Believe it or not, it's been 12 months since we cast a batch of air-cooled and water-quenched bullets for the series on lead hardness testing.  With a solid year's worth of results, I'm really excited to see what's taken place with our alloy.

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.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about alternative solutions for quenching bullets.  While water is of course the standard, the fact is that many heat-treating facilities employ a number of specialty liquids to rapidly cool metal.  With that in mind I decided to try quenching some cast bullets in antifreeze and alcohol, and comparing them to a water-quenched control group.

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 […]