Hollow points

Maybe a dumb idea but has anyone tried making hollow points out of a conical bullet to use in a revolver? The idea popped into my head this morning as I was casting bullets and I can't say I e ever seen or heard of any.

No not a dumb idea, but perhaps not considering all the parameters. A Cap-n-Ball revolver should not be a choice for SD, and if it is, whether two legged or four legged foe, penetration would be important. The modern "lead hollow point" bullets are lead alloy, and thus the hollow bit encourages deformation, while those that are all lead having a hollow point tend to break up upon impact. The breakup often causing less terminal performance.

As a hunting option, again, penetration on the game animal is important, and soft lead is soft enough to deform and increase damage potential.

NOW that's only considering the "hollow point" that uses a round hole. TC (iirc) for a time sold a kit to change the nose on TC Maxi-Balls to a + as well as other shapes, and perhaps something other than a "o" would be advantageous.

LD

If my memory serves me well, I remember many years back someone was casting BP revolver bullets with a base of hard lead and a upper portion of soft lead. I don't remember how it worked out for them so all this gibberish that I just wrote may not be correct and just BUNK - .

Yes, has been done, I have tried it. Results showed no benefit. In fact, hollows can plug with fur or fabric and cause less penetration than solids. Some of my testing with the Ruger Old Army showed far better effect with plain old round balls. Reason, they allow a larger powder charge and have less weight thus higher velocity. A good question but IMHO not an idea worth bothering with.

Rifleman1776 said:

..... A good question but IMHO not an idea worth bothering with.

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Ditto that summation.

This hollow is designed to pop open at low speed and yeah, it does. Sooner or later I'm gonna get around to casting some with straight lead and trying it in the 1858. Eh, but I'm not real sure how I'd seat it in the chambers without screwing it up.



By the way, the secret to soft expanding bullets is that they don't have to go fast. They definitely do need to be heavy enough to penetrate even after they pop open or there's no point (no pun intended).

What exactly are you looking to accomplish? If you're looking for SD, a semiwadcutter or flat nose is going to leave a massive wound channel. The hydrostatic shock is much greater than round noses. Modern JHP bullets do a similar thing when the tip mushrooms out.

nkbj said:

This hollow is designed to pop open at low speed and yeah, it does. Sooner or later I'm gonna get around to casting some with straight lead and trying it in the 1858. Eh, but I'm not real sure how I'd seat it in the chambers without screwing it up.

View attachment 348779

By the way, the secret to soft expanding bullets is that they don't have to go fast. They definitely do need to be heavy enough to penetrate even after they pop open or there's no point (no pun intended).

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How about a mandrel with a center point that would go in the hole, and a shoulder that would push on the rim of the nose?

It takes X feet per second to make a bullet expand doesn't it?

nkbj said:

This hollow is designed to pop open at low speed and yeah, it does. Sooner or later I'm gonna get around to casting some with straight lead and trying it in the 1858. Eh, but I'm not real sure how I'd seat it in the chambers without screwing it up.

View attachment 348779

By the way, the secret to soft expanding bullets is that they don't have to go fast. They definitely do need to be heavy enough to penetrate even after they pop open or there's no point (no pun intended).

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Is that from a devastator mold?

It takes X feet per second to make a bullet expand doesn't it?

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Nope. Its all in the materials and or treatment of same.

The $64 issue is a combination of expansion and penetration. Also application.

If its SD then there is a need not to over penetrate and created a possible hit to an innocent person.

For game (assuming something Deer size and above) you may not care if it goes through as long as it expands when it hits and does maximum damage.

Guides up here have taken to 45-70 with hard cast for client protection when shooting brown bears. Keep in mind that they know the bear is there, the client is going to shoot it so its not a surprise encounter and in theory you can penetrate to vitals and or damage a shoulder and stop an angry bear.

An expansion and no penetration either for SD or Game in a BP is a problem.

Equally solids are used on Elephants and Cape Town Buff as you need to penetrate a skull as you are not going to do damage enough with a lung shot to stop one of those.

Then you see the BP penetrating tests on boards and its ????????> Ballistic gel has some merit but game (mostly) or people (rarely is a BP used for SD) are made of wood.

I would rely on a semi-wadcutter. They penetrate and cause massive wound channels. Wide Flat Nose also perform admirably. Yoe don't have to worry about the hollow nose filling up with clothing.

LEE used to offer a 215 grain hollow point mold for the Ruger Old Army.

I believe it still produces the 220 conical mold.

Both molds produce conicals with the same Ogive.

As far as effectiveness for hunting and "Self-defense" from a cap and ball revolver, lead only conicals from the Kaido Ojama flat nosed molds appear to be effective. The LEE round nosed conicals don't seem to have as dramatic a wound channel and hollow point point conicals when they expand appear to show a bit of increased wounding initially but reduction in penetration.

There was a fellow on a now defunct forum who has done just this having sent his custom Accurate mold to Hollow Point Molds getting two HP pins added. He used epoxy on the ram face to create a ram that wouldn’t distort the cavity upon loading. He used it hunting from his Walker and Remington carbine with excellent results. It weighed something like 210 grns or so.

This made me contemplate the old Speer Flying Ashtray of the 80s when HPs weren’t all that great. It had a cavernous cavity and weighed 200 grns.

I’ve contemplated buying a new loading lever assembly for my Remington as I’d like to use the epoxy trick for my WFN hunting bullets but want to retain the ball profile of the original.

Gtrubicon said:

Is that from a devastator mold?

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No sir. It's a Lyman #452484 that I had hollow pointed for use with a very unmentionable dated to 46 years beyond the specified scope of this website, but yep, it has little different from the Lyman Devastator.

Tumbledown said:

How about a mandrel with a center point that would go in the hole, and a shoulder that would push on the rim of the nose?

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Something like that is about what it would take.
What with the way noses will deform on soft lead bullets I got to wondering about interchangeable tips on the loading ram for one piece. If that seems a little overboard, well, there's some people what'll pay huge bucks just for pretty grips. And besides, there's top punches for use with Lyman bullet sizers that are already pre-machined and available off the shelf that might be adaptable to such a design. Any how, I'm thinking about it.

I tried paper patching some hollow based .32 caliber wad cutters with the hollow point facing outward in my .32. They accuracy was not good so I dropped the idea.
Ohio Rusty ><>

ZUG said:

If my memory serves me well, I remember many years back someone was casting BP revolver bullets with a base of hard lead and an upper portion of soft lead. I don't remember how it worked out for them so all this gibberish that I just wrote may not be correct and just BUNK - .

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I remember the same. Also don’t remember where they wound up.