Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Any cast bullet deer hunters? What are you using?

For 100% of my handgun hunting now, I cast my own bullets. In the 70s and early 80s I did kill some game with jacketed handguns bullets, but I have given up on them 100 now because I have never found a hunting task that jacketed bullet do as well as the best cast bullets, let alone better.

In rifles (other then muzzleloaders) I am not using them anymore because I am so busy it seems I just don't get the time to work the throats and make up the loads with cast bullets. But I have done it in the past and had excellent results. Rifles I have used with cast bullets for hunting in the past have been :

44 magnum in a Browning M92 loaded with LBT cast bullets of 270 grains. All shot on any game were excellent and not one ever took 2 shots. The gun whould shoot about 2-1/4" at 100 with the tang-peep I had on it. I used 20 grains of H110 and a rifle primer. All exited.

357 magnum from a Marlin 1894 with LBT 187 grain Gas Check Wide Flat Nose bullets. I only killed 3 antelope myself, but my friend Randy killed 33 deer and antelope and all but one was a 1 shot kill with the longest one being at 302 yards. The only one that needed more then one shot was one he hit in the gut on the 1st shot. The 357 from a rifle with this bullet has got to be seen in action to be believed, but out performed the 30-30s I have used in the past in the speed of the kills, in penetration and from our Marlins we can expect 2 MOA --- with Randy's gun shooting 1-1/4" at 100. All exited.

30-30 in a Marlin 336 with Micro Groove barrel, which was fired lapped and throated a bit to take the 180 grain bullet. The bullet was an old Seaco mold. My load was using 332 powder, but I don't remember the charge. I chronographed it at 2045 FPS. Several coyotes and 3 deer were killed with this load. One deer acted like it was not hit and walked about 20 yards, stopped and then fell down. The other 2 acted like they would with a 170 grain Jacketed load. High jumps and an attempt to run but only going about 15 to 20 yards as they stumbled and then fell. All cast bullets exited.

A 100% as-issued Lithgow SMLE in 303 using a 180 grain cast gas check bullet. I killed 6 deer with that gun and those loads and they worked as well as any jacketed bullet I ever used. Kills were very fast and 3 of them were bang-flops. This gun shot my cast loads about half again tighter then any jacketed load I ever tried in it. One of the very best cast-guns I ever owned. At 50 yards all the best cast bullets would shoot a group about the size of a dime. All shot exited.

Remington M721 in 30-06 and a few different bullets with double diameter molds. Tried various powders and 4 different bullets. No good. I could never get that gun to shoot cast bullets well. The best I got was about 7" at 100 and some were so bad they would clear the whole target) I almost throated it to use a pope style bullet, but instead I made the next rifle.

A full stocked Mauser I made up just for cast loads in 30-06 with a 19" barrel. I used an LBT mold that dropped a 206 grain bullet and a load of H870. This load was slow (about 2275 FPS)and heavily compressed, and would leave a bit of unburden powder but shot under MOA at 100 yards, and was a deadly killer. I seated the gas-check even with the bottom of the neck and I made the barrel myself, so I chambered it to allow the bullet to fit the throat with the lands touching the bullet when it was seated well out of the case. (I read Pope's writings and found he knew what he was talking about) This gun was built from the ground up as a cast shooter and did super well. 3 Deer, 1 antelope ,1 bear and one crippled horse were killed with it. All shot exited but the one that killed the horse and the one used on the bear. Both of then were quartering toward me. The bullet from the bear was against his skin on the rump. The one on the horse was not found. I really liked that rifle and would not have sold it, but a man in Nevada kept laying down money on the table until I caved in. I though "I can just make another" but I never have. I kinda-miss that rifle. I have talked to him several times in the last 30 years and he tells me it's still his favorite rifle. He's killed a lot of deer and several caribou (15 years ago he told me he had killed 14 caribou with it so I don't know what the kill-count is today) with it now. He got the mold the sizer, the dies and the hand press with it in the purchase so he also enjoys all the rifle will do with that load.

A 375H&H with an LBT bullet of 320 grains. This was the 1st barrel I had on my Mauser 375 and when I had shot out the throat I decided to try to make a throating reamer and clean up the eroded part to make a cast bullet barrel from it. it was just OK, but nothing great. I could get 2.5 to 3" groups from it and the loads I used were not fast. most of the best ones only shot at about 1500 FPS but that speed with 320 grains of bullet is still some serious power. I had plans to kill game with those loads and I thought a 3 MOA gun was fine for hunting at ranges of 150 and closer, but for what-ever reason ---I never shot an animal with it after I throated it out. Later I re-barreled the Mauser to the barrel it now has and went back to only jacketed loads.

My old M70 Winchester in 270. I got a Lyman mold (can't remember the number now) and shot loads with green Dot and Herco powders. If I ran then very slow at around 1350 I could get 1.5" at 100 yards with that gun and I did kill some coyotes and foxes with it, but nothing larger.

45-70 Marlin rifles (3 of them) used RCBS 400 and 500 grain molds with gas checks and a 450 grain LBT bullet also gas-checked and loaded of 4064, 3031, 335, unique and black powder. Loads ran from 1200 FPS to 1875 FPS and all were accurate with some being super accurate. All killed game from deer to buffalo as well as you'd expect. As a side note: A load from a 45-70 with a 500 grain bullet loaded at only about 1300 FPS WILL shoot clear through an American buffalo from ham to neck and exit. That's not a theory. I know it for a fact. All exited.

458 Winchester mag. 500 grain RCBS and 450 grain LBT bullets. Cast very hard with the alloy I used when I ran Cast Performance co. These did all the best factory loads ever did and in most cases did a bit better then factory loads. These loads were used by several of us at Cast Performance co to kill game and also I used to lend that rifle to those going to Africa and Australia to hunt so they would be our "testers" in various places and on many kinds of game. 100% of them told me the same thing. The bullets did as well as the best jacketed bullets on any game and out penetrated even several solids available from factory loads. Most exeted but I did get 4 sent to me by hunters who killed hippos and elephants and they were in out collection at the factory for a while on display.

50-140 Sharps. Farmingdale sharps with a compressed of 3F black and a Federal 215 magnum primer. I had LBT make a custom mold and it dropped a 477 grain bullet. This rifle was REAL finicky. Hard to get it to shoot, but after about 1-1/2 years of screwing around with it I did find a load it did ok with. I had to cast the bullet very hard (24 Bn ) and used a set of wads under it, and 1 grain of Red-Dot on the bottom of the shell with the black powder on top, but with that load it would give me 2 MOA. I killed a few domestic bulls, 3 horses and 3 deer with this rifle. I took it after elk one time but never got a shot with it, so other then farm animals and those 3 deer I didn't kill much with it. Bet you are not surprised when I say the bullets exited.