dan t re hardening bullets

[art ruggiero]

does anyone remember the heating process dan wrote about to reharden old bullets? thanks art

[boge]

I asked Kidwell & Rhoades about "re-hardening" once and they said use this:

[Jim Kidwell]

Art,

You might search in these posts..........viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23662&hilit=Dan+Theodore

boge,

The real difference is Rhoades needs at least three at a time, once a year. .........

[art ruggiero]

thanks boge , but is two enough? art

[Tasmanian Rebel]

Art, I didn't see Dans annealing process for bullets as he called it in that group of posts(which I enjoyed reading btw) so I'll describe what he told me to do once when I had some 16:1 alloy which seemed to have age softened.
First, heat your oven to 400 degrees F. When the temp has stabilized, put a cookie sheet/shallow metal pan with bullets on their bases into the oven and leave them there for one hour exactly. After one hour cut the heat off and leave the bullets in the oven to cool off gradually . When cool enough to remove by hand they're ready to go. Best to do this while wife's not at home and since your putting lead on cooking ware need to dedicate that piece for future annealing episodes .
Keith Lay

[Tasmanian Rebel]

I would like to add, Dan called this his annealing process which was a somewhat confusing term for me since in metallurgy, annealing is making a harder metal softer and more ductile. In this case though it's making a lead/tin alloy bullet "harder" back to original hardness.
Keith Lay

[semtav]

Thanks Keith. Was Pretty sure it was 400 for 1 hr but couldn't find his post. I'll put yours on that thread if you don't mine.
Brian

[bruce m]

I often wonder if drying wet patched bullets on a coffee warmer has any effect on bullet hardness.
they get too hot to touch.
keep safe,
bruce.

[montana charlie]

I often wonder if drying wet patched bullets on a coffee warmer has any effect on bullet hardness.
they get too hot to touch.
keep safe,
bruce.

First:
A coffee warmer never gets as hot as the boiling point of water - 212 degrees - so it stays well below the 400 Dan recommended.

Second:
You probably don't leave bullets on the heater for an hour, do you?

And, finally:
The object of the 'tempering' is to reharden bullets that have softened over time.
If your bullets are 'young' enough to have had no softening, the heating will have no effect - even if it WAS 400 degrees - because you can't make bullets harder than they were when they fell out of the mould.

[art ruggiero]

thanks keith, have some 2yr. old bullets and will try it art

[bruce m]

thanks MC.
that makes me feel better.
keep safe,
bruce.

[beltfed]

Kind of a funny thing here that occurred to me.
There have been posts here and elsewhere about
having to wait for antimonial alloys to come UP to their max hardness,
and,etc.
and so they say to stay with lead /tin.
And now here we are talking about having a similar problem
of the lead/tin bullets softening, too.

And Oh, I just got done shooting some of my 9+1 WW/Lino bullets
cast in the mid-80s and they went along with excellent accuracy
from my 03A1 loads at up to 1800fps.
And no leading.
And I continue to get good results shooting 9+1 ww/lino bullets,
both gg and PP from my 40-65 at 1400fps. again, no leading.

beltfed/arnie,

[montana charlie]

There have been posts here and elsewhere about having to wait for antimonial alloys to come UP to their max hardness, and,etc. and so they say to stay with lead /tin.

And now here we are talking about having a similar problem of the lead/tin bullets softening, too.

Your experience may differ, but I haven't heard anyone use the age-hardening of antimonal alloys as the reason for using lead/tin.

But, here are two Dan Theodore graphs.
The first shows age-softening for some typical lead/tin alloys.
The second shows the age-hardening of some selected antimonal alloys.






The top three lines in this one illustrates that when the amount of antimony in an alloy is equal the amount of tin, it causes a very stable hardness after the ageing process is complete.

And I continue to get good results shooting 9+1 ww/lino bullets,
both gg and PP from my 40-65 at 1400fps. again, no leading.

Your 9+1 lino alloy works out to something like 94.44% lead, .85% tin, and 4.8% antimony.
Since the tin and antimony amounts are so different, your alloy probably exhibits a lack of hardness stability similar to the bottom line in Dan's graph.

[beltfed]

MC,
Been a while since I saw these graphs of DanT.s
Is that bottom blue plot marked 97/2/1 97% lead, 2% tin,1% Antimony?
Or is it lead/antimony/tin ?
beltfed/arnie

[beltfed]

MC,
Been a while since I saw these graphs of DanT.s
Is that bottom blue plot marked 97/2/1 97% lead, 2% tin,1% Antimony?
Or is it lead/antimony/tin ?
beltfed/arnie