Well normally David bears the brunt of my questions. I did not want to risk interrupting his resting.
Question: Is there a way one can check the BNH of a casted bullet with out the Lee and the hier costing hardness testing tool?
The reason I am asking is I ended up with a lot of debree (looked like sand. But did not feel gritty like sand) as I was casting bullets yesterday. That was sitting on top of my 20 lbs of Lyman #2 alloy, and under the thin layer of the cat litter that I have placed to stop the surface oxidation on my pot.
I did not have that problem last week with the 50lb of Lyman #2 . The 50lb I am working with this weekend is from same place but different batch. Only other thing is these 2lb ingots were wrote on Dan #2 in permanent ink pen. Since it is a bottom poor pot I do not stir it on a regular basis. When I add the sprue peices I use a spoon to push the pile under the thin layer of litter.
Yesterday at 6am I started the Lyman Mag25 pot which was full. 15lb from last 50lb and 10lb from current batch. Once pot was to 750 deg (22min) my Lyman 358439 155gr HP mould was ready. When the pots alloy height was 3 inches low I would add in the defected bullets and trimmings (spruce cast offs) when pots level did not raise back to top after trimmings had melted I would add a 2lb ingot. At 9pm I noticed that the ingot I added did not want to sink past the layer of cat litter. When i used my table spoon to move the layer of cat litter aside I saw what looked like sand. I had to scope it and the cat litter out.
Once I got the stuff out the melted alloy was nice and bright. I quickly added a new thin layer of cat litter since the shiny alloy was starting to discolor. I had to re heat my mold since it took me just shy of 40 minutes to address the issue. I decided to switch to wad cutters since I owe my friend 500 ct of those. As it was heating I realized I should eat something. 10:10pm I started casting using Lyman 358495 148gr WC and casted until 4am. This morning after a short nape as I was going threw the cast results, sorting for defects . As I was looking for unfilled lines and rounded edges I would randomly select 30 out to weigh. Not to sort but just curious on my weight deviation from sections. As I cast once the shirt that I drop casts on when they drop from mould is filled, I empty the shirt into a box. It is from those groups that I take a random 30ct from to weigh. My HP bullets had low of 159.2gr and high of 161.8gr from earlier in the day a low of 160.0gr and high of 161.9gr. My WC low is 140.3gr and high of 144.0gr. The WC I casted last week in Lyman #2 first batch low of 142.5gr and a high of 144.0gr. So I was worried that I lost some of the alloy mix.
I took a hammer and drilled a hole in handle and screwed the hammer to my table leg. That way I can lift the hammer 4.5 inches and let it drop on a cast bullet. My thinking was to measure diamiter and length of bullet before I drop hammer on it and re measure. I was expecting the pure lead version of my WC to squish more then the Lyman #2 did. Which it did, dia grew .005. The wheel weight and the Lyman #2 alloy acted the same though. They both grew .002 dia on all ones tested.
I am just wondering if there is a way to check the bullets other then my hammer method which is still leaving me questioning what the heavy sand like stuff is.
GOD, United States of America, US Marine Corps, Family, Self
.jpg?width=50&crop=0,0,50,50)
