KHornet
Well-Known Member
For paper, I like hard in the area of 18-22 BH, for 7MM and above. For 22's thru 6.5's, I want them 25-28 bh for paper and hunting. For hunting 7mm thru 375's, I have settled on 15-18, for flat nose and HP rifle blts, some with softer noses. Don't need expansion for paper, and am convinced that wide nose/or HP's, 15-18 BH at reasonable vol will provide the expansion that I need . That is particularly true for me with cals like 375 H&H at 18-1900, or 45-70 at about 1600 +/-. For the 7mm's, 30's, and 8MM's, for hunting, 15-18 is what I am comfortable with but I want vols in the 2000-2200 +/-range, w/a fairly wide nose. My experiences have led me to what I am comfortable with at the present, and at 76 yrs old, am prone to make changes very slowly. Regardless, for hunting I seldom would take a shot at much over 100 yds, and I have a firm belief that proper bullet placement with cast bullets of appropriate design and BH will insure good humane kills.
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freebullet
Guest
Excellent information, thank you very much.
My volume loading for pistols clearly has me using alloy that's to soft for the rifles. I've taken a hard look at how I should move forward with rifle/mag pistol alloys, and really appreciate the insights based on experience.
My volume loading for pistols clearly has me using alloy that's to soft for the rifles. I've taken a hard look at how I should move forward with rifle/mag pistol alloys, and really appreciate the insights based on experience.
Here is an example of what happens when things get out of whack.
I was hunting deer about 5 years ago with my father. We were on a hillside over looking an area where deer passed thru. Great location. Shot was about 100 yards. Using my 1895 Marlin in 45-70 with an NOE 350 RD HP. Alloy was too hard and I was driving them around 1600 fps. Shot hit a shoulder blade, deer dropped like a rock. Grabbed my stuff, walked down the hill, look up and no deer. Got lucky and had some guys on the neighbors place that helped track it down and I got it, after someone placed a 308 up the ass. Yeah, that was fun to field dress. Yuck.
You can see how the entire nose blew off the bullet. No penetration of the shoulder blade at all, this was found in the neck as I was cutting the head off!
Pretty well sold me on the fact that HPs need to be cast of the right alloy and shot at the right velocity for hunting use. This one made it worse as the pin creates a HUGE cavity that opens easily. Cast em a bit to hard and the nose just blows off leaving a very short was cutter that doesn't penetrate for diddly.
I was hunting deer about 5 years ago with my father. We were on a hillside over looking an area where deer passed thru. Great location. Shot was about 100 yards. Using my 1895 Marlin in 45-70 with an NOE 350 RD HP. Alloy was too hard and I was driving them around 1600 fps. Shot hit a shoulder blade, deer dropped like a rock. Grabbed my stuff, walked down the hill, look up and no deer. Got lucky and had some guys on the neighbors place that helped track it down and I got it, after someone placed a 308 up the ass. Yeah, that was fun to field dress. Yuck.
You can see how the entire nose blew off the bullet. No penetration of the shoulder blade at all, this was found in the neck as I was cutting the head off!
Pretty well sold me on the fact that HPs need to be cast of the right alloy and shot at the right velocity for hunting use. This one made it worse as the pin creates a HUGE cavity that opens easily. Cast em a bit to hard and the nose just blows off leaving a very short was cutter that doesn't penetrate for diddly.
Ian
Notorious member
If they're too brittle, solid points will do that exact same thing too when they hit bone. In fact, air-cooled straight WW at 2100 fps will dang sure do it in .30 caliber. The little buck I killed a couple years ago was sort of like that story, but the deer didn't go far. I punched him quartering (more like 7/8) away behind the third rib on the right side thinking it was a gimme liver/lung/heart shot that wouldn't bugger either shoulder. He jumped, stumbled, and fell behind some brush. So I thumb the hammer back to half-cock, shoulder my pack, and make my way over to him....only to find him standing a few yards from where he fell, just looking at my curiously. My first thought was "Another one???", I had two tags so I shouldered the rifle and shot him again, this time as he turned on his heel away from me and I tried the same shot again, but had to pull it into his ham as I was a split second too late and he had turned too far away. It was in fact the same deer who had suffered five or six broken ribs from the first shot which had turned on the first rib slightly and exited the right side of his throat, leaving a neat .30 caliber hole in the hide that was rather difficult to find. The bullet never got into the chest cavity, just raked through all those ribs and didn't expand at all judging by the exit hole, and there wasn't a drop of blood at either end. The second shot shattered the right rear thigh bone up high, somehow missed most of the the guts, and stopped behind the left shoulder blade, breaking one rib. The recovered bullet was half gone with virtually no expansion, in fact what was left looked exactly like one in the picture above except it was a 311041 solid. I saved most of the bloodshot ham and ate that right away, but no more ACWW bullets for me out of that one. In the past I've had better luck using ACWW plus about 2% extra tin, and shooting them at around 18-1900 fps, but still they didn't mushroom like I wanted them to. Now, water-quenched 50/50 will do very well above 2K fps.
Bret4207
At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I wish the whole Bhn thing had never, ever been associated with lead alloy bullets. I've harped on this for years, I'm sure those that know me have gotten tired of my "I can give you 3 different Bhns from the same alloy or the same reading from 3 different alloys." Bhn #'s mean about as much as "hardcast" unless you know the exactly make up and treatment of the alloy and have accurate testers. Much better IMHO is to start with a readily available alloy and see if it will do what you want. I've wasted a lot of time going harder and harder and harder and got nowhere. Maybe if I was a speed freak those Bhn's over 22-23 would be my goal, but I do 90% of what I need with juiced WW (I still have a bunch) running 13-18 Bhn up to about 2K in most rifles and 1k-1.2 in revolvers. Of course I tend to use cast friendly calibers and platforms. If I ever get a wild hair to try and get my 22-250 to lead at 3K.......
Winelover
North Central Arkansas
Pretty much my philosophy when it comes to lead alloy...just ask Rick...I'll use practically anything. Hard alloy gets cut with 50% pure. If and when I need harder than W/W alloy, it gets heat treated. I have a sand berm for my backyard range, so whatever I shoot gets all mixed together in the recycle process, anyways. Never had a hardness tester or the need for one.
Bret4207
At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Everyone seems to want to go at full jacketed velocity, or think they do, and that's what drives a lot of the "hard" stuff. The other part is advertising fluff that just gets into our collective minds. "Hard" does not stop leading, we know fit does that. But that doesn't make anyone money, does it? Well, I take that back. Proper fit does make some money for those guys turning out proper sized moulds. That's good IMO.
I did the "hard cast" thing for a while years ago. Not any more, I learned better.
My most used alloy is simple range scrap. Air cooled it runs 10 BHn, I can heat treat it to over 20 if I need to.
I am like Winelover, if I need "harder" then I heat treat, I don't add a bunch of Sb.
I can see few places where an alloy like Lyman 2 is really needed.
My most used alloy is simple range scrap. Air cooled it runs 10 BHn, I can heat treat it to over 20 if I need to.
I am like Winelover, if I need "harder" then I heat treat, I don't add a bunch of Sb.
I can see few places where an alloy like Lyman 2 is really needed.
Joe7436
Member
The only reason I'm using "hard" presently is to push the envelope and see where it goes. Hard to me currently is 50/50 hardened just a tad. It's not enough to change the weight or size of the bullet much, but it's much harder when I oven heat treat it. What's it good for besides high velocity? Nothing I can see aside from punching holes in paper. I would never use ot for hunting. Maybe varmints, but I did shoot a groundhog with my 6x45 at high velocity using water quenched 50/50. It put the critters lights out immediately, but to tell you the truth a 22 LR hollow point would have made the same wound or more. So maybe for very small varmints it would hydroshock them more then anything like the bullet expanding because it's not going to. Maybe 50/50 with the 6mm on a larger animal then would get the bullet to expand. In fact I'm positive it would.
KHornet
Well-Known Member
Many years ago in the apple orchards near Gettysburg Pa, I shot, a witnessed wood chuck with a 150 gr cast flat nose bullet in a 30-30, at probably 35-40 yds. Don't recall the load, but it was in all probability a 3031 charge with a vol around 2000 or so. My friend still talks about the shot with a cast bullet, as the chuck (big old boar) was hit center on a slight angle, and just sort of expanded and expired. Bullet was probably scrounged wheel weights. He says it just sort of puffed up and died. Did not exit. Have never seen that reaction with cast on any animal since!
fiver
Well-Known Member
those chucks have some tough hide, I tried to cut the tail off a rock chuck and the bone was the easy part.
I have had some poor success with varmint hunting and hard alloys.
one of my initial thoughts was to use lino-type in my 223's zipping along and I figured it would shatter on impact,,, wrong.
cutting the lino in half and adding more tin increased my accuracy, but those bullets went right on through too and even a 165gr 30 cal on a 6 ounce ground squirrel just made them flop around with holes in them.
going softer and softer made them behave properly on the little guy's.
a lesson I later had to re-teach myself when I started swaging and finally got bullets accurate enough to varmint hunt with, my first efforts lead to fmj type performance but as I tested a little more and thought about things a bit I realized that a jacketed bullets manipulations are just as important [and are almost parallel] as a cast bullets manipulations are.
and if you change the striking velocity, your bullets construction and composition are going to need to change with them.
I have had some poor success with varmint hunting and hard alloys.
one of my initial thoughts was to use lino-type in my 223's zipping along and I figured it would shatter on impact,,, wrong.
cutting the lino in half and adding more tin increased my accuracy, but those bullets went right on through too and even a 165gr 30 cal on a 6 ounce ground squirrel just made them flop around with holes in them.
going softer and softer made them behave properly on the little guy's.
a lesson I later had to re-teach myself when I started swaging and finally got bullets accurate enough to varmint hunt with, my first efforts lead to fmj type performance but as I tested a little more and thought about things a bit I realized that a jacketed bullets manipulations are just as important [and are almost parallel] as a cast bullets manipulations are.
and if you change the striking velocity, your bullets construction and composition are going to need to change with them.
3
358156hp
Guest
I've seen bullets cast with a divider in the nose, often simply a piece of foil or even cigarette paper. Has anybody tried this with a small caliber for varmints? As mentioned above, fragmentation might be preferable to expansion when hunting the little fellas.
45 2.1
Active Member
You've have some of it.............. but rpm isn't it. It varies with velocity about what you should do. Alloys and the treatment of them need to be learned well. The amount of hardening constituents in an alloy control a lot of what happens.........use less and heat treat for usage. Weakening the nose via: nose anneal, soft nose bullet, hollow pointing and size/shape/depth thereof, splitting the nose, two part bullets etc. all have places.
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freebullet
Guest
Ooo boy. Someone mentioned rpm in my thread, hope I don't get banned lol.
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freebullet
Guest
And I appreciate your insight on the matter, I was making a joke since it's a highly contested subject.
I don't have enough experience with pushing the velocity limits with cast to have a dog in those fights. The more I do it the more I learn.
I don't have enough experience with pushing the velocity limits with cast to have a dog in those fights. The more I do it the more I learn.