Couple of bullet casting questions please.

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I just started casting my own bullets and it seems to be going great. At this point I'm using a 9mm Lee tumble lube 124g LRN mold and a 4-20 pot.
Ive got buckets of indoor range lead. I shouldn't be finding brass jackets but I'm finding tons. What would you think the hardness level is and would I be wrong that the mix is as good as it gets or should I be adding something to the alloy? Thanks a lot in advance. Oh yeah the second question is should I or shouldn't I water quench my bullets?? And lastly....If my casts bullets come out at a perfect .356 can I just forget about a sizing die?
Again thanks.

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Yikes I'm no longer green!!! I feel so dirty.
 
I would say it really depends on your gun and load.
I use indoor range scrap for a lee tumble lube 45cap 230 grain round nose. I shoot it as dropped from the mold.
I don't size them. I do how ever load them at very low velocity. No leading as accurate as I can deliver them.
 
Range scrap is pretty soft. If someome has a cabine tester and can run one thru I bet it is aroumd an 8 on the brinnell scale. Without a tester, if you can scrape the lead off with a fingernail, you need either some ww or 95/5 solder to stiffen it up. I use a star sizer so no advice on tumble lube. I size everything just to be sure the ammo is identical. No need to have a few jams if you can avoid it. When I learned to cast, we tumble lubed the product and there was never a water quenching. Lee maked a hardness tester die but I have a Saeco that is easier to use.
Where are you? You can try one of mine if near Norwood area.
 
At most handgun velocities, I don't think a softer lead bullet will be distinguishable from the perfect alloy recipe. Your shooting will tell you this better than I can speculate, of course. Jacketed bullets are usually filled with a softer lead than the ideal cast bullet is, so your resulting alloy may be a bit heavier on the lead side. As many home-made bullets that I've fired (and never hardness tested them), I've never had any complaints. I use a lot of range lead mixed with wheel weights and any other lead sheeting, linotype etc that I can muster.
If you are getting a good pour and fill-out with your casting procedure, I'd run with it and keep doing what you're doing.
Water quenching is a good way for me to catch my bullets and cool them. Not having any means to accurately test any of my cast bullets, who knows how much more they harden versus air-cooling.
If your bullets drop concentrically and at your optimum diameter, I suppose sizing is academic...they're already perfect. Generally, the sizing gets the bullets concentric and at consistent diameters, but you say you are getting this already as dropped. Most handguns won't deliver any more accuracy with a decent cast bullet as they would with a perfect cast bullet.
Shoot them off and see how they run....
 
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Tumble lube bullets are designed to not need sizing that's the reason Lee makes them

I would cast and shoot and see if leading develops, if it does, add tin or Lino

I don't see any reason to water quench 9mm TL bullets
 
If you have not found it yet there is great info here
http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Contents.htm

I,don't think tin will add any noticeable hardness. Often hard bullets will cause more problems than soft unless your pushing them 1800fps. I have run indoor range scrap which contains lots of jacketed lead through my mosin up to 1600 fps with no issued or leading. Lead is a,funny metal. Even though you water quench it may not reach its full hardness for a while. Lead also has a funny way of softening over time..... it's all a bit crazy and for me not really needed info unless you get super deep into the science of it all

Take the time to slug your bore. Find a bullet that's the correct size and have at it. Oh I also use my range lead on the .38 spl semi wad cutters I loaded..sold the pistol. My 38 loads where .002" + again I load cast at wimp level so leading is hardly a issue.
 
Jacketed lead cores are soft lead because they don't come in contact with the bore and don't need to be hard cast. Also, jacketed bullets are swaged and need soft lead for this process. Pure lead is good to about 800 fps max in the hand gun loads I have tested. Industry standard alloy (92/6/2) is good to about 1200 fps.
 
Range lead will be a mix ranging from nearly pure lead to very hard linotype alloy.
Note: most swaged lead bullets today are 92/6/2 or very similar. You can swage rather hard lead, and the commercial makers want their swaged lead bullets to arrive undamaged. Jacketed bullets are more likely to use almost pure lead, though, but NOT because of swaging but because a more expensive alloy is not needed and would not improve performance.
I would smelt the lead, removing all the jackets and fluxing a lot. This should be done in a large iron "Dutch oven" or similar, pour ingots, and then try casting. The only time I ever needed to add tin was when the wheel weight alloy I was using didn't fill-out and cast well.
Slugging the barrel requires a bullet well over-sized for the expected groove diameter--to many people use a slug that is NOT at least 0.005" over-size and get a reading smaller than the actual groove diameter (or they use so much oil that they get a too small measurement of groove diameter).
If you are going to tumble lube your as-cast bullets, water quenching will make the bullets harder. However, this hardness in almost NEVER needed unless you are going to exceed 1800 fps (and I always go to a gas check for that), and your 9mm is NOT going to go that fast. 8-12 BHN is all you need.
If you size your bullets (and I gave up doing that around 1976 or so), then water quenching is sort of a waste of time as the sizing will return the hardness of the bearing surface to the original hardness and you have achieved nothing since the only place hardness could help (and NOT for 9x19) would be the bearing surface. Likewise, I don't understand the "let your bullets age so they get harder," as the as-cast bullets in almost every case are already more than hard enough if you have fit and lube correct and, if fit is wrong, a harder bullet just creates more leading since it can't expand as easily to fill the bore as a softer alloy.
 
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