Does Garrett sell their hard cast bullets to hand loaders? Does anyone else sell lead bullets that come close to the claimed 25 Brinell product? If not, does anyone have a formula for casting bullets this hard without them "shattering" on impact? Thanks, Riley

Probably the best commercial caster of hard cast hunting bullets is the owner of this site Marshall Stanton (Beartooth Bullets). Cast Performance Bullets and Jae Bok Young also cast some pretty good stuff. Beartooth's bullet alloy is the best of all of them for being hard yet ductile. Most other use a bit too much antimony for my taste. I've had a bullet fracture on an animal.

For your own alloy and casting, there's not anything much better than straight wheel weights. They're makup is real similar to Beartooth's alloy. You can water drop them or (preferrably) oven heat treat them up to 28-30 Bhn. Alloying WW's with percentages of pure lead will allow hardening to a desired level. A 50/50 mix of WW & Pb will oven harden to 18-22 Bhn. It also increases the bullet's ductility dramatically. You can also get good expansion if desired. Another alternative is to anneal OHTWW's to a lower hardness than 28-30 Bhn. A temp. of 275-300 F for an hour then turn the oven off and leave them in until cold will result in a Bhn of 18-23. Got to wait until the original HT reaches full hardness after a few days though. Vary the annealing temp. for the hardness you want.

BABore- Thanks for the quick reply and good info. Regards, Riley