the need for the heater , to warm your lube sizer, depends on the lube viscosity your using, and the design of the lube sizer,
some lubes are much softer at room temps than others
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1010367232?pid=712495
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1010265531?pid=267941
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1010366947?pid=709079
https://www.midsouthshooterssupply....00-lube-sizerlubricator-with-gas-check-seater
most commercial lubes will work on most lube sizers other than the lee, at room temps
as they are mechanically forced through the lube sizer, yes, heated lubes flow with less effort, and if you do enough reloading making your own lube is much cheaper
the lee assumes youll size the bullets and then pour a quart or so of them in a 2 gallon ziploc bag with a couple oz of ALOX then manipulate the bag full for several minutes until all the bullets, in the bag are coated evenly with liquid alox, then you pour them out and stand them on their base to dry on a large sheet of wax paper or tinfoil, for them to dry over a few days, it works for some bullet designs but it takes 3-5 days to semi dry enough to reload without making a total mess if you touch the bullets, as even a week later they will be semi-sticky
http://garage.grumpysperformance.com/index.php?threads/bullet-lube.4835/#post-84993
btw when I cast bullets, I try to run the lead temps up where I get a bit of a frosted,
surface on the bullets, this requires the lead to be a bit higher temp than that temp,
which leaves a shiny surface, but it also tends to result in more uniform size projectiles that fill the mold out uniformly and more and harder
,hardness.
I generally drop the cast bullets into,
a taller than average 7 gallon water filled bucket thats filled, to about 4" from the rim,
doing that tends to provide a slightly harder,
cast bullet that will reduce or prevent leading the rifling as long as a good lube is used,
in any handgun or rifle ,
thus improving accuracy consistently.
I generally size and lube cast bullets within an hour or so of being cast, and store them in old plastic 3 lb coffee containers
Id suggest use of a
Plastic Pail - 7 Gallon, White
Lead-antimony alloys with low to moderate amounts of antimony can be precipitation hardened. As they solidify the antimony becomes less soluble in lead, and precipitates out. Antimony precipitating into a matrix of solidified lead stresses the crystal matrix of the lead. The prestressed lead is harder than unstressed lead. Because lead is subject to creep, or stress-relaxation over time, the hardening process reverses itself very slowly.
When you size a bullet the alloy has to flow into a new shape of smaller diameter. Depending on the amount of sizing and the bullet design, some of this deformation happens close to the surface, especially through lead flowing into the lube grooves. However the bullet also becomes longer - a process which deforms the alloy all the way to the center. Deforming prestressed lead relaxes the prestress and makes the bullet soft wherever it was deformed. So, if you just size a heat treated bullet without lubing it first, the deformation is concentrated close to the driving bands, which deform into the lube grooves. If you lube the bullet first, the lube grooves become just about incompressible and the deformation reaches deeper into the bullet. Thus heat treatment benefit is largely lost if you size the bullet after it has hardened. (But remember it takes days to weeks for the precipitation to occur after quenching, so you can lube after quenching so long as you do it within say 2 to 4 hours.)
If technical discussions bore you, skip this post
What hardens Lead when quenched is just that there are lots of incorrect Tin and perhaps Antimony atoms lost in the crystalographic latice of the Lead, plus some small islands of various precipitated compounds around the boundaries of or in Lead crystals. Both the incorrect atoms and the small islands of various Tin and Antimony compounds restrict deformation of the Lead lattice at room temperature. If quenched quickly, more of the incorrect atoms will be trapped in the lattice, and the islands will be small. The effect of aging on precipitates is for them to grow. My observation in the Lab 30 years ago was that over time, precipitate effect on resistance to deformation grew for a while until the precipitates reached an optimum size, then gradually fell off.
The effect of rapid freezing should be strongest at the edges, and lesser in the interior of a casting, but I don't know how you would get at the interior of a casting to determine what the property gradient was, because of the Recrystalization effect I mention below.
During the high temperature period of cooling right after freezing, those incorrect Tin and Antimony atoms migrate to Lead crystal boundaries. The incorrect Tin and Antimony atoms distort the Lead crystal lattice, and it is a lower energy state for them to be at the crystal boundaries.
All the metals I am familiar with have some Recrystalization temperature at which they spontaneously reorganize their crystalographic lattice in order to reduce stresses in it. For purposes of Cold Work and elimination of the effects of Cold Work by Recrystalization, Lead acts as if is at high temperatures. That temperature for all the metals I am familiar with is about one-half of the melting temperature, expressed in degrees absolute: degrees Rankin or Kelvin. Lead and its alloys are about at that temperature when at room temperature. That which fuels the recrystalization is the stresses in the lattice. Supply any Cold Work, and the recrystalization should take off, and you will lose most of the effect of improper atoms, plus precipitates, plus cold work.
There are other hardening mechanisms at work in many other metals when you quench them, such as in the Iron-Carbon system, but none of them are useful in Lead-Tin-Antimony.
Lead freezes into a closely packed 3-dimensional pattern.
Alloying elements, either through getting lost in the pattern or forming compounds, stress the pattern.
Stressed patterns bend/stretch/twist/compress less easily.
Metals patterns spontaneously reorganize at a temperature known as the Recrystallization temperature, and lose most stresses.
The Recrystalization temperature for most Lead alloys is about room temperature.
Cold Work of a metal at its Recrystalization temperature should make Recrystalization happen immediately.
Other metals have hardening mechanisms that do not happen with Lead.
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