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Last year a buddy and I bought a few tons of recovered indoor range bullets. My primary goal was to have a supply of bullets for my muzzleloaders.

I stuck a scope on my Triumph and started casting.

I had a Gould mold (.458-.459; 330 gr) and I ran the bullets through a .452 sizer but the results were just ok producing 2" groups at 100 yards with both Harvester Crush Rib and MMP sabots. Next I ordered a custom mold from Accurate Molds with 255 gr & 300 gr cavities (design #45-255S & #45-300M), the results were good looking bullets with no lube groove.



The bullets came out at about 260 gr and 310 gr. I ran them through the sizer and gave them a go. The 255 gr bullet was pretty good with the 3 petal and 4 petal MMP's and ok with Harvester Crush ribs; the 300 gr bullet was ok with Crush Ribs and 3 petal MMP's but the 4 petal MMP (HPH/24) and the 310 gr bullet turned out to be just what I was hoping for.

The final load is:
T/C Triumph
Accurate Mold #45-300M (actual weight 310 gr)
sized to .452
110 gr BH 209
MMP HPH/24 sabot

Here's a 3 shot group at 100 yards.

Can't complain about that!

The question will be, how will they expand and perform terminally? I've shot all lead bullets that worked really well, and others quite poorly.

I would likely only use those for practice or for hogs if cast hard. They are very cool though.

Winner, Winner, Big Game Dinner.

Man that looks great!!

I plan to try and test their performance in different media probably a few milk jugs and wet phone books (anyone have a fresh roadkill deer laying around?) . They're pretty soft right now but I can harden them if need be. If everything seems good to go I'll give them a try this fall.

Overkill45,

Would your concerns be too much or not enough expansion?

More like too soft to shoot them fast. Hard though wont expand worth a squat on deer. The 300gr cast soft and shot at milder speeds might be just fine for deer.

too soft?

with that profile I'd not worry, I be they work dandy if made out of pure lead.

You might be right. The metplat looks small.

My bullets are from recovered range lead which is pretty soft. I'm going to head out tomorrow with some of mine and some 250 gr SST's and run them all into some milk jugs. I'll post up the results.

I have doubts the range lead is dead soft. A lead hardness tester would help guessitmating how they might perform on media or game.

My guess is anything over roughly 8 to 10BHN wont expand much on soft tissue with that small metplat. The 300gr sounds like good cheap hog medicine if the lead is around 8BHN.

See if you can seat them unsized in your Triumph in the black harvester crush ribs. I shoot .458" from my Encore with the black crush ribs and they are very accurate. I just pulled the breech plug and pushed one all the way through to be sure they would load.

I'll try the unsized with the crush ribs next time out.

I lined up 6 gallon jugs today and blew through 4 of them but couldn't find the bullet. I'll put a cardboard box full of wet paper behind it next time.

I managed to catch a bullet in gallon jugs this evening. It passed through 5 and made a hole in the 6th but didn't fully penetrate. The expanded bullet was .66-78" in diameter and it retained 292 gr of the original 310 gr.

Nothing wrong with that.

What distance were those jugs hit at? Were you still using 110 grains BH209?

The distance was only about 30 yards. It was with 110 gr of BH209

Looks good to go.

i used to shoot a lead bullet in my ml'ers that a friend was casting from wheel weights. all of my recovered bullets looked like the ones you shot. they killed deer really well.

I finally got a chance to try my cast bullets on game and they performed well. I used bullets cast from recovered range lead, 312-314 gr with 120 gr BH 209. I practiced a fair amount out to 325 yards. The distance of the shot was about 220 yards (point blank around here) uphill and slightly facing away. He didn't flinch at the shot and walked away from the other two bucks about 20 yards and then fell about 80 yards down an avalanche chute. The bullet was a pass though, in right behind the shoulder and out towards the neck.