were you able to do any accuracy testing?

accuracy was not the best, i could get most of them in a one foot square at 30' with the occasional flier, but i am not the best shot... found a load that wont lead, next step is to work on accuracy and go from there... the lead i have been using was range scrap and might be too soft, so next i want to water drop a batch of 50 and test those...

If it's range scrap from a range that shoots mostly jacketed bullets, then it most likely is a bit too soft, and may be close to pure lead in hardness. If it doesn't have enough of the right elements in the alloy (antimony, arsenic, etc) water dropping won't harden it. It's worth a try though, and if it doesn't work, you can buy antimony to mix in, to allow hardening.

^^^ the guy i buy the lead from had his ingots teasted and they are 11 BH, so maybe they got some of the good stuff in them where they will harden... i will just have to test it out and see- what fun

11 BHN....I bet they harden up to the mid-20's.

water dropped they went around 16 BH... this was measured with my hi tech testing equipment, lead pencils!  will shoot them this weekend..

also got to cast some 220 gr WFN on the new accurate mold, will work up some loads with this as well

Pencils work very well.

After I posted that I wondered.  It seems like isotope lead that I deal with quench hardens a bunch more than WW.  I also drop from the mold pretty hot, which has a big impact as well.

Quote from: Caneman on April 24 2013 12:30:41 PM MDT
water dropped they went around 16 BH... this was measured with my hi tech testing equipment, lead pencils! will shoot them this weekend..

also got to cast some 220 gr WFN on the new accurate mold, will work up some loads with this as well

How do you do this?

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?75455-Testing-hardness-with-pencils

  Hey thanks, that's great.

Question.

What exactly does this mean?

QuoteTechnique is important. You can get some reallly bad values if you don't take care that the pencil lead is 'full wadcutter' in shape, with a sharp edge. If you use a pencil that has a cone shaped point, heaven only knows what you'll come up with

Round on the left is a full wadcutter:



so, exposed the pencil lead with a knife, but don't cut a point like you would for writing.

sharpen the pencil, then get a nail file emory board from the wife and sand down the point flat so that it has a nice sharp edge to it... then place that edge at a 45 degree angle on a flat part of the bullet and push it forward 1/4" or so... if the pencil makes a scrape mark then the pencil lead is harder than the bullet, if the lead just slides on top of the bullet then the bullet is harder...  if you have a range lead pencils (6B through 6H) you can get an idea on how hard your lead material is...

My MM mould came today.
.402-230 gr lfngc , I just cast about 100 and they come out at .402-232 gr with my alloy . I sized 30 and will get them loaded and shot in my STI first this weekend, they look good , I will get a pic posted by Monday morning.


Sean

i was able to get out to my shooting spot early this morning and i wanted to test the water dropped 200gr lead and the new 220gr lead boolit...

1)  Lead 200gr WFN, around 16 BH after water dropping, with plain base Al gas checks - all i can say is that these seemed much more accurate than the softer version (around 11 BH)... i was able to hit almost all shots on a 6" paper plate at 30', that is pretty good for me shooting free hand standing up... zero leading after swabbing out the barrel with "Ed's Red" (explained below)

2) load workup for the 220gr WFN from my new Accururate Mold, plain base, here is a comparison next to the 200gr:



5.3" comp barrel with the G20 using Longshot, air cooled lead about 11 BH, boolits dropped at around 223gr and .403 then sized to .402:

grains  /  avg fps  /  std fps  /  case head expansion
5.8  /  947  /  14  /  0.4257
6.1  /  992  /  17  /  0.4260
6.4  /  1030  /  6  /  0.4263
6.7  /  1065  /     9  /  0.4273
7.0  /  1075  /  4  /  0.4280

a really smooth shooting round... this is very similar to the 0.40SW in that when i started shooting the 40 i used the lighter bullets at 155gr thinking the recoil would be easier but it turned out to be too snappy... then when i shot the heavier 180gr bullet the .40SW smoothed out really well and was a nice shooting round... same with the 10mm, the heavier 220gr bullet smoothed out the recoil compared to 200gr and 180gr (not that it was really bad)... this was a pleasurable round to shoot, and now i need to work on accuracy and see how well it can group up... at the end there with the higher load the pressure started to increase and the gain in velocity started to flatten out...

3)  last thing to report is an excellent all around gun cleaning fluid called "Ed's Red" as given in Fryxell's book... he mixes equal parts of automatic transmission fluid, Xylene, and MEK... just swab the barrel and it comes out clean... i was really impressed with this cleaner... will clean any metallic gun part, i mixed up a quart of this stuff and i am sure it will last many years...

CONTENTS: Ed's Red Bore Cleaner

1 part Dexron II, IIe or III ATF, GM Spec. D-20265 or later.

1 part Kerosene - deodorized, K1

1 part Aliphatic Mineral Spirits, Fed. Spec. TT-T-2981F, CAS
#64741-49-9, or may substitute "Stoddard Solvent", CAS #8052-41-3, or
equivalent, (aka "Varsol")

1 part Acetone, CAS #67-64-1.

(Optional up to 1 lb. of Lanolin, Anhydrous, USP per gallon, OK to
substitute Lanolin, Modified, Topical Lubricant, from the drug store)


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