Henry Bullet Alloy

[RangerFrog]

I know this varies widely, but I'm just starting with this so I want to get some ideas from you guys... what alloy/mix do you use for bullets for your Henry? I just got a new-to-me Navy Arms Uberti I'd like to start loading for. So far it has shot well with the fake powder in factory ammo, so now I have some brass to reload.

Froggie

[efritz]

9-10 brinell is good.


cabin tree tester. Saeco. Brinell
30-1. .053-.056. 6. 9
25-1. .062-.065. 6.25. 9.5
20-1. .068-.070. 6.5. 10

[Jim Wimbish, 10395]

As long as the bullet doesn't strip out of the rifling and shoots accurately, the bullet is hard enough. I have personally found that at the slow target velocities that I shoot and relatively long bullets, that it takes very little additional hardness for the bullet to perform properly. Now if I was shooting full house loads out of a 44 mag, I would probably need to use a harder alloy. I don't have a precise formula for my alloy, but it is hard enough to work. I shoot both 44/40 and 45 Colt Henry's and have had no issues with lead hardness. One of the key things I have found is to have the bullet correctly sized. From my experience, undersized bullets will lead the barrel. I slug every bore and go 1 to 2 thousandths over depending on the bullet.

[Lou Lou Lou]

PM sent Froggie

[jonk]

I never found that pure lead worked for me all that well. Nor did super hard wheelweight alloy. A mix of half pure to half wheelweights is pretty decent. Probably around the same hardness as a 15:1 lead to tin mix. I have been running properly mixed 20:1 of late and that works too.

Main thing is you want a touch of hardness to it. The exact hardness doesn't seem to matter for me, so long as it's there. Then work up a load for that alloy.

You get a .44 or .45?

[ian45662]

I have had good luck with 30:1 in mine

[Kevin Tinny]

Hello:

The alloy needs to have a hardness that prevents bullet PROFILE distortion.

Even with relatively light black powder breech pressures that produce muzzle velocities in the 1,000 fps area, the pressure can distort SOFT bullet noses, especially LONGER noses.

I have fired hundreds of rounds of cast bullets into reclaimed 30 wgt motor oil moistened SAWMILL sawdust, as described in Dr. Mann's, THE BULLETS FLIGHT. This is a lot of work that takes hours of time, but seeing an essentially undamaged fired bullet is thrilling and quickly tells an important story.

At least half of these shots were through an Oehler chronograph and then into the boxes of sawdust.

Some share that they fire into snow and wait for a thaw, but that's a long wait most places. Firing into water works, but I have seen some scary things arise when bullets penetrated our neighbor's swimming pool or ruptured water tanks constructed of 8" piping when the contents BLEW out all over the stairwell. SKIP WATER RECOVERY with rifle bullets unless you are firing STRAIGHT down into at least 12 FEET of water into a huge container.

So, with the oiled SAWMILL, chunky sawdust recovery method I learned that:

Cast, black powder launched bullets penetrated TEN FEET in this stuff, yet had only the slightest nose abrasion. They were very well preserved.

Don't do this with centerfire rifles unless you have at least 20 feet of 24" square boxes!
I got cocky one saturday morning and shot from the apron of my driveway into the boxes in our garage with a smokeless 6.5X55 bullet. It penetrated all 15 feet, my maximum box length AND through the door of an expensive refrigerator in our garage.

One aspect was especially observable: BULLET NOSE DISTORTION from soft alloy.
This refers to how well different alloy hardnesses maintain the UNSUPPORTED nose portion.

Softer alloys caused the bullets to BOTH SHORTEN in overall length and their noses to recede and be slightly bent to one side. This distortion was very obvious.

Repeated tests with very pure lead and carefully prepared lead - tin alloys showed that ANY bullet softer than 30 parts pure lead to 1 part pure tin would have some nose distortion/bending and shortening.

30:1 WAS sufficient for rifle bullets and straight black powder.
Any "duplex" powder charge, however slight the smokeless portion, and small the velocity increase produced significant bullet distortion from higher breech pressures compared to those from straight black.

Alloys are tricky and wheelweights ARE widely ranging in components. Some wheelweights contain metals such as zinc and cadmium that cause casting frustration.

Sorry, but wanted to share how I know that 30:1 should be ok, if the metals are PURE.

All the best.

Kevin Tinny
42 NY

[marv762]

i buy mine from better bullets in pa. they are a 300 grain 45/70 bullet they shoot great and it's just one i don't need to cast. they say the brinell hardness is i think 20.

[RaiderANV]

Great Post Kevin......It brought back memories. I had a Ruger 10-22 I was refinishing to stock on when I was 25. I friend from overseas was visiting and had never seen a rotary magazine like the Ruger. I was doing other things while he played with and figured out what made it tick. needless to say he didn't cycle all the rounds out of it and left one in the chamber and placed it back in the safe. Months later when I had gotten around to finishing the stock I opened the safe, picked the gun up by the barrel with left hand and when I laid the receiver in my right hand the slight downward pressure from the weight of the gun fired it! I didn't exactly know which direction it was aimed as it happened so fast. I searched for hours and couldn't find the round. Days later while sitting at the table eating my mom opened the fridge and just under the shelf I could see the hole through the door! She had the front of the door covered with magnets and such from vacation spots. The round had went right through a train tunnel of a magnet so it wasn't easy at all to spot. In the back of the fridge it buried it's in the slot where the shelf brackets went so you couldn't see it there either. My mom never knew!!

You never said what yer wife thought about the hole in her fridge. Inquiring minds ya know