Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Anybody do any deer hunting with cast?

There's some musings here and there about using really hard alloys; they improve precision but don't work terminally, they suck at precision and are a waste of effort. They lead horribly or they just aren't worth the effort.

I won't argue that if using a bullet of decent weight for caliber that plain wheelweight metal with flatnoses from 1800-2000 impact velocities won't work. At handgun speeds the target hardness of 10-13 works really well too.

Just throwing this out there for the precision enthusiasts. This is Dan Lynch's treatise and findings, not my own.


What we see is 10 shot aggs at 100 yards, with accuracy the primary consideration.
Note the velocity, twist rate and psi of the loadings. Using what many of use know considering obturation levels and what many of us post here as "successes", take a look at the winning loads and multiply 18-22 BHN times 1,422. Pretty interesting.

Bullet hardness is lino (18-22 BHN), across the board. The author does mention he sees even better accuracy with greater hardness.
Here's three shots from a stock 1895 Marlin 45/70 at 100 yards after a 25 yard zero with the softnoses I made to hunt with. The base shanks are in the 28 BHN level, from testing the same solids from the same casting session. I fired these three shots and called it good. Fit was snug to the throat; that's all that is required.


So there's a little bit on precision with hard as nails alloy.
Now let us consider terminal results.

I choose the heat treated base softnose, because of the mentioned "safety valve" at both high and low impact velocities, the variances of caliber and nose profiles. From high speed 22 rifle lightweights to sedate 45 ACP loads, the partitioned softnose, like in jacketed bullets, provides us a wide velocity range for terminal results.
Someone mentioned the universal results of plain WW metal bullets at their specified velocity. The same metal and bullets, heat treated, doesn't lose these attributes, it just requires greater velocity and pressure to act just like they did with 200-500 fps less velocity. They perform universally at that greater velocity impact level. They will shed more weight, but that weight being shed translates on the target, often "powdering down" through flesh and bone.
Is this needed or required? Absolutely not, but if you want to get beyond 30-30 speeds and accuracy, plain WW metal is just a beginning.
One doesn't even need to drive the .30 caliber 170/180 flatnose to 1800-2000 fps to keel over deer with some expansion; simply load up the pure lead/lead tin as Dan posted.....its simply modifying impact speeds with alloy and nose shape.