Lead Bullet Hardness

We are often asked by a customer "How hard are your lead bullets?" When we answer "14 to 16 on the SAECO scale", we see a nod, but are never sure that the information we are putting out is actually getting through. People often don't know either what the SAECO is, or don't know what that number means.

The SAECO Scale

SAECO is one of the premier manufacturers of casting equipment for individual use. While we use almost exclusively Magma Engineering equipment to cast our bullets, SAECO still makes very good quality ancillary products, including their hardness scale.

SAECO's Hardness Tester

SAECO's hardness tester easily allows casters to test the hardness of their alloyed bullets. It uses their own scale to determine the hardness, where a pure lead bullet is scored at "0". A bullet alloyed with wheel-weights, the hardness that most hand-casters use, scored at 8.

To give a good example of how hard our bullets are in comparison to other bullets styles of bullets on the market, we tested three of the most common pistol bullet styles available: jacketed/plated, moly coated, and hard-cast lead.

Jacketed and Plated Bullets

By far, the most commonly available bullet used in off the shelf ammunition is a full-metal jacket bullet. For hand-loaders and reloaders, plated bullets offer a less expensive alternative. Both work well, and are good bullets in their own accord. We tested these, because customers have often had bad results with lead bullets, and we wanted a baseline measurement to compare.We decided to combine the results for jacketed and plated bullets, as a good quality plated bullet will be almost identical to a jacketed bullet. The only major difference is how the copper crust is applied.

Testing a plated bullet

We sampled 10 bullets from both Hornady 9mm 115gr Jacketed bullets, and the Frontier 9mm 124gr Plated bullets found on our website. Of the 10 bullets we tested, they averaged out to 18 on the SAECO scale.

Moly Coated Lead Bullets

Moly Coated Lead Bullet

Moly coated bullets seem to wax and wain in popularity. One year they are the greatest thing in the world, and everyone wants us to make them, and the next year, we don't hear a peep about them. The concept behind the moly coating is like that of heat treating bullets: by putting a hard coating on the outside of the bullet, a less-expensive alloy can be used to push a bullet to faster velocities.

Testing the Moly Coated Lead Bullet

 
Like the jacketed and plated bullets, we sampled 10 bullets to find the hardness. We didn't know the manufacturer of these bullets, but it seems that they were using a softer alloy, as the hardness was only a 10. This was not surprising as the tester uses a small pin-like device to hold the tip of the bullet in place, and most pierced through the moly-coating. This reinforces what we've been telling customers for quite a while: the moly coating will not necessarily decrease the amount of leading in the barrel, as the rifling will most cut the moly coating, exposing the lead, and putting the potential of lead smearing.

Our Hard Cast Lead Bullets

And of course, we had to test our own hard cast lead bullets. We already test these when coming off of the casting machine for hardness, with a hardness goal of between 8 and 10 on the SAECO scale. We then allow our bullets to cure for 3 weeks before we package and sell them.

Testing Slash K's Hard Cast Bullet

We tested a 10 9mm 115gr Round Nose bullets that we cast 3 weeks ago, just before we packaged it. They averaged 15 on the SAECO scale, with almost no deviation.

What about the Brinell Scale?

A Brinell to SAECO conversion chart

In most other industries, the Brinell scale is used to measure the hardness of a material, so we are often asked about the Brinell hardness of our bullets. There doesn't really exist an exact scale to compare the two numbers, but the chart included with SAECO's hardness tester gives a very good idea. As you can see on the chart, it bottoms out at measuring in the 12.0 SAECO range, but that offers a hardness of 35 on the Brinell scale. Since our bullets average 15, we are well above a 35 on the Brinell scale.

ACTS July 2012

Slash K's Shooting Team

Monthly in Tucson, Slash K's competition shooting team heads out to Pima Pistol Club to shoot in the American Confederation of Tactical Shooter's match. This match has its roots in the practical side of shooting, and uses both rifle and a pistol. Often the shooter will have to run from position to position, shoot from non-traditional positions, and even carry heavy objects, all while shooting. The scoring is based upon time, with additional penalties for less than accurate performance. The key to doing well at this match is consistent ammunition, a familiarity with your firearms, and the ability to get a sight picture quickly.

Sarah pushing a 90lb cart to her first shooting position.

Slash K's shooting team uses the processed military .223 brass, 75gr Hornady HPBT bullets, and Accurate Arms 2520 for their rifles. We have found this combination to be consistent and accurate. The 75gr bullets offer a relatively flat trajectory from 50 to 200 yards, where most of the shooting for this match takes place.

Sarah shooting her rifle from a barricaded kneeling position. There are targets both at 50 yards, and 10 yards, both of which need to be engaged here.

Our handguns shoot 9mm range brass, with Slash K's 9mm 147gr hardcast bullets. The slightly heavier weight of the projectile offers a better reliability on reactive steel targets, and the felt-recoil is mild, which allows faster shot-to-shot transitions.

Slash K Competition Shooting Program

 

Slash K Competition Shooting Program

One of the best ways to test out our Hard Cast Bullets, is through the varying competitions that are available throughout the nation. Not only will these competitions test your handloaded ammunition, but it will also test your chosen firearms, the ancillary gear, and your firearm handling skills. Jeff Cooper called this the "crucible of competition." To encourage this practice, we at Slash K offer a special pricing program to shooters who go and shoot in these programs.

Eligibility:

After registering on our site, you will need to e-mail our competition director (competition@slashk.org) the following information:

• Name
• Address
• E-mail Address
• Results from at least 4 competitions in one year. The results may be in the form of a link, or as an attachment to the e-mail. Alternately, you may mail the information to:
Slash K
ATTN: Competition Coordinator
3156 E. Ajo Way
Tucson, AZ 85713

A non-inclusive list of competitions include:

• The United States Practical Shooting Association or USPSA
• The International Defensive Pistol Association or IDPA
• Steel Challenge
• NRA Action Pistol
• The Single Action Shooting Society (Cowboy Action or SASS)
• The American Confederation of Tactical Shooters or ACTS
• Any other competition that uses a center-fire pistol

Benefits

Entrance into this program will offer you a discounted pricing on all of our lead bullets, and some of our other products. This discounted pricing is only available through our website, and only to registered users.

In addition to the special pricing, we will also run special sales specifically for the registered competition shooters.

Jacketed Bullets

While our preference for loading handgun ammunition is using lead bullets, we do see the need and desire for using jacketed or plated bullets as well. Between our commercial loading and the loading we do as individuals, we have come across a number of non-lead alternatives.

One of the best alternatives we've seen thus far are the CMJ bullets offered by Frontier Metal Processing. Frontier was started by an IPSC shooter from South Africa, who was offering bullets to his buddies. He eventually started to manufacture these bullets for resale, and is now exporting them to dozens of countries world-wide.

While technically a plated bullet, this is the absolute best plating that we have ever seen. In fact, the plating seems to be better than some jacketed bullets that we've come across. We've been using these in our over-the-counter loads here at the shop for the last 2 years, and have had no issues.

You can now get these on our website, shipped with 500 pieces of brass in a .30 caliber ammo can.

Loading for the .40 Smith and Wesson

As an ammunition manufacturer, we load a lot. We also have a vested interest in making sure our ammunition will function correctly in as many firearms as possible. One of our staples in handgun loading is the .40 Smith and Wesson. In reloading circles, there is a lot of myths around the brass from this cartridge, particularly the brass shot from a GLOCK. This is an attempt to dispel some of these myths.

We load on Dillon 1050s and use Dillon dies. These dies are set up according the Dillon's instructions. We use no other extraordinary means in our loading process. Before we set our ammunition out for sale, a second person performs a quality assurance check on every individual piece of ammunition. For ammunition for an semi-automatic handgun (9mm, 40 S&W, and .45ACP) this includes case gauging every loaded round. If the round does not fit properly in the case gauge, it is set aside, and later roll-sized. The brass we use has been shot out of who knows what, who knows how many times.

Since we case gauging every loaded round, I can give you an exact number of cartridges that have a bulge at the bottom of the case, or the infamous "GLOCK bulge." Out of our last run of .40 Smith and Wesson that I did, I loaded 3,000 rounds. 18 rounds did not case gauge. This is a less than 1% failure rate.


In the interest of data gathering, I took these and loaded a magazine for two different pistols before we roll-sized the rounds - a GLOCK 23, and a Kahr K40. I hand-cycled each round through the action, and they all went into battery just fine.

By comparison, when I last loaded 9mm, I did 3,000 rounds. Like the .40, the brass is from a variety of sources, and we have no idea how many times it has been shot, or what it has been shot through. By the time it makes it to the reloading machine, even the tell-tale H&K fluting marks have gone. Again, we use Dillon dies on the Dillon 1050, and case gauge each round. The above-mentioned batch had 23 that did not case gauge, still less than 1%, but slightly more than the .40 Smith and Wesson.

What does all of this mean? Simply put, .40 Smith and Wesson brass should not give you any issues, even if it has been shot from a GLOCK. If you set your dies up according the the manufacturer's instructions, there shouldn't even be enough of an issue to notice.

Working up a Load

Of critical importance to getting the most accurate round possible is working up your load. You can spend thousands of dollars on tools, measure the inside and outside circumference of your brass, cut individual sticks of powder in half to get just the right amount of powder in each case, or even weigh primers individually, but none of these will help if your rifle does not like the powder and bullet combination that you have chosen.

Why:
If you have ever used a tuning fork, you will know that it will only resonate when struck. If you've ever used a tuning fork incorrectly, you will know that you can change how it sounds by hitting it on different types of objects, or by changing how much force you hit it with. The sound you are hearing in all of these instances is the tines of the fork moving at different frequencies. The pressure of impact on the tines caused the change in frequency. A more forceful hit makes the sound last longer; hitting on a softer surface mutes the tone, so it doesn't sound as clear. The more forceful hits have more pressure, and the softer surfaces have a different wave of pressure.

The same thing is happening to your barrel when you fire a round. The powder burning in the case builds pressure. This pressure is what drives the bullet out of the chamber, down the barrel, and ultimately to your target. Different charges of powder will result in different pressures, which changes how your barrel vibrates. Different barrels, even from the same manufacturer will react differently to the same powder charge.

What You'll Need to Look For:

• Brass: You need to use brass in the same condition for the most accurate setup. If all you are going to do is shoot new brass, then that is what you need to use. If you are going to use all once-fired brass, then you will have to get once-fired brass of the same headstamp, preferably fired out of the same rifle. Each step away from new brass will decrease your accuracy slightly, but there are other methods to compensate (neck-sizing, concentricity gauges, etc.). The key here is get your brass as uniform as you can.
• Primers: Primers should be ideally of the same lot, from the same manufacturer. The beginning pressure that primers exert and the amount of spark they give off will vary slightly between lot to lot, and could vary significantly between manufacturers. A different lot of primers could cause a slightly different point of impact than previous examples.
• Powder: Like primers, powder can vary between lots. Ideally, you should use powder of the same lot for as many rounds as you are loading.

How to Do It:

1. Get 100 cases sized and primed. How you do this is not important in the focus of this article. The key thing to remember is it needs to be consistent with how you plan to load your ammunition after you have found your most accurate powder charge.
2. Using the reloading manual of your choice, find the minimum and maximum powder charges. This will be your powder range. Divide your range into 10 separate charges. These will be what you charge with in your next step.
   For example: If your minimum charge is 25.5 grains of powder, and your maximum charge is 30 grains of powder, your charges will look like this:
   
   • 25.5gr
   • 26.0gr
   • 26.5gr
   • 27.0gr
   • 27.5gr
   • 28.0gr
   • 28.5gr
   • 29.0gr
   • 29.5gr
   • 30.0gr
3. Charge 10 cases with each charge from the last step.
4. Seat and crimp your bullet as you normally would.
5. Clearly label your rounds with as much information as you can muster. Keep each set of rounds separated from the others, so there will be less chance of confusion.

OFF TO THE RANGE:
Your next step will be to do the most fun part, shooting your loaded ammo! You will want to take 10 targets and head to the range. Set your targets out at the distance you have zeroed your rifle. Single-load your rifle and fire ten rounds at your first target. Don't worry about adjusting your sights. There may be a small amount of difference from where you zeroed at to where it is impacting now. Mark on the target the load that you fired. Inspect each piece of brass for signs of high pressure.

Continue shooting 10 rounds at a different target, marking it, and inspecting the brass until you run out of ammo. Compare the targets. You should notice that two or three targets are giving much better groups than the rest. These are the sweet spot for your rifle. This load will perform adequately for your rifle. If you want to, you can take the ammo back to your press and start again.

EXAMPLE: 
Let's say that using our example from the previous range that 28.0 and 28.5 and 29.0 gave you the tightest groups, with 28.5 being the tightest. In this instance, I would repeat the above process with the charges by 0.1gr increments, and see which one of these is the best.

FREQUENT ISSUES:
Occasionally, the powder you chose just doesn't seem to work well. Unfortunately, this just means that you need to go back to the drawing board and start again with a different powder.

Let there be Light!

Have you ever needed to see something on your press? A bullet just dropped into your sized case, it won't rotate past a certain point, or the brass just won't fit into your shellholder. One way to handle this is to look for the flashlight on your loading bench, ask your wife if she used it, look in her makeup bag (why she needed a light for her makeup we'll never know), ask your son, look in the hole he dug in the backyard to play Indiana Jones (at least he's outside, and not in front of PlayBox), ask your daughter, and eventually find it being used as a chandelier in Malibu Barbie's newest condo (that is some of the strangest design sense you've seen). By this time, you have completely forgotten why you wanted the light to begin with. We've found a product to help with this.

This little light puts out about 5 lumens from three LEDs. While this isn't a lot, it is just enough to let you see a little better.  The bendable neck lets you aim your light exactly where you need it to go. The three LEDs increase the battery life, and last for much longer than an incandescent bulb, plus the light is much clearer.

Click here to get one.