Brinell reading question

[Crosby]

Just joined your great site. Question is my saeco tool shows one mark to the left of zero. Other mark centers on thrid mark. Do I understand correctly the hardness would be 14? Lastly what hardness would do well in S&W model 58 at 215 grains. New to casting and don't know if too hard would wreck barrel. Thanks in advance for any feedback

 

[Aero]

Can't answer your question about the saeco tester, but it's not likely you can cast a bullet from lead based alloy that will wreck your barrel. Best hardness to use depends on what level of power you want to run your 58 at. Light loads don't need super hard bullets, but full power stuff might.

Probably not a lot of casters on this site. You might have a look at this......

Cast Boolits

This is the dedicated cast bullet forum!

castboolits.gunloads.com

Lot of info there and a good group of guys willing to help, at least used to be. I haven't hung out there for some time

 

[Crosby]

Thanks I did find an excellent article from post on this site explaining a formula based on cpu and fps.

 

[RegionRat]

Just joined your great site. Question is my saeco tool shows one mark to the left of zero. Other mark centers on thrid mark. Do I understand correctly the hardness would be 14? Lastly what hardness would do well in S&W model 58 at 215 grains. New to casting and don't know if too hard would wreck barrel. Thanks in advance for any feedback

As I am going from memory.... I thought before you could get a SEACO value above 10, there has to be more than one mark left of zero? That would be a 3 on the scale if there is only one line left of zero?

That should not be a close call, meaning that the 3 would be closer to pure lead than it would be to monotype.

Let me see if I can find the instructions.

ETA: Found some online. See page 3 figure 6 for an example above 10. That requires two lines left of zero.
A single line would mean the third line is read as 3.

https://www.three-peaks.net/saeco hardness tester.pdf

 

[Crosby]

Thanks region rat. Been busy melting pewter. Discoved 85 pounds I had squirreled away. Took hours to melt down in 1 pound molds

 

[RegionRat]

@Crosby it occurred to me later on, but I have always kept some “reference” material on hand, and I don’t know if you wanted that advice. I’ll thrown that out there anyway since I get the feeling we may have more folks looking into this who are new and on their own.

If you find yourself wanting to gage or judge unknown lead mixes that folks give you or you happen upon, I have used the known hardness lead to calibrate my hardness tester so I can work the new unknown stuff against some known stuff. This cannot tell you what a lead alloy is, but it can classify it in terms of hardness.

In your example above, it is very easy to know if you are near the top or bottom of those hardness scales, but only if you have some practical experience or some known lead types to compare it to on hand.

You can buy analysis services if you are ever handed enough to make it worth the costs. For example:
https://www.rotometals.com/metals-analysis-test-xrf-service-test-only-not-the-machine/

And this same company can sell you known lead samples for reference tools.

 

[Crosby]

That's a great idea. I have old ww and with the new pewter I have read several posts that say a 1# to 20# mixture would be about right. Thanks again for the references

 

[SSL]

You can get a rough approximation of the hardness of your lead alloy by comparing the weight of actually cast bullets to the mold's rated weight. This is usually rated with Lyman #2 alloy. If your cast bullets weigh more, the lead content is probably a little high and the bullet will likely be softer than the Lyman. If the weight is lower the alloy is probably harder than Lyman. Straight wheel weight lead is usually hard enough for most general uses without leading. Straight Linotype is very hard but can be somewhat brittle without adding a little more lead to help soften it. I have a large quantity of reclaimed lead telephone cable sheathing that I use. I have no idea of the composition ratio, but it casts bullets with good cavity fill and little to no leading even up to 1,400 fps. It casts bullets that weigh a few grains more than the mold's rated weights (158=162, 250=258, 300=310, etc.), but are plenty hard. Do remember that it is quite possible to cast bullets that are too hard. These will skid across the rifling as badly as those that are too soft and create a big mess.