Shooting the 38 Spl +P, solid nose (RNFP), 1:40 alloy with a BHN of 8.0 into Clear Ballistics Gel from my Ruger LCR.

Shooting the 357 Magnum (loaded to just over 38 Special +P), Hollow Point, 1:40 alloy with a BHN of 8.0 into Clear Ballistics Gel from my Taurus 66.

Using art pencils for lead hardness & BHN testing

Does Cast Bullet Hardness Change after Powder Coating? The practice of powder coating ammunition is quickly gaining momentum among the cast bullet community, and it’s not hard to see why.  Although tedious at times, powder coating bullets can reduce or even eliminate the need for conventional bullet lubes as well as further reduce barrel leading. […]

How much does Quenching increase Cast Bullet Hardness? If you’ve been following my articles for any length of time, chances are you already know I water-quench virtually all my cast bullets.  While the fact that quenching increases hardness is fairly well known and agreed upon, I’ve always wondered just how effective it really is.  Over […]

This is the seventh video in the Powder Coated Cast Lead Hollow Point Bullet Testing series, which is a long experiment testing powder coated cast lead hollow point bullets made from various alloys and fired at various velocities. In this video I have a little fun using various methods to measure the hardness of the lead alloys used to cast the bullets that will be used for this test.

Shooting the 44 Special loaded with the 200 grain Speer GDHP into Clear Ballistics Gel from my Charter Arms Bulldog.

Lee Precision’s Lead Hardness Test Kit In this article we’ll be taking a look at Lee Precision’s Lead Hardness Test Kit.  The first thing people usually ask about these is why you’d ever want to test the hardness of cast bullets to begin with. The short answer is that bullet hardness plays an important role […]

Bullet casters may not want a large quantity of a certain hollow point design. If so, they can certainly avail themselves to hollow point cast bullets from some of our fine commercial casters like Matt's Bullets.

I spent the better part of several months conducting a series of experiments aimed at improving the quality of my home-cast lead bullets and identifying which parameters of bullet casting actually have the greatest impact on bullet performance. I wrote up the results of my experimentation in the following document: A Bullet Casting Journey .pdf […]

Shooting the 45 ACP cast with the round hollow point into Clear Ballistics Gel from my 1911.

Shooting the 44 Special cast with the penta hollow point, 1:40 alloy with a BHN of 8.0 into Clear Ballistics Gel from my Charter Arms Bulldog.

As a followup to my recent tests with quenching cast bullets in antifreeze and brine, I decided to do a pair of secondary tests using chilled versions of the same fluids.  One of the advantages to both these liquids is that they can be cooled below the freezing point of water, potentially increasing the temperature differential between the coolant and the bullet.

Shooting the 44 Magnum cast with the large round hollow point, 1:16 alloy with a BHN of 10.4 into Clear Ballistics Gel from my S&W 29 with a 6.5" barrel.

Shooting the 45 ACP cast with the penta hollow point into Clear Ballistics Gel from my 1911.

Shooting the 44 Special cast with the penta hollow point, 1:16 alloy with a BHN of 10.4 into Clear Ballistics Gel from my S&W 29 with a 6.5" barrel.

Hello everyone, I’m in the process of loading all my YouTube videos here to our website, and to BitChute.com. We had a YouTube live stream last night, and I had trouble getting on live. I’m not sure if I was doing something wrong, but I suspect it was the powers-that-be at the other, big site. […]

Shooting the 44 Special cast with the penta hollow point, 1:25 alloy with a BHN of 8.7 into Clear Ballistics Gel from my S&W 29 with a 6.5" barrel.

A redo of the test a performed a couple days prior shooting the 38 Spl +P, Hollow Point, 1:40 alloy with a BHN of 8.0 into Clear Ballistics Gel from my Ruger LCR.

Shooting the 45 ACP cast with the round hollow point into Clear Ballistics Gel from my 1911.

About Today’s Volunteers . . . Pictured above are todays test subjects, the .45ACP stuffed with a 212 grain Poly Coated Penta Hollow Point. Cases loaded with CCI-LPP’s and charged with 4.9 grains of TiteGroup. In the Chrono test they averaged 891 FPS and had respectable ES and SD numbers as you will see later […]

Shooting the 357 Magnum Hollow Point (loaded to ~1100 fps), 1:25 alloy with a BHN of 8.7 into Clear Ballistics Gel from my Taurus 66.

Shooting the 45 ACP cast with the penta hollow point into Clear Ballistics Gel from my 1911.

Brine is used in a number of heat treatments, particularly for steel, so I'm interested to see how it works with my wheel-weight alloy.  For this experiment I'll be using an 8:1 mixture of water and Sodium Chloride (Table Salt) at room temperature.