I have the same tester!! Works well
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lead testing
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What is fresh melted lead. ? And how would one know?
Idaho Ron
58 Cal.
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Fresh melted is my terminology. If a ingot has been made recently, like under a week. Hard lead can test much softer right after is first poured.
It can be tough telling how old the ingot is. I won't buy lead for bullets that is harder than 5 to 7 bhn on my tester.
I have bought a lot of wheel weight hard lead. But that lead is going to be fishing sinkers. Lead that is harder has to be very cheap or I won't touch it.
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I buy my lead from Sanders Lead in Troy, Alabama. It is 99.97% pure, chemically-assayed lead. Takes one variable out of the equation that I don't have to worry about.
I also bought the Lee tester. There are two big problems with it:
1) Trying to hold the microscope still enough to get an accurate measurement by hand is very hard.
2) The tick marks in the microscope are dark and tend to be hard to see.
I first tried to remedy this by 3D printing a little holder for the microscope. This helps a lot as you are no longer touching the microscope nor the target piece of lead, so you can just hover your eye over it and get a pretty good, non-moving look at things.
I then 3D printed an adapter so I could hook up a cheap digital microscope to the Lee microscope. This allowed me to use a computer to look through the microscope and see it on a computer screen. Also lets me take snapshots as a record and to review.
I still find it tricky to use and I'm not entirely sure I'm doing a good job reading the tick marks and trying to see the edges of the "crater" in the piece of lead being measured. It's hard to position the microscope so that one tick mark for starting the measurement is exactly on the edge of the crater so that you can count tick marks to the opposite side of the crater.
I also bought the Lee tester. There are two big problems with it:
1) Trying to hold the microscope still enough to get an accurate measurement by hand is very hard.
2) The tick marks in the microscope are dark and tend to be hard to see.
I first tried to remedy this by 3D printing a little holder for the microscope. This helps a lot as you are no longer touching the microscope nor the target piece of lead, so you can just hover your eye over it and get a pretty good, non-moving look at things.
I then 3D printed an adapter so I could hook up a cheap digital microscope to the Lee microscope. This allowed me to use a computer to look through the microscope and see it on a computer screen. Also lets me take snapshots as a record and to review.
I still find it tricky to use and I'm not entirely sure I'm doing a good job reading the tick marks and trying to see the edges of the "crater" in the piece of lead being measured. It's hard to position the microscope so that one tick mark for starting the measurement is exactly on the edge of the crater so that you can count tick marks to the opposite side of the crater.
Place ball on a hard surface. Apply an ample smack with a claw hammer. Lead deforms? Its good to go.
Get a piece off the keel take to local junk yard and have them shoot it with thier XRF gun. You willget an accurate reading of all in it.
or go to a site called Cast Boolits and look for a member BNE he will test it that way for 1 pound of lead.
or go to a site called Cast Boolits and look for a member BNE he will test it that way for 1 pound of lead.
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Expansion and compression bullets like the "Minie" ball or the Wilkinson bullet require good deformation to take up the rifling. While I'm sure they can tolerate some hardness, it's probably not much. I'm lucky that I can now buy lead direct from a smelter, and it is chemically assayed as 99.97% pure lead, so I don't have to worry about that variable in my competition shooting anymore.
Griz44Mag
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if you are just shooting BP then it does not matter much unless you re into massive bullets (700gr plus) with very large charges.I got the Lee tester and if I am off a few bhn from 5 bhn who cares- the lead is still soft enough for muzzle loading guns and revolvers.
If you cast for a lot of the "other" stuff it matters a lot.
Looking at my current list - I cast for several dozen different guns in pressures ranging from 5,000 PSI up to 52,000 PSI.
Black Powder in large bore heavy powder can run upwards of 11,000 PSI which would need a BH of around 8.
"Other" type guns with pressures of 50k require hardness of 30 BH or more.
So yes, it can matter, even in black powder, depending on what you are into.
I took my Lee tester and flattened it in a vise so no one else would try and use it. I have a lot of Lee equipment that I use a lot and love it, but the Lee lead tester is probably the most useless thing they ever made.
Griz44Mag since we are talking about muzzleloading guns here I hold fast to my comment on lead BHN. I been casting for a long time (mid 60's) for both modern and ML guns. I have shot the NRA bullseye, high power and sporting rifle matches using cast bullets along with jacketed bullets. I keep a supply of pure lead, alloyed lead and some tin and antimony blocks on hand to acheive the BHN I need. Again we are talking muzzle loading ammo here only.
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And .. the lead test results are in ...
I sure hope there were 2 piles of source lead, as one (thin sliver) was clearly softer and I could give it an impression with my thumb nail. But it still rated as a '4' on the SAECO hardness test. I'd shoot 'em, but just wouldn't hunt with them. The other piece was harder, a good 6 or better, likely wheeel-weight lead.
I sure hope there were 2 piles of source lead, as one (thin sliver) was clearly softer and I could give it an impression with my thumb nail. But it still rated as a '4' on the SAECO hardness test. I'd shoot 'em, but just wouldn't hunt with them. The other piece was harder, a good 6 or better, likely wheeel-weight lead.
smoothshooter
50 Cal.
With that much lead you really should buy a tester.
The whole batch may not have the same hardness anyway.
