Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Handgun bullets, hard cast vs JHP

It's a different world now than it was when I started casting bullets in the mid-late 80s.

There were no handgun partitions, no X handgun bullets, no Swift bullets. There were no 300 grain jacketed .44 bullets. The .454 was still proprietary, not sure if the .475 and .500 linebaugh existed but if they did, they were strictly custom deals. No .460 S&W, no .500 S&W, .480 Ruger, etc.

Basically the biggest kid regularly found on the block was the .44 and the ammo choices were between (a) hard cast SWCs (the LBT type designs were just barely out and not known yet) or fairly fragile 240 grain JHPs. Pretty lean times for handgun hunting bullets.

I have one .44 that requires a home cast bullet .. unless someone is making a .433" bullet I don't know about. It's got an oversized bore and leads like crazy with standard .429 to .430 bullets.

Otherwise, if I were starting from scratch, I'm not sure I'd cast bullets. I'd probably use the 250 grain .44 partition and 260 grain .45 partition for my "heavy lifting" and buy commercial lead bullets for plinking.

Tom

I have used JHP and JSP, but I now prefer and use Hard Cast Flat point bullets as I believe that they offer the best alround bullet for game in the U.S.

LFN,WFN OR WLFN or my favorites

All I used for years hunting deer was a .44 magnum (Redhawk and Super Blackhawk)and occasionally a .454 Casull. Sometimes I used a 2x Leupold and sometimes irons. I would set up like I was bowhunting and have lost count of the number of deer taken but it was quite a few. I favored a heavy cast bullet in either LBT or Keith style and placed it on the shoulder. I did use XTPs a few times and placed them behind the shoulder. Both worked but Keith was correct when he said lead bullets could do it all in big handguns. There is really just not much need for jacketed bullets and for game larger or tougher than deer a heavy cast bullet is definitely the way to go. Incidently, it was my experience handgun hunting that convinced me the idea of a bullet killing by "dumping all it's energy" in an animal was pure bunk. The energy is low compared to most rifles but .45 cal. hard cast bullets tend to punch a .45 cal. hole all the way through whatever you shoot at leaving two holes to let blood out and air in and they kill right now. I tend to use a rifle more often now simply because I am less inclined to spend much time sitting in a tree. Western hunting did that. Spotting and stalking is much more fun and even when Whitetail hunting in the east I now tend to move much more than I once did and a 30-30 rifle usually seems better for that.

JBD-it was my experience handgun hunting that convinced me the idea of a bullet killing by "dumping all it's energy" in an animal was pure bunk


Careful! them's fighten words! LOL

Thirteen years gone by since this thread was started. The topic is interesting to me. I'm hoping some of you with experience will comment.

When/why choose a jacketed bullet such as XTP over cast for .44mag handgun hunting, particularly deer?

Jacketed handgun bullets have come a long way , the best compromise between the 2 types are the swift A frames, they open up but hold together and penetrate like a solid . When I hunted with my 357 it was 180 grain hardcast and I would aim for the shoulders and it worked well. Now with my 44 I wasn’t impressed with the 240 grain xtp on deer. I’ve moved on to the 270 grain deep curls and I’ve got some 280 grain A frames to also try out. A solid will perform and penetrate no doubt, but a quality heavy for caliber jacketed bullet may perform a bit better.

My only input on this topic is that heavy cast, wide metplat, bullets provide reliable, time proven performance at handgun velocities. Today’s jacketed bullets, while much improved over the years, still leave you with that nagging question.....is this the time it will fail to perform as expected! Any bullet can fail to perform as desired.....but, I’ll stay with the bullet that offers the highest success percentage in expected performance!

Something else to consider, jacketed handgun bullets work best within a fairly narrow velocity window. Cast bullet performance is the same from the muzzle to the range at which it can no longer penetrate to the vitals! memtb

Hard cast for me in 44 mag; one hole in and out every time. I love Oregon Trail 310 gr Trueshot bullets over 18.5 grains of W296 & magnum primer, at about 1200fps. With an accurate revolver it will print cloverleafs all day at 25 yards. This load has never let me down, and will take down any critter on the planet with proper shot placement. Recoil is not excessive, unlike Garrett and Buffalo Bore +P+ loads. (This load is not recommended for S&W, Taurus, and such like.) Will not function in Henry lever actions, but fine for ‘92 types, Ruger 77’s & is a tack driver in any single shot

I have used cast flat nosed bullets out of several rifles and handguns. For deer I prefer a jacketed soft nose bullet. Heavy enough to go through. For hogs cast is fine because I don't care if they get away. I just didn't get very quick kills using the WFN cast bullets on deer. Others must have had better results than I did. Not saying I didn't get exit holes just saying some deer went pretty far after being well hit with flat nosed cast bullets.

.44 Mag rifle-300 grain WFN GC.

.44 Mag pistol, either the 300 grain WFN GC or a 300 grain LMN DCG, which can provide some additional performance.

In my .45-70, the Beartooth Bullets Piledriver Jr (425 grain WLN GC), and the .458 SOCOM is loaded with Piledriver Lites (350 grain WLN GC). Getting ready to try some 405 WLN GC in the SOCOM.

.45 Super and .460 Rowland are using LBT 250 grain LFN GC.

I likes hardcast lead in the 40+ bores.

Shots on deer have been typical with lung shots, a bronco buck and about a 40 yard death dash.

Was the "new thread" button too hard for you to use?

I think I remember this thread when it first came out

Just ordered a 500-box of Missouri Bullet Company's coated hard cast for my new (to me) 44 Spcl Bisley Blackhawk. Looking forward to it.

Never understood HC, seen too many critters just get punched, no collateral damage whatsoever, walk/run off like nothing happened. Pass the jhp or jsp...

Mostly all the bullets I use are cast swc's. With big lead bullets out of 45-50 cal bp cartridge rifles I find that they are very effective as long as you remember to get them thru the vitals. At handgun velocity breaking bones on the way out is important for quicker kills.

longarm, I'm glad you responded to this thread. I was with High Brass when he shot the doe. It brings back a great memory. BTW, Chad thought he had missed since the doe ran. I told him he had hit her because she kicked both hind legs up in the air and then took off.

i have shot dozens of russian boar, red stag, feral hogs and whitetail with my 44 mag using XTP's. I modify my XTP's for whitetail and the occasional feral hog.
The unmodified version of the XTP dropped the majority of stags and russian boar in their track. Tougher hide, bigger animals than the typical feral hog and whitetail.
After shooting close to a dozen white tails I was concerned with how much more they ran than the stags. Pass throughs yes, and good blood trails too. But in thick brush this had me concerned. So i took a 1/8" drill and opened the hollow point and drilled it a little deeper. Bullets end up at same POI as unmodified ones, and weigh 231 grains.
I have yet to have a whitetail run with these. More energy is dumped inside the animal and in all but a quartering away follow up shot that one buck let me have (he was dead on his feet but turned after the first shot) the bullets exited. This second shot is the only recovered bullet I have from a Whitetail.

Don't get me wrong, 240 gr as they come out of the box lets them usually have a 30-50 yard run, but i like them to fall over in place. if i do my part, they will.

I shoot a 7.5" 629 and a 6.5" 629 at 1300 fps.
SnT

Use three basic hunting bullets for the .357 Mag, both 6.5" revolver and 18.5" carbine.

158 gr. semi-jacketed soft point in the Federal Factory AE load.
140 gr. Barnes XPB in VOR-TEX factory of handload.
180 gr. Hornady XTP in thermonuclear handloads.

All work.

Some work better.




GR

THIS.

I've a few whitetails IE around 25 or so. Probably close to 50 pigs. With handguns that is.

I've found that I've never lost a pig shot in the lungs with a 22 LR CCI Mini Mag HP round.

Deer have been shot with 357, 44 mag, 45 acp and 10mm. I never liked how they killed until the 10mm.

Hands down its rare to have a deer go more than 25-30 yards with a 180 XTP through them. So much that for on purpose hunting I have started to convert all handgun rounds to XTP.

That said bear/moose defense loads still get heavy hard cast bullets driven at a speed that I can control recoil for follow up shots.

Having used hard cast lead WFN type bullets along the way on deer a couple of times I simply didn't see anything the XTP didn't do better.