BHN Question

[tjlegault]

Just curious as to what shooters think the BHN should be for hollow base Minie's for muskets and bullets for breach loaders such as the Sharps carbine?
I'm thinking no greater than 6 for Minie's and around 12 to 14 for the breech loaders?

[Hickok]

I have been shooting 50/50 lead to wheelweight in my .54 Sharps and it does real good. Kills deer nicely too. Some of the fella's shoot straight WW in breech loaders. From what I read, most WW metal today is running about 10-12 bhn.

I want my Minies dead soft, probably a 5-6 bhn.

[jonk]

Unfortunately each gun is different. While I agree, dead soft for minies, for breechloaders, well:
-My teammate shoots dead soft, it's all that works for him in his sharps.
-I shoot 1/3 ww to 2/3 soft. It's what works best for me.]
-Others do just fine with hard alloys.

So you just have to play around with it.

[Lou Lou Lou]

Our team has been shooting dead soft lead in the Henry's, Maynards and Smith's. Seems to work.

[tjlegault]

I have been shooting 50/50 lead to wheelweight in my .54 Sharps and it does real good. Kills deer nicely too. Some of the fella's shoot straight WW in breech loaders. From what I read, most WW metal today is running about 10-12 bhn.

I want my Minies dead soft, probably a 5-6 bhn.


I have some lead that is around 5.8 to 6 BHN and I was thinking that it's too hard for Minies, but maybe its not.

[ian45662]

tried wheel weight in my sharps and the results were terrible at best. I know there are other people who love wheel weights. Just goes to show that each gun is different like Jonk has already said. My sharps does best with dead soft lead although I did pick up about 300 pounds at the scrap yard yesterday that measures around 8 or 8.5 on the bhn so its somewhere between 40:1 -50:1 which I think is still soft enough for my sharps. If not my smoothbore eats anything and asks for more. I will not however let it get anywhere near my musket. I have started using just virgin lead for musket ammo. Sure its a little more expensive but I know exactly what I am getting and the little 315 semi wadcutters dont use up all that much lead anyways.

[pastore]

Just curious as to what shooters think the BHN should be for hollow base Minie's for muskets and bullets for breach loaders such as the Sharps carbine?
I'm thinking no greater than 6 for Minie's and around 12 to 14 for the breech loaders?

Pure lead is 3-5. That is ideal. Maybe 6 would work. Mold a few to try and see.

[Gary Van Kauwenbergh, 101]

Lyman alloy #2 comes out to a BHN of 16. When I want hard bullets, I start with that and add soft lead until the sprue cutter doesn't leave 'craters' on the base of my flat-bottomed projectiles (that's about 12). If something hit 6 on my lead hardness tester, I'd use it for a Smith or Henry, but the highest I go for minies is 5.5.

[tjlegault]

Thanks for all the replies. I have been using the 5.5 to 6 stuff in my sharps only. I thought it was a bit too hard. Works good in the Sharps. I'm the biggest problem concerning accuracy!

[bobanderson]

Years ago I started shooting black powder silhouette and had a great talk with Mr. Veral Smith of Lead Bullet Technologies. He told me that there were only 3 wheel weight manufacturers in the country, one of which was almost exclusive to Sears. As such the secret to getting good consistent metal is to smelt them down in large lots. I do 100 lbs at a time. I melt them down, remove the clips and flux the metal with parrafin wax, then pour it into 2 1/2 lb ingots. I use a 3/1 mixture of pure lead to wheel weight metal in all of my breechloaders (and my smoothbore - different technology there) and pure lead in my muzzleloaders. I size my minies about .002" under bore size and any breechloader bullets .002" over. That and a good lube suffices me for all of the black powder shooting games I play.