Hand-held 20x measuring scope

Sep 20, 2010 8 Replies

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Buerste 15 years ago

I bought a Lee Lead hardness Testing kit to test the hardness of lead alloys I use for casting. My hardness tester at work won't go down that far. This thing works by applying 60 pounds of force to a ball that indents the lead and then you use the 20x scope that has a scale from 0-.100" in .002" increments. You measure the width of the indent in the lead and look it up on a chart that tells you the Brinell hardness. This is also the "strength of the material in PSI. So, you adjust the pressure on the lead to 10% below the strength of the lead, but high enough pressure to get some plastic deformation.

Great tool! Everybody I've shown this to wants a scope. I haven't been able to find them separate from the kit, has anybody seen any available?

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anorton 15 years ago

That is a Micro-Mike pencil microscope made in the USA!

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You can find them several places incuding here:

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Gunner Asch 15 years ago

Thanks!!!

I am the Sword of my Family and the Shield of my Nation. If sent, I will crush everything you have built, burn everything you love, and kill every one of you. (Hebrew quote)

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Jon Danniken 15 years ago

Neato, the look a little better constructed than the old Radio Shack 30 bangers (although the RS versions do have a light, which is handy).

Jon

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Lewis Hartswick 15 years ago

I made one of those about 35 years ago, back when I was casting and shooting competitively. I used a small magnifier with a reticle built in. It probably wasn't 20 power but it worked pretty well. Same kind of magnifier we used to measure the pellet hole distance from the X at turkey shoots. :-) ...lew...

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Larry Jaques 15 years ago

What does Lee say? You _have_ asked them, haven't you? ;)

Rat Snack sells a 30x lighted pen scope, or did. Ca $30.

-- Some people hear voices. Some see invisible people. Others have no imagination whatsoever.

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stans4 15 years ago

Lee has some spare parts for stuff listed on his website, might be you could get one there.

Edmund has a wide variety of pocket microscopes both in their gadget catalog and their optics one, some a lot cheaper than RS. If you need the measuring reticle, you can buy several Lee kits and still come out ahead, though. Kind of spendy from Edmund. Good, but spendy.

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has some pocket-sized specimens, too, no reticle. Lots of other goodies, some actually have metal involved, like gears.

Lee has a short article in his 2nd edition loading manual relating lead hardness to bullet velocity. If you haven't seen it, you need to if you're doing anything with cast bullets. A hardness tester is a good first step, next, you need a chronograph.

Stan

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Bob Gentry 15 years ago

Fred Folwer will probably jump in here on this one. His outfit makes one of these also #52-662 020

See:

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Enco used to handle these.

bob rgentry at oz dot net

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Wes 15 years ago

I've thought of buying the Lee tester and comparing it to my Lead Bullet Technologies tester as a sanity check.

Have you looked at

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Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

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