Brinnel Hardness

[Heidi 1672]

I recently bought some Maxi Ball type bullets at an auction that came with a paper that stated that they were cast lead bullets with a Brinnel Hardness of 11. Can anyone explain that a bit? Thank You!

 

[bwhoffman]

soft lead (pure) is usually around 4 or 5, wheel weight is 13 to 15. sounds like a mix of both possibly. they are going to be fairly hard. I cast whell weight for my handguns at about 14 and they dont deform a whole lot.

fyi

 

[Blizzard of '93]

I use as pure lead as I can get for conical BP revolver slugs (Lee mold) and RB too. easier to load in both applications

 

[bwhoffman]

by handguns, I was meaning 357s and 44 mags.
sorry for the miss clairification!
Only pure soft lead in my BP handguns!

Brett

 

[CrackStock]

Brinnel hardness is a test for the hardness of lead. Being a poor boy, I drop a ball from the height of my belt buckle onto a cement floor and compare to a similarly dropped and dented ball of pure lead. This lets me know if what what I have is what I want.

CS

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

It would be interesting to hear a report from you on the qty. you got, how they shot accuracy wise, and if you were able to recover any spent Maxi's and compare them to spent Maxi's from other makers. All this hardness stuff would be easier to think about :hmm: .

When I showed my Brother what a 370 gr. .50 cal. Maxi looked like after I just shot it, he was :shocked2: amazed! I put that big chunk of warm lead into his hand and said "here's what 7 rounds of .223 weighs" :shocked2: :rotf: . Now he has a newfound appreciation for my "old-fashioned" gun! All the best, Dave