Cheapskate's Lead Hardness Tester-- Accurate, Available, Portable

VR to this:   • Lead Hardness FAQs & How to Mix Bullet All...   (FC45LC is very helpful, knowledgable and has far more experience than me. He is also a much better shot. My one major quibble with him on this is that he keeps referring to velocity for a given BHN, rather than pressure. Lead cares about pressure. Lube cares about velocity. Load the same bullet with one powder to 2200FPS and it will work fine, but the same velocity with another powder will give awful groups. This is because the peak pressure is different. Pressures tend to be similar for a given velocity, which led to this confusion about lead.- maybe a video on that topic will come later. Lyman keeps perpetuating this mistake.) Original thread, with verification of results and expanding data tables http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showt... One suitable set of pencils. You can probably find a better deal. (~$15 at time of post) http://www.amazon.com/Staedtler-Lumog... I have found my results to be repeatable, and consistent with those of others on the castboolits thread linked above. I have also since acquired a Lee Tester and found that my results are within 1 BHN of it's readings. The primary limitation is known data for hardnesses above 18 BHN such as would be appropriate for higher pressure rifle bullets.