guess this is one of them.

I had one guy say to me once "If hard bullets weren't better, the bullet companies wouldn't charge more for them." Forehead slap.

have you used many plated bullets, and do you understand the problems with them?

Some guys love using dead soft pure lead bullets, but not me other than for very light loads. I honestly have never found a load that shoots better with pure lead than with something like WW alloy, and that's over a whole lot of loads in pistols and rifles. The results on paper are pretty evident; I'm not sure what you do differently but it's obviously different than whatever I'm doing.

I also have never found a plated bullet to shoot as well as jacketed or good cast bullets.

Why on earth would anyone want a plating or jacket (35 BHN plus) then? If it matters Ive used up to 32 for a base shank....

What BHN increases in your lead/antimony or lead, tin and antimony alloy heat treated without arsenic are you getting?

10 points or within curing temp variances?

Ive seen the LASC document, but the author seems to have one "example" of allegedly heat treating lead and linotype compared to his numerous successes of trace arsenic present alloys.

Thanks.

I tried plated bullets from time to time whenever they fell into my lap. Would I or have I bought any? Why would I when I've had moulds for every application for almost 50 years now. To me, buying a bullet is anathema (except for the jacketed stuff I put through my AR).

I never said a thing about using dead soft pure lead bullets- don't put words in my mouth! WW and softer alloys fulfill 95% of my shooting needs. I shoot for around 8-9bhn for pistols and around10-12bhn for rifles, generally- certainly soft alloys by the standards bandied about on the internet these days but also rather harder than the 6-7bhn of "dead soft pure lead".

Do Berry's have a BHN of 22?

Well, my results are in:
I waited about 4 hours and then took a small sharp tip Philips head screwdriver and put all my weight on it for 5 seconds and here's the results.



The one on the right went pretty deep and the one on the left barely got past the copper plating. It definitely quench hardened. How much more, I don't know but I am sure it hardened.

There are many reasons why one may want a softer bullet or a harder bullet. My purpose for hardening is to get better penetration. I'll have to drop my 10mm load back down though and work back up with the heat treated bullets.

I was getting pretty good accuracy with the bullets the way they were so I'll have to see if I get the same velocity and accuracy with them heat treated.

Looks like you have brought up the BHN a bit. Exposing the lead might provide a better test.


Plating bullets usually create heat that softens the alloy a bit. "Bonded" bullets usually also expand/obturate easier due to the same priciples. It also softens the plating metal.

Water quenching any lead alloy will make a harder finished product than most age hardened bullets, period. It will be even harder if its compared to one subjected to heat and forming, one reason linotype varies in hardness not only by alloy, but also by how often it has been "used" in typset.

"Heat treating" isnt in this classification, IMO.

Like mentioned above, I don't understand the obsession with hard bullets. I mean, I understand why the commercial casters love them and sell them (antimony is cheap, tin ain't), but like gnoahhh, most of my handgun loads use bullets with a BHN of 8 - 9. Think about it, Elmer Keith built the .44 Magnum around bullets with a BHN of 11.

Don

gnoahh, I'm not trying to put any words in your mouth - we're talking about plated bullets here, which are traditionally very soft, close to pure lead. Since the question was about hardening them, and you said you don't see a need for harder bullets, it sounded like that's what you were talking about.

You did not specify WW alloy, only "softer bullets". WW alloy is 99% of what I shoot as well; if we could get plated bullets in that hardness range, they'd work a lot better IMO.

To the OP - that's cool you were able to harden one, good on you for trying it. It'll be interesting to see if you get better accuracy on paper with them hardened; I suspect you should.