Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Cast vs. jacketed bullets,

Ok cant find a place to tell me what to start lead bullets at when only jacketed bullets listed in the weight you want to use. need to load 100gr. lead in 32 mag but can only find jacketed listing for Titegroup!

Usually (but not always) cast bullets produce somewhat more pressure than jacketed, because softer lead bullets seal the bore better. So you might want to start the powder charge a little lower than in the jacketed data.

No John, usually cast bullets produce less pressure than jacketed because of their lower bore friction; the exception is when they take up more case capacity, which can cause higher pressure.

That effect doesn't show up in most pressure-tested loading data.

Most cast bullet load data is low to prevent leading, not from pressure limits.

And, many cast bullet designs do take up more case capacity than equivalent jacketed bullets, but many others do not, so it just depends. The OP didn't give enough info to provide a good answer, even though he asked the question in the cast forum and got some good recommendations already.

It's pretty easy to determine for yourself that most cast bullets can be pushed faster than jacketed within the same pressure limits. Less resistance to push a lead bullet through the bore is an established fact as well, and very easy to test if you don't believe it.

We’re not talking velocity, we’re talking pressure. You can check out pressure-tested data, with the pressures listed, on the Hodgdon site (and some other sources), with various cartridges using both cast and jacketed bullets of the same weight and overall style. Most of the time pressure with cast bullets is higher with the same powder charge, the exception being very hard cast bullets, which act more like jacketed bullets.

John,

That is interesting. So much info you find on cast bullets is anecdotal and not based on any kind of solid research. Your insights are appreciated.

Do you have a feel for the relative pressures developed by plain base cast lead versus gas check?

I am assuming BH in the 14 - 16 range, say clip-on wheel weight plus a percentage or two of added tin on up to Lyman #2.

It seems to me that at normal magnum revolver velocities, say 1100 - 1300 FPS, hard cast causes more problems than it solves.

Haven’t analyzed plain-base and gas-check, but the Hodgdon website has plenty of handgun data. Some other places do too, but Hodgdon’s is very extensive and nicely laid out. It might even be easier to analyze it in the Annual Manual.

John is right and I too suspect that HARD cast (like 22BHN) likely behave more like jacket bullets in the pressure department.