Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Best 45 Colt deer bullet?

I used the 255 rnfp, to get a deer once.
It turned into a huge goat rope. The kind where, if killing deer was like that normally,
I would quit hunting. After a lot of shots, I got the deer, but it was horrible.
Those hard round bullets made little pencil holes that closed behind the bullet.


The cluster was made worse by the bevel base basis leading my barrel so bad I couldn't
hit anything but body shots.

Several very poor decisions on my part, but I had been reading the glowing articles on cast bullets
and had just gotten this 45. Brian Pierce has often wrote how effective these bullets can be, and
the most certainly will kill. But so will full metal jackets, eventually.

I have mostly given up the handgun thing, but now 44 and 45's have a good meplat or jhp.

Remember, deer are not that thick. You don't need to be able to shoot through a tank.
But, you need to be making a hole that will do damage. It is a balance thing, I know several
guys that shoot 180 gr jhp in 44 mag. It is not a penetrator, but it goes deep enough to kill
our deer, and does it quickly.

I'll clamber up on my box of Tide again...

This "Harder is Better" idea is horse puckey. It probably started when bullet casters started adding tin to lead and ended up with harder bullets. But why did they add tin? NOT to make harder bullets, but to make the mould fill out better. Lead/tin alloy fills out small details like crimp and lube grooves a lot better than pure lead. Better formed bullets shot better, and so began the harder is better nonsense.

We now have cast bullets made of all kinds of alloys, up to and including silver, for Pete's sake. All vying to be harder than the other fellow's bullets. All while ignoring the fact that pure lead muzzleloading bullets continue to shoot well and kill well. And all while seeking better expansion in every other kind of bullet they shoot through the use of soft lead bullet cores.

Some times, I think we're just nuts.

A hardcast flat nosed bullet with a large meplat is a killing sombuck, you ought to give it a try sometime RR.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Don't overthink it, it's just a deer. How and where they're hit will determine blood trail. If it ain't broke (and it ain't) don't try to fix it.

You hit the nail on the head Rocky

Good luck Doc .. wanted to try them out on deer a few weeks back but didn't have a decent shot under 250 yds however they work well on song dogs !

I add silver for Vampires and Werewolves.

Yes indeed. This mania for "hard" cast bullets is mostly parroted by shooters with no casting experience and no knowledge of metallurgy. For handguns and pistol-caliber carbines, the hardest alloy you really can possibly need will have a Brinell Hardness Number of 14-16 at most. Yet many of the commercial "hard cast" bullets have BHN's of 22 and higher, which are more likely to leave lead streaks in your bore than a properly sized BHN 12 will ever do.

Rocky,
I understand that bullet hardness should be tied to intended velocity. Are there any easy rules of thumb as to how hard they should be and what alloy to use? Then there is the problem of knowing what your starting scrap lead is made of. Any guides for that?

Very nice, Woody! I really should buy an 1866... don't have one yet.

Barry, what Doc wrote is spot on regarding hardness. For decades, the ubiquitous wheelweight was just about the ideal bullet source material. They were by no means a uniform alloy, but they were usually a lead/tin mix that could be used as is, or mixed with pure lead to harden the pure a titch. Wheelweights are now almost extinct due to the "Lead is Evil" crowd.

I can offer no better source of cast bullet education than the Lyman manual, frankly. Their regular one contains both cast and jacketed data, but the Cast Bullet Manual is strictly lead.

Harder is better when needed. Pure lead will not hold up to the shear force from the faster twist rate and higher pressures of smokeless rounds that operate at higher pressures and have faster barrel twist than front stuffer charcoal burners. You can run pure lead in a 45 colt if you're using powder puff loads, but you'll need to bring the bhn up to somewhere between 8 and 13 as pressures and shear forces increase or you'll get leading and poor accuracy.

I've pushed plane based air cooled wheel weight bullets bhn ~13 with max charges of H-110 in the 357 mag and 480 Ruger and those are 40 kpsi (old school 357 loads in a blackhawk) the 357 loads were clocking 1500 fps, the 480's 1200 fps. Excellent accuracy and no leading in either gun. Properly fit bullets and good lube work wonders. The bullets penetrate just fine and expand a bit. If you're shooting hollowpoints you'll want to add some tin for ductility. Super hard bullets can fracture on bone. Medium hardness bullets will deform some but stay mostly in tact. You can water quench ww's and bring the bhn up to 18.

The problem is people were using commercial swaged bullets of bhn ~8 that have a smathering of lube, and pushing them well past their design limits. Instead of using bullets that were a bit harder to cure the problem, they went off the deep end to 20+ bhn bullets. Then it became a marketing ploy that these super hard bullets will penetrate like an ap round. Those of us who cast our own have learned that for top performance everything needs to be balanced, bullet shape, weight, alloy, hardness, size and lube.

IMHO revolvers round force one to choose an expanding bullet with that produces a large wound cavity with relatively shallow penetration, or a solid bullet that produces a smaller wound cavity but deep penetration. They simply lack the bullet velocity to provide both, which requires a rifle. A large meplat ~75% of bullet diameter will produce a decent wound channel and be accurate at longer ranges, smaller meplats are of no advantage, larger ones will result in bullets flying wild at longer ranges. So long as one understands the limitations of the bullet they use and places the shot accordingly or refrains from shooting as required, all is well. Just don't expect a revolver to kill like a high powered rifle, it isn't so it can't.

Back to the OP's problem of a scant blood trial, the main issue is the small exit hole most non-expanding bullets leave, unless they break ribs or other chest cage bones on exit. For the small type of WTD you're describing one of the bonded HP bullets - like the XTP or GDHP- will very likely penetrate enough to exit on a broadside shot through the ribs behind the shoulder and leave a larger exit wound that will provide a better blood trail.

The shot placement you described through "the top of the heart" I assume means you shot though the knob of the aorta and/or the pulmonary vessels. With respect to exanguinating hemorrhage, that's a more effective shot with a low velocity bullet than through the ventricles of the heart. The vessels in that area bleed continuously at high volume and reliably kill. It's my favorite bullet placement from any angle I can reach it.

More expansion with an exit wound on a fragile animal is the key to a better blood trail, IMHO YMMV.

Your comments about twist rate and pressures are something I overlooked, Lott. Thanks. We're in agreement about bullets in the BHN 12-14 range being all that's needed, though. Plus, unlike the super-hards, they offer some expansion/deformation, which is what the OP asked for to begin this thread.

There's one more reason why companies offer harder and harder bullets: they ship better. They can dump bullets into a plastic tub, turn them over to gorilla package handlers, bounce them over highways, and still have them arrive with few if any dings and gouges. It has nothing whatever to do with how they shoot or perform.

I agree with Rocky, A long time ago when my dad and I were pondering converting a couple of Bisleys to Linebaugh's, I called Mr. Linebaugh on the phone and spoke with him for quite awhile.

After talking about what we would probably do with the guns he gave me several handloads for the Smith's (his favorite pistol) as well as the Bisleys that he assured me would kill anything on this continent and then told me we had no need for his guns.

Repeatedly he told me his wife shot game at 100 yards with her 900 fps, 255 gr. SWC load and that he had shot completely through a bisons skull from top to bottom with same.(about 9 inches of bone, if I recall)

He said that when you got that 255 going 900 it just didn't stop till it hit the earth. No special bullets needed, just what you got the most accuracy from.

I had a handload for the revolvers that clocked out of the Marlin 1894 at 1100 fps. It was like shooting a rimfire, but did lead a little. Only killed one deer with it. My buddy shot it at about 45 yards, DRT.

Agreed commercial casters also choose their bullet lubes based on the ability to stay in the lube groove for shipment vs. how well it works to lube the bullet. My experience is if the lube won't leave the groove in shipment, it also won't leave the lube groove to lube the bullet on it's path down the barrel. The absolute worst leading I've ever had, strips of lead from breach to muzzle were with commercial hardcast bevel based .357" bullets in a 35 whelen with mild 1200 fps loads. Properly sized and lube ww gc bullets driven 1800 fps had zero leading and would put 10 in an 1" at 50 yds.

Here's what a 460 gr .475" water quenched ww bullet bhn ~18 looks like when driven 1100 fps, bullet on left 38" of wet newsprint, bullet on right 2+" of bone and 12" of newsprint.



And here's what a 400 gr .475" air cooled hollowpoint ww bhn ~13 driven 1200 fps looks like when driven into glacial silt (clay consistency) dramatic cavity for ~8" and total penetration of ~20"

^^^This!!!^^^

That's why I use the WFN LBT cast bullets! They just work.

Glad you included "size",makes me cringe when I hear just shoot as cast..

Not deer load........but a few yrs back......busted this dumb 'yote..........Rossi 45 Colt 20" CB

he was running directly away from me...3-4 shots....got dialed in.........250 gr cast boolit.........

5th shot all of 175 yds.......rolled him.........pups are fun.......