Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Are my lead bullets too hard for hunting?

Somehow, years ago I came into a box of 165gr flatnose lead .308 bullets with gas checks that say they are "hard cast" with a rating of "18-20 bhn".

I know I've read somewhere that SOFT lead bullets are best for hunting, but I have no experience with these or any other pure lead bullet.

Would these bullets be good for deer at reasonable distances (under 200 yards) and approximately 30-30 velocities in my .303 Savage Model 1899?

In the worst case you will get a .308 entry hole and a .308 exit hole. Plenty to kill a deer IMO. I have it on good authority that any number of Roosevelt elk were killed in western Washington with .30-06 GI ball ammo during the depression. That said, 18-20 bhn are actually brittle...if you whack one with a hammer you will discover just how frangible they are.
Of the most concern to me if I had your rifle and was trying those hard bullets...would be the accuracy question. Hard bullets need to fit the throat...soft bullets give you a little wriggle room if they are not perfectly dimensioned for the throat.
All in all, given the fact good serviceable hunting bullets are available now for the most part, I'd recommend any other bullet over what you have.
If you'd like to pursue cast bullets, bless you...it's so easy and cheap to get started...why not jump in?
Help is here if you ask for it...more help than you ever wanted, LOL.

Push them fast enough and they will spread out when they hit something

Is a bit over 2000 fps fast enough? We are talking about a .303 Savage, remember!

Nevertheless, I do have some Hornady roundnose 150gr softpoints (designed for the 30-30) that I will turn to for deer.

They'll work just fine for deer. I make some similar cast bullets for a friend who uses them in his .30-30 for deer. They work well

they will kill deer. just make sure the bullet is .001 or .002" oversized, or .309" or .310". i use a .311" 173gr Ranch Dog (12+/-BHN) in my 30-40 Krag. i use a .431" 280gr WFN GC (18BHN) in my 444 Marlin and 44 mag.

stay away from round nose cast bullets esp at 18BHN. it is like a pencil point wound channel. FN, LFN and WFN are the best. they tear up the lungs.

18-20 BHN can be brittle depending on the alloy. Pure linotype leans toward brittle. 50/50 range scrap and Linotype water quenched will show a BHN in the mid to high 20s, maybe even cracking 30. Yet these bullets are tough and not brittle in my experience.

Karamojo Bell used nothing but solids his entire career and is reported to have claimed no soft nose bullets ever polluted his barrels. Granted they were jackets solids but a non expanding bullet is a non expanding bullet, lead or jacketed.

A flat point, hard cast bullet is an effective game bullet.

As long as they fit the throat, you should be golden. If not, you'll be in for a bad time. The throat in my 303 Sav is friggin' .315 😕

That issue is actually what led me to joining this place, since there's an abundance of Savage 99 knowledge on here.

They may well work, but personally I wouldn't trust them. That hard of a bullet is likely to not expand in my experience. "Back in the day" I was obstinate about using a hard bullet like that and the couple deer I shot with it died, but they died hard. (A 180 flat nose cast of type metal and lead - it's been a long time but that was my favorite alloy back then -shot out of a .30-06 at around 1900 fps.) If the bullet hits bone going in it'll do more than "pencil through" but that's chancy. I wised up and switched to much softer alloys and things got better. Just my experience, YMMV. (Heck, a .30 FMJ will kill a deer but you better put it exactly where it needs to hit.)

In my .303 Savages and .30-30's I use a 190 flat nose cast soft-ish (bhn 10-12), sized to fit the throat and driven at a chrono'ed 2030 fps in both 24" barrels (28.0 gr. 3031). Excellent accuracy and zero leading. This one died right there, and the bullet had a MV of 1900fps because of the 20" barrel I used that day.

Dang Gary....makes a perfect gun rack!!!
Mickey

Don’t over think it. I have killed everything from gophers to buffalo with nothing but bullets I cast with wheel weights. The larger the meplat, the better, cast bullets don’t expand like jacketed high velocity bullets do, so you need to break bones or be able to follow a blood trail…

Just so I don't have to track them

Significant difference between wheelweight at Bhn of 11 to 12 and the OP's stated 18-20 Bhn. I would go so far as to say there is a good chance a 20Bhn bullet at 2200 fps striking bone will fragment or maybe pencil through.. The wheelweight, especially with a skosh of tin will deform and retain a very high percentage of it's weight and continue to the boiler room. Wheelweight and the proven history of the old western hunter's 16 to 1 are so close in performance at black powder velocities they are indistinguishable.
My original opinion is unchanged...Czech would be well advised to see what can be done accuracy wise, .303 Savages can exhibit quite a range of throat and groove dimensions, before concerning himself with terminal performance.

It all depends on how they got to the 18-20 bhn. If the alloy is balanced meaning equal parts of tin and antimony the bullet will be malleable, not brittle. Probably won't expand at the velocities you are talking about. I prefer my cast bullets to be between 9 and 12 bhn and a balanced alloy. In my opinion the bullets you have are good for target practice.
Good Luck, and take care,
Rick

if thats the bullet you have, you would be better off killing paper, not game.

Cast hunting bullets should not be hard, simple as that. What Gnoahhh said covers it well. On the other hand, if one has a sense of humor, pure lead that is paper patched does the trick quite well.



That bullet left the muzzle of my 77/44 at ~1600 fps and was recovered from the deer shot at 80 yards. Broke both forelegs, 5 ribs and cut the heart in half. Nothing shot with it ever took a step.

So, how accurate can such things be? 8 shots...

Well done DD, I patch mine to bore dia and use bp..mb

Mine are groove diameter, propelled by Li'l Gun.

I think you should be more concerned with how they fit your chamber's throat. Too small and you'll likely experience poor accuracy and heaving leading. Too big and they may not even chamber.