New to this lead boolit business. Can someone explain BTN to me and what sort of number I should be aiming for, for boolits for taking deer and target shooting. Also how is this hardness measured and suggestions for which equipment to purchase to test for hardness.
boolit hardness?
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- Last Post 27 November 2012
The BHn is a arbitrary number assigned by how deep a standard size punch indents an ingot of alloy.
If you really mean “target” shooting you want to use lin-o-type, not because it is hard, but because you can make good bullets from it with most moulds. Until you have cast 10,000 you are just learning.
Two sides of hunting, big bore (.40 and over) doesn't matter what the alloy is, the animal will down with a good hit. If you expect expansion, .375 and under, you need equal amounts of tin and antimony, not over 5% each. Hardness is not as important as mallability for expansion.
Find a copy of Lyman's Cast Bullet Handbood, 3rd edition and read it. That will answer most of your questions.
HTH, Ric
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You said “target” shooting, what are you referring to , pistols, as in 38's 40 or 45's ?? something low velocity, OR rifles shot at 100 yds and beyond ? There is a formula that takes the BHN of an alloy and converts that to the pressure needed for that alloy to obtuse or “swell” under pressure to fill the bore. In cases like 38's th 45's either a soft alloy is used like 20-1 or WW alloy is used a and sized .001 to .002 larger that the throat Dia.
Wayne
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I recommend Lyman #2 alloy or a clone of that. Lyman #2 has been the favorite of hunters for well over 100 years. It is BHN 15 and If you alloy it, the formula is 90% lead, 5% tin plus 5% antimony. It is a tin rich alloy specifically for ductility and bullets of #2 alloy should reliably be expected to mushroom and double in caliber on impact with game when delivered with 1,000 foot pounds energy.
You can also buy Lyman #2 alloy from a supplier of certified alloys such as:
My clone of Lyman #2 mix is 7 parts range scrap that usually tests BHN 7- 8, plus 3 parts Linotype letter block scrap. My BHN runs 14.5-15.5 with that mix. I use this alloy for everything, hunting and target. Personally, I have a 20 pound melting pot and mix alloy in 10 pound batches, then pour it into 1 pound ingots for later use.
The exception is for a small amount of bullets that I cast for very low pressure/low velocity small game hunting bullets. That is a soft straight range scrap alloy that I shoot at about 1100 fps in .223 and 7.62X39 for squirrel hunting.
sooner or later you will get fussy about BHN and matching ballistic pressure to alloy strength to locate your sweet spot of accuracy. The Lee 2nd Edition Modern Reloading explains this very well:
The tool I use for testing alloy BHN is also from Lee and works with your reloading press to test bullets or ingots:
Gary
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In this forum the word for a lead projectile is “bullet". I do utilize the “other” forum but have always been a bit turned off by their spelling inadequacy.
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The spelling doesn't bother me as much as a particular sponsor/ vendor that is very popular and repeatedly commits mail fraud with the complicity of a bunch of cronies that I believe grease each others palms with fringe benefits.
There is vastly more honest gentlemen here.
Gary
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The spelling doesn't bother me as much as a particular sponsor/ vendor that is very popular and repeatedly commits mail fraud with the complicity of a bunch of cronies that I believe grease each others palms with fringe benefits.
There is vastly more honest gentlemen here.
Gary ;)
"if it was easy we'd let women do it" don't tell my wife I said that!
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OTHER forums???
I use straight wheel weights for much of my hunting. I use Linotype once in a great while, preferring to use it to “sweeten” the WW alloy to about 15 BHN for serious target work in sub 45-70 rifles. Deer will fall to almost any alloy from pure to heat treated linotype IF HIT CORRECTLY! Cast bullets do NOT kill the way a jacketed bullet does. Cast USUALLY penetrate more.
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i recommend (if budget allows ) buying your first 2000 bullets' worth of alloy from rotometals... and yes their #2 equivalent will be a dandy starting alloy.
i regard making up your own alloys a major headache....unless, of course you enjoy such alchemy (g)
regards, ken
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You did not mention what powder you use, but if it is black I would recommend that you visit the Shiloh site. Most of the Black Powder Cartridge Rifle shooters at matches such as Quigley (and we do get several Aussies there)almost all use 16 to 1 lead to tin alloy. Personally, I use air cooled wheel weights for everything I shoot, black or smokeless. I shoot a Shiloh .45-70 with the RCBS 530 grain bullet over 70 grains of compressed 2F, and even at my age (75) I manage to shoot average scores; 292nd out of 635 shooters last year at Quigley.
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I know everyone means well in suggesting Rotometals for Kevo. However, being that he lives down in Tasmania (Australia's “South” Island) it just hurts to think to about what his end cost would for be 5-10 lbs. At the risk of speaking out of place, maybe he would be willing to swap someone a jar of Vegamite for a few ingots of 20:1 or 30:1.
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There is no such thing as a boolit . There are however bullets.
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The spelling doesn't bother me as much as a particular sponsor/ vendor that is very popular and repeatedly commits mail fraud with the complicity of a bunch of cronies that I believe grease each others palms with fringe benefits.
There is vastly more honest gentlemen here.
Gary I concur.
If someone else had of done to me what I did to myself . . . I'd have killed him. Humility is an asset. Heh - heh.
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You did not mention what powder you use, but if it is black I would recommend that you visit the Shiloh site. Most of the Black Powder Cartridge Rifle shooters at matches such as Quigley (and we do get several Aussies there)almost all use 16 to 1 lead to tin alloy. Personally, I use air cooled wheel weights for everything I shoot, black or smokeless. I shoot a Shiloh .45-70 with the RCBS 530 grain bullet over 70 grains of compressed 2F, and even at my age (75) I manage to shoot average scores; 292nd out of 635 shooters last year at Quigley.
I'd say that's pretty good shooting!
If someone else had of done to me what I did to myself . . . I'd have killed him. Humility is an asset. Heh - heh.
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The spelling doesn't bother me as much as a particular sponsor/ vendor that is very popular and repeatedly commits mail fraud with the complicity of a bunch of cronies that I believe grease each others palms with fringe benefits.
There is vastly more honest gentlemen here.
Gary ;)
The company here is far superior to the company there for many, many reasons.
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