Hardness Tester Recommendations?

I have the Lee but not the patience to work the thing. There has to be better and easier testers to work than the Lee. Just saying. I gave up and just shoot water quenched WW for t the 9MM, 357Magm,44mag, and 40 cal. I air cool 38spl, 45acp and 45Colt. Water quench all my rifle bullets. Works for me.

Take Care

Bob
 
Canuck44 said:
I have the Lee but not the patience to work the thing. There has to be better and easier testers to work than the Lee. Just saying. I gave up and just shoot water quenched WW for t the 9MM, 357Magm,44mag, and 40 cal. I air cool 38spl, 45acp and 45Colt. Water quench all my rifle bullets. Works for me.

Take Care

Bob
Click to expand...

A lot of people end up building something like this

qoc1ee.jpg


Redneck version

Leescopeholder-1.jpg
 
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I mounted mine on a goose neck arrangement but went half crazy trying to get it to work. Reflected on how my bullets were working as described above and decided to call it good. Sometimes you can over think this stuff. My Husquvarna 30-06 at 100 yards with a scope shot a 3 shot cloverleaf at 100 yards and my Longbranch has done 1.5`inches. Fun to shoot but I am not going to be making special alloys up when all I use is WW alloy anyway.

Take Care

Bob
 
With purchasing lead of unknown origins, like dive weights, it is nice to be able to figure out the hardness.

Also I sometimes sell my surplus lead...I can tell the purchaser the exact hardness of the lead. This is especially appreciated by the guys wanting to buy soft lead for their 100+ year old smokers.

In your case, if you just use known alloys of lead, then a hardness tester would be superfluous.
 
I use the floor test, drop it and see how it rings. I also have the Lee tester and a proper 500lb Rockwell tester. Especially for pistol anything will work as long as its not pure lead. If you go to the lee site you can download the instructions for this tester. It basicly shows how to make your own and gives the chart to understand the results.
 
The Lee tester is by far the cheapest and is very accurate. A big plus with the Lee tester is that you can test a big piece of lead to find the BHN, with some others you can only test an already made bullet, too late if your a caster, in my mind !
 
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