Soft VS. Slightly Hardened Balls?

[Brim]

Strictly for hunting......If, and I say if, a person can get a decent pattern with a "Slightly" hardened round ball, what is an advantage of it over a pure soft lead ball on game, or is there one?
Which do you think is best and why? :hmm:

 

[rabjr]

The advantage is lead vs no lead...nothing wrong with melting recovered range lead and using it in smoothbores. I've used and taken deer with hardened lead balls out of my .12ga smoothy.

 

[hanshi]

I mold ball for my .62 smoothie using WW. Harder than "pure" lead ball and ever so slightly larger in diameter. A harder ball will penetrate better especially if large bone is struck.

As long as it still shoots well there is no reason not to use hardened prb in many instances. For example, expansion is not needed for small caliber & small game. Large caliber ball, .54, .58 and up don't generally need to expand since they start off with holes over 1/2". On the other hand when using, say, .45 or .50 for deer expansion is preferable and hard lead ball doesn't offer much advantage over soft lead.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

"Hardened"? I don't understand, do you mean pure lead round ball that was dropped into water and so is a tad harder than air-cooled lead round ball, or do you mean a lead alloy like some with tin, or modern lead bullets recast into round ball, or wheel weights, or even linotype?

I agree with Hanshi, the caveate over lead alloys has been because as he mentioned, when they cool the alloy lead doesn't quite shrink as much... so if you have a pet load of X diameter pure-lead ball and Y thickness of patch..., you may find that the alloy ball with diameter Z just won't load.

Otherwise, even a .45 ball is pretty big, and an alloy ball will expand less when using a harder alloy, so developes less friction because it doesn't mushroom, especially when passing through bone. Some folks are really particular about mushrooming, especially with .40-.50 caliber ball, but I haven't seen any advantage. I prefer to use a load that will go through-and-through a broadside deer, as my opinion is two .45 sized holes would be better than a .45 hole going in and a mushroomed ball staying inside. :wink: Of course, a bigger hole on the way out would be even better, but on Eastern Whitetail, I'm not sure that's a requirement.

Since you are on the left-coast, you are going for mule deer, n'est-ce pas? So you might want something at least .50 if not larger. That's what I was taught, but I have no personal experience on the larger deer. I think .54 and larger round ball, alloy or pure, would be pretty academic concerning deer.

LD

 

[Stumpkiller]

Happy Birthday, Brim.

I have use recovered lead that was harder than pure and it works well. The one non-spine hit buck I have ever had drop in its tracks was with a hard ball. Deformed from 0.0490" to 0.520" across the widest - not much deformation at all. That's after a frontal heart shot that ended up just under the hide at the rear of the thigh. 32" penetration.

But if there were two equal free piles of lead and one was pure I'd go with that. It's heavier for the same size, deforms to fill the bore better, is easier to load and seems to be more accurate (possibly as a result of the prior two qualities). It's also easier to be consistant with the weight between balls if you keep to pure lead. Impurities inevitably weigh less than lead; and how much less can vary.

 

[hanshi]

LD, not sure if your question was for me but I don't mind clarifying my post. I've never done any heating, cooling, etc, to harden ball. I'm the lazy sort, easily satisfied and don't like anything extra that has to be done to ball. My definition of "hardened" refers to tin, antimony or anything that alloys the lead. WW metal is in this category and I have plenty; works pretty darn good, too. For my shooting it's pure lead or (old) WW. Like you I like as much penetration as I can get. In fact I don't see many hunting applications (as you mentioned) that can't be well handled by harder ball.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

No, sorry,it was for the original posting person,... the beginning thread was about "slightly" hardened round ball..., I, like you, only consider them "harder" when an alloy is used, but I have heard of some folks they "harden" them by cooling them in water. That's all.

LD

 

[FRJ]

I have only used pure lead balls in my M/L rifles. I have only killed one deer years ago with my flintlock and it was a 6" shot at his nose!!!!Kinda destroyed his skull and he kinda dropped right in his tracks. I've been hunting with a longbow and a recurve for the last 20 plus years so dont have a bunch of experience with the r/b guns. BUT I have tried all kinds of penetration tests on different items and the dead soft r/b's penetrate very well and flatten out surprisingly well. I've shot 54 cal balls thru 6" to 12" logs and trees and they go right thru. When I recover the spent balls they are more than double the original diameter!!!! Also the dead soft balls will end up fitting the bore quite well and obturate to fit the bore better than harder balls. All that said I would think that if accuracy is good with harder balls then due to their diameter they should leave a big hole thru the critter and death should occur preety darn fast. Hopefully this elk season I'll find out. FRJ

 

[Idaho Ron]

Heat treating and water dropping only changes lead that is alloyed. Pure lead will not change hardness with these actions. Ron

 

[necchi]

Heat treating and water dropping only changes lead that is alloyed. Pure lead will not change hardness with these actions. Ron

+1
Thank you Ron,
I was going to mention that but was afraid of the flames I might get.
Cold water quenching of pure lead add's some "hardness" for about 24hrs, then lead does it's thing and remains soft lead.

 

[Idaho Ron]

You welcome. I have done a LOT of testing with lead hardness. The Cabine Tree tester I have is so easy and fast to use that I did tons of testing. I tested quenching with my paper patched bullets. Quenching below 7 BHN is no affect. Ron

 

[Loyalist Dave]

but I have heard of some folks they "harden" them by cooling them in water.

Thanks necchi. It's good to know that although they are getting a "harder" item when the water quench, it doesn't stay that way. I never bothered with it myself. Again, I was wondering about "slightly" harder in the first post.

LD

 

[paulvallandigham]

I hope you understand that what you alloy your lead with will cause a different type of hardness. Tin and Antimony harden lead differently, Antimony generally making lead more brittle than tin will.

 

[B.Habermehl]

Being in the forklift battery maitenence buisness I use scrap cell ties for handy lead ingots. They are 5 percent antimony the rest lead. The deer I killed the other year was initially hit high in the right shoulder, with the ball coming to rest under the skin in the oposite ham. Penetration of a good 2 feet of deer. Resulting in a 20 yd death run and collapse. The ball looked reuseable with minimal flattening of the leading face. This was in .58 cal with 80 gr of fffg, 28 in barrel. This is the only ball I have ever recovered regardless of caliber. No doubt that pure lead will flatten more and create a bigger wound channel with a bit less penetration. Given the same shot and impact angle would it have made a difference to the deer in question? I highly doubt it. BJH

 

[Darto]

I shoot a lot of BP cartridges and always use only soft lead cast boolits. Approaching 2000 fps and over it seems folks use hardened lead to keep from fouling the barrel grooves.

 

[VTdeerhunter]

Brim, I like the way you phrased your question..."strictly for hunting" and "which is the best". IMHO, it makes no difference in what the ball is made out of, just where you put it in the animal...

It's easy to see variations in accuracy when you are at the range, and many of the members here have shared their countless hours of research into some of the details they have explored. All great stuff :thumbsup: I also admit that if you follow many of their suggestions you will tighten up your groups, at tournaments this could mean winning or loosing, but moving my 5" group into 4" will not change the resuts of my hunt.

For me personally it's always been about hunting. I scrounge lead wherever I can find it..old wheel weights, roof flashing, lead pipe, salt water fishing weights, even got given some old type setting block letters given to me. Melt the stuff down, mold the balls and fill the ball bag...I don't weigh them or sort them in any way. I am very confident and accurate in my shooting ability, and have never wounded or lost an animal that I pulled the trigger on, and there have been many...

My goal each year is to fill the freezer, and I have always done that; deer, bear, antelope, elk...whatever tags I get, I work my behind off until they are hanging on something and the animal never cares how hard or soft the lead ball is... :grin: