Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Details IN Bullet Selection Make All The Difference

Often there are discussions on what bullet to use hard cast or jacketed. Many people recommend hollow points without regard to which one. Many will recommend hard cast without giving details as to which one. The water gets farther muddied when the words "Keith' or "LBT" is introduced into the discussion. Why you ask? The answer is quite simple every semi wadcutter that I am aware of claim to be a "Keith" yet the bullet is not as Elmer designed it. Many claim to make "LBT" like bullets, but do they? The me plats and nose profiles differ greatly from the "keith" and true "LBT". What difference does this make you ask? Sometimes all the difference between success and failure when trying to take game. The difference in penetration and wound channel size can be dramatic. There are differences in the type and hardnesses of different makes of hard cast bullet that can drastically effect how they perform.

Jacketed flat point bullet and even hollow points suffer from the same problems. Many times the hollow points do not open, but the shooter doesn't know this because the bullet was not recovered. The Belt Mountain Punch bullet is technically a hollow point, that is designed for maximum penetration not expansion.

Here is an XTP recovered by Greg Riechter the only one that he has recovered a 400 grain shot from a 475L and recovered from a mule deer, I believe if memory serves




Another example is the Winchester 240 grain jacketed flat point white box. This bullet is rather soft and expands widely thus limiting penetration. Other the other hand the Remington 240 gain jacketed flat point is harder and expands less and penetrates more. The 240 grain jacketed flat point in the Fiochi load is hard and seldom expands. This load is also about 1180 FPS out of my 6 1/2" M-29 revolvers, nothing more than a high end 44 Special

Also the Sierra 240 grain jacketed hollow cavity is made with a 1 1/2% antimony core with a relatively heavy jacket to limit expansion and increase penetration. The Remington 240 Semi Jacket Hollow Point has a core of very soft lead with a very thin scalloped jacket that will open extremely wide and limit penetration to about the same as standard ball ammo in a 45 ACP or a bit less in my experience. This is the bullet that I use as a self defense load in the 44 mag.

I had a terrible experience with a 430 grain hard cast in the 500L at 1350 FPS. The bullet gave terrible straight line penetration turned and would not reach the vitals. It took 7 shots to finally get the animal on the ground to finnish of. The problem as farther testing revealed was the nose shape/or profile if you will. The bullet claimed to be "LBT like" but did not adhere to the nose length and radius profile of the "true LBT" from Veral Smith (which work perfectly). This cause the bullet to tumble quickly and all bets are then off on terminal performance. This was my first experience with the 500L and I almost gave up on the cartridge, but my inquisitive mind wanted to know "WHY" it failed so miserably and once discovered and the proper bullet was used the 500L is an awesome cartridge for hunting as it simply hammers game with even more authority than the 475L as long as the correct bullet is chosen

I do not like to recommend bullets that I have not personally used/tested or seen used/tested in order to know how well they will or will not work for the task at hand.


I highly recommend "Whitworth's book Big-Bore Revolvers as he covers this subject very well



Various recovered handgun bullets