Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Hard Cast Lead Bullets - answers please

You don't need the extra velocity. The 325 at 1100 will shoot clean through darn near anything. Do some penetration testing yourself to gain some confidence in what it will actually do. Once you realize that velocity is not needed to cleanly take game, you'll be loading for comfort and accuracy.

Just don't generally/blindly apply this rule for other calibers/guns because it may not be necessarily so. The range of error/applicability is pretty wide/loose though, me thinks.

Velocity is being used as a surrugate metric for pressure as it relates to what is required for bullet alloy obturation and thus minimization of leading and hopefully maximization of accuracy. I read about the relationship of 4x480xBHN here -> http://www.lasc.us/FryxellCBAlloyObturation.htm

One should note that it relates pressure and not velocity. The actual relationship between velocity and pressure is tricky, not necessarily monotonic and, of course, is caliber dependent, GUN dependent and prone to spiking at the limits.

So, size does matter? Or, the hardness?

As others have said, you don't need that kind of velocity for successful hunting. A 255 gr flatnose bullet @ 900 fps will kill deer or antelope out to as far as you'll be able to shoot an iron-sighted revolver.

Back in the day, when I worshipped at the hardcast LBT altar, I used to drive this 300 grain bullet at 1325-1350 fps. This bullet was cast from wheelweights "sweetened" with 2% tin and cold water quenched for a BHN of about 22-23. It blew clean through every deer I shot with it, and only finally managed to recover a fired bullet when I fired it through a 12" aged/seasoned maple log into a tank of water:




You don't need that much hardness or velocity to kill medium game.

I now far prefer this bullet, cast of 1:20 alloy and air-cooled for a BHN of about 14. It's a HP-modified LBT WFN 300 gr bullet that drops from the mould at about 275 gr. I drive it at about 1050 fps from my Bisley. It's a soft-shooting load, but it penetrates very deeply in water jugs, and the hollowpoint should make it a devastating game-gathering bullet. I'll be using this gun/load in the January 2014 doe season.

Not exactly "hard" cast, but perfect performance nevertheless.

This is a Hunter-supply 240 grain pentagon hollowpoint. I've now killed several big animals with these and they all look the same.

I shot this one into the center of the back of a bear I tracked and finished off. He was in the area of 10 yards away, in the jungle like berries crawling on hands and knees it was hard to get an exact distance.

Muzzle velocity was 1250fps. from a 4" barrel Mountain gun. Impact was decisive and visually crippling. Although he remained alive for seconds, he was hit again almost instantly.



I believe these would be an off the shelf bullet option. Probably similar to the bullets Doc casts in the post above.

This is a 200 gr LaserCast SWC which I personally measured to be ~15 BHN.

This is how far it goes through a green musclewood tree (aka hornbeam, ironwood or blue beech) at only 560 fps (5.2 gr of Unique in Cowboy 45 Special brass). The shoulders CUT the wood even at sub 600 fps speed and did not deform.

alukban, that photo illustrates beautifully why a really "hard cast" bullet isn't necessary.

That statement is game size dependent. Deer, mulies ect, that's true. Drive one of those into a big bear and I would want to make sure that bullet will reach the vitals. Best way to do it is with the proper bullet, hardness included and the proper shot placement. Wouldn't want to go against large toothy critters with a soft, hollow cavity bullet.

and Id also point out that PROPER shot placement and knowing the games anatomy is CRITICAL, I had quite a few deer run when I used a 357 mag revolver for deer hunting when I first started hunting with a revolver and at the time I felt I just needed a bigger caliber, I swapped to a 44 mag, and things improved, but after a few years I had this feeling that it was my increased skill placing shots as much as the upgrade in power, so as a test, I went back to using a 8" 357 revolver, the results proved at least to me, that the 44 mag was more effective but the proper shot placement with the 357 mag made that revolver FAR more effective than I remember it being in fact, I quickly realized that if I was a better shot , when I started hunting with a revolver, I most likely would never have swapped

now that being stated I will say that although I have 100% confidence in the 357 mags ability to kill, the 44 mag is by far the most used hand gun caliber in both pistol and carbines I own and it performs noticeably better on both hogs and deer with 260-310 grain hot handloads, with which you can produce significantly higher hitting power, Ive rarely dropped deer on the spot with a single shot from a 357 mag when I first used it,although they generally didn,t run far with good shot placement, but Ive frequently done that with the 44 mag, and yes I still have some run with good hits even with the 44 mag so its NOT a cure, its just a slightly better tool in my opinion, does it really matter if a single hit allows the animal to live 2-3 seconds longer before it drops if either caliber gets the job done?, now if the animals trying to climb into your tent to eat your butt , or get to you once wounded to seek revenge for injuries,I can see a HUGE difference but on hogs or deer, that run once hit, not so much, as the 357 mag properly loaded kills deer and hogs consistently IF you place the shot well.

Large game with large muscle tissue with thick hair and hide coupled with large bone requires a bullet that maintains its form and penetrates deeply with a good sized wound channel

+1

Not to derail my own thread, but I did read the chapter on cast bullets in my Lyman's manual last night per Kevin's suggestion. There's several interesting chapters on reloading for big bore revolvers I had never paid attention to (elephant cull hunts with a .475 Linebaugh - good stuff there!).

Another question though,about gas checks. When I ordered those Cast Performance I noticed that in some calibers they include gas checks on bullets of the highest weight. For example, .44 bullets at 300 grns come with gas checks (and a lot higher price), but 275 or 240 grain bullets do not have them.

It seems like the lighter bullets would need the gas checks more wouldn't they? At max loads they'll be used with higher powder charges and shot at higher velocity. Why do heavier bullets need the gas checks more?

Gunchamp and jwp475... guys, I must apologize for my off-the-cuff remark on alukban's post and photo. I did NOT intend to imply that bullet hardness doesn't matter at any time, but to be consistent with my earlier post, I said that on MEDIUM game (deer-sized critters) a very hard bullet isn't needed, as alukban's photo kind of illustrates. I have personally found that relatively soft lead bullets (BHN 10-11), either from muzzleloader rifles or from handguns, kill deer exceptionally well, and certainly no less well than hot-loaded and very hard (BHN 22-24) handgun WFN/LFN bullets do.

On bigger and heavier-boned game, particularly the heavy ungulates such as bison or Cape Buffalo, the bones and body mass are huge and heavier/harder bullets are probably more likely to produce a good result. I wouldn't dream of using my 275 gr HP cast bullet on Cape Buff... although I might on large bear, though possibly running at a somewhat harder BHN and muzzle velocity.

BTW, John... how big was that bison bull? He looks to be twice the size of the cow I killed 2 years ago, at least.

28,
What I was trying to convey in my original post was more related to accuracy and the ability to shoot cast bullets without leading. IME, a cast bullet does not need to be "hard" to achieve either of those goals. That said, one can shoot 10 to 11 BHN bullets as well as much harder bullets without leading problems IF they are sized right in relation to throat/bore diameter.

Therefore, size does matter, but as has been said, in some applications hardness also matters. (Still talking about cast bullets here) Grin!

Doc, that bull was a ton or bit over as I recall.

Got ya Doc. I agree with you 100%.

Dayum, that's a lot of bull!! The 2.5-y.o. cows that jorge1, EvilTwin, and I killed only weighed a bit less than 400 pounds (dressed and skinned), and that was still a LOT of animal to work on.

Short answer is, in my experience, yes, lubes can make a difference.

During a Linebaugh Seminar penetration test a few years ago, we tested a S&W Model 14 I had converted to 25-20 Winchester back in the early '80's.

I loaded 75gr SWCGC bullets I cast and 75gr. SWCGC bullets from a once well known commercial caster I know (since defunct), with everything the same except the lube.

The bullets I cast shot ~200fps faster than the others. The results can be seen here, at the bottom of the chart.

What Kevin said about commercial casters using hard lube is true, and most of them don't work very well, if at all.

I used LBT soft blue on those bullets, which doesn't hold up well to the shipping and handling commercial bullets are subjected to. Regular LBT blue is a harder lube that holds up better, but few if any commercial caster use it that I know of. I've made my own lube that seemed to work as well but used it up so went back to LBT lubes.

David

Nicely put.

McInnis, I don't feel qualified to answer your questions as I am a casual handgun hunter with much less experience and knowledge than some of the posters here.

While not specifically addressing your questions, I'm just posting my limited experience with hard casts here. I've taken two elk cows, a buff heifer and several deer with my RRH 5.5" 45 Colt. I was of the mind that hard casts were the berries for any big game and maybe they are generally but while I've seen penetration in spades--very long .45" holes, I've also seen "long yards after contact" in the more tightly wired game. Using Buff Bore 325s at 1300+ fps and Laser Cast 325s over Lil'Gun for about the same velocity most of these critters had through-and-through penetration with the more phlegmatic buffalo standing until time ran out, but both elk going close to two hundred yards, thankfully in semi-open country. The deer also made mad dashes for cover and I here, for sure, deemed a "soft" a more appropriate answer. All these were through the chest shots with the exception of a quartering away shot, the one noted below.

One 325 was recovered in one of the elk as it raked about three feet along the spinal column clipping off transverse processes as it went until running out of gas.

I would add another question to yours: what are opinions concerning "softs" vs "hards" and for which types of big game?

Good thread.