How hard is "hard?"

[Chris Sweeney]

I see a lot of posts espousing the use of hard lead in breechloaders, Henrys and smoothbores. Sometimes They include formulaic info such as 1:20 tin, 50% WW, etc. Does anyone have any specific recomendations with BHN numbers? Are we talking 8? 12? Higher?


CES
44NYV!

[Gary Van Kauwenbergh, 101]

My Henry rounds are BHN 12. I actually start with a #2 Lyman alloy (BHN 16) and keep adding soft lead until the sprue cutter doesn't leave a crater.

[jonk]

I'm hardly an expert, having just run breechloader carbines for a year now, but the previous owner and my own tests with the Sharps .54 (Pedersoli) suggest that 1/3 wheelweights, 2/3 pure lead for a hardness of about 10 or so does pretty well.

However, you really have to experiment yourself. My teammate has an IAB sharps that does best with dead soft pure lead.

I just got a smoothbore at the end of the season, and have to wring it out a bit more before next; my very limited experience so far says it is not as big of a deal, as the bullet either obdurates nor swages down on firing. However, I could be totally wrong. :)