by BD1 » Sat Feb 13, 2010 8:46 pm
The "Cast Boolits" (sic) forum is a good place to start. As to aging, if your alloy has some percentage of arsenic and antimony, (most wheel weight does), then it will harden somewhat after a week or two if it is water quenched out of the mold, or heat treated. Lead alloys respond to heat and quench by getting harder over time, just the opposite of copper/brass alloys which anneal, or soften, from heat and quench.
Being a little harder helps keep the boolit from deforming on the trip down the barrel due to the big kick in the but it gets when the powder ignites. The powder burn rates and pressures we're dealing with here are pretty similar to top end .44 mag loads.
BD