Hard Cast bullets

[gmww]

I've made up a few .45 cal 500 grn bullets (lee mould) for my fast twist underhammer. They are made of wheel weights and dropped from the mold to a bucket of water. I pre-size them to fit my barrel from a custom sizer made from 2" of my barrel cut off. Lands and groves created when sizing.

I originally cast them to see how they would do in the fast twist barrel. They did very well. Then I was thinking this would pretty much poke holes in the animal I shoot. Creating a wound channel to bleed from on both sides. Or for the Aoudad I shoot in Tx it would theoretically puncture through shoulders to get to vitals. Their vitals are a little more forward than our home grown animals.

Anyone have experience with a very hard hardcast bullet?

 

[jtmattison]

I can't speak from on-game experience but if they are too hard I would worry about them fragmenting.
They might break the shoulder going in then fragment without doing any more serious damage.
I'd be afraid of losing a wounded animal.

I have heard reports of game being shot in the vitals with hard-cast bullets and even though they pass through, the animal does not bleed well because the hole is so small.
I've read of animals that don't even react to being shot because of this.

HD

 

[rabjr]

Problem with most of those bullets molds is the nose design. They really aren't designed for game. Find one with a wide meplat, wider the better and you will then have a sledge hammer effect on game.

 

[Vaino]

One of the excellent properties of soft lead is that it's very plastic {pliable} thereby shedding very little weight even though it's mis-shapen. Four years ago I hit an adult elk at 107 yds. {paced off} broadside and it ran 40 yds. The .54 RB was recovered just under the hide of the opposite shoulder and was the size of a quarter. The RB's energy terminated inside the elk. Don't really know if I'd like a harder "bullet" that would exit the animal and spend part of it's energy in a tree or whatever, although a possibly better blood trail could result. Shattering of a harder alloy as mentioned previously is a distinct possibility seeing such a bullet doesn't have a jacket. Modern, jacketed ammo was developed for the military to eliminate leading, feeding problems and transporting damage and ever since, the sporting ammo companies have tried various gimmicks to make the bullets expand and stay together just as a soft lead RB does. Just thinking out loud....Fred

 

[longcruise]

I've made up a few .45 cal 500 grn bullets (lee mould) for my fast twist underhammer. They are made of wheel weights and dropped from the mold to a bucket of water. I pre-size them to fit my barrel from a custom sizer made from 2" of my barrel cut off. Lands and groves created when sizing.

I originally cast them to see how they would do in the fast twist barrel. They did very well. Then I was thinking this would pretty much poke holes in the animal I shoot. Creating a wound channel to bleed from on both sides.

Much of what will work will depend on the mould you are using. The Lee 500 that I'm familiar with has a round nose. Water dropping wheel weights could make them pretty dang hard. Probably not hard enough to fragment at ml velocities. With a round nose you will give up wound channel with a bullet that hard.

One thing you can do is make a very small ladle that will pour just about 1/4 or 3/8 inch of the nose. Fire up two pots, one with wheel weights and one with pure lead. First pour the small ladel of pure lead into the mould and follow with the wheel weights. You can also pour soft noses with the small ladle separately and then fit them into the mold before pouring the wheel weight mix on top.

Water dropping can give you quite a bit of variation in hardness. More consistency can be had by air cooling and then heat soak in the oven for about an hour and then very quickly dump them into cold water (mine go in the sink cause it's so close to my wife's oven :haha: ) You can do the oven thing with the cast soft nose/wheel weights too. Run the oven at 300 to 450 degrees the hotter oven will produce a harder wheel weight section. The lead softnose, of course, will not harden.

Also, Lee makes a 405 grain with a fairly flat nose (not the 405 govt) that would probably work well without a soft nose.

Interesting experiment you have going on there. Would like to hear more in the future.

 

[gmww]

I may test it out on some whitetails this fall. I think I'll pass on the oven experiment as the wife would be hitting me on the back of the head. :rotf:

I totally forgot about casting with soft/hard lead together. I think I'll give that a shot too.

 

[Stumpkiller]

My only experiance with m/l conicals on deer is with Maxi-Hunters (they work well). I know locally the earlier non-expanding Maxi-Balls got a bad reputation for use on whitetail for just blowing through deer, unless bone was hit, "like stabbing them with a pencil", making for long blood trails and wounded game. It seems they didn't dump much energy into the deer on the way through. Sort of the full-metal-jacket of cast projectiles.

I have a friend who uses them for hogs where lots of penetration is needed.

Ideally you want a bullet that puts a big hole on both sides of a deer. I've taken several dozen deer with rifled slugs out of shotguns, lead as soft as it can be, and they make a devistating wound out to 100 yards.

The plain 'ol round lead ball also does a great job. I have had two deer drop on the spot. That's as good as any projectile ever devised.

 

[gmww]

I like RB's but this barrel is more of a Sharp's rifle twist. I wanted to see if I could replicate a Sharps twist on a ML. It worked. :grin:

 

[BrownBear]

I've shot a few truckloads of deer, one elk and two moose with "hardcast" bullets from handguns at 1300-1400fps. I put hardcast in parenthesis, because heat treated wheelweights are by no means true hardcast in some folks' eyes. The good news is that I never had any problem with shattering or breakup, even after shattering the foreleg of a moose at about 20 yards. All but that particular bullet were through and through. Can't say about deformation though on that one though, because somehow we never found the bullet even though it didn't exit. Went into the paunch I'm betting.

Bad news is that if you don't have a good sizes meplat, better put on your tracking glasses. Kills are surprisingly fast with a big meplat, but not so hot with small meplats or RN.

Take or leave that experience with handguns as it might apply to similar velocities from your 45 cal muzzleloader. But with a good sized meplat, I'm betting you'll be very pleased with how it performs.

 

[gmww]

Thanks. I might have to get me one.

 

[oletymepreacher]

A few years ago, I booked a buffalo hunt in Kansas with Lee Hawes. I planned on using a Sharps 45-70. Lee recommended very heavy pure lead bullets with the flattest nose I could pour. His opinion, at least on buffalo,is that harder bullets wouldn't be as effective. On the day of the hunt, there was a lot of snow on the ground, and I didn't want to get the pretty rifle all scarred up and wet, as we would be doing a lot of crawling. I took the buff with 72 cal round ball in a muzzleloader-pure lead of course. Both balls hit bones going in and going out, range was 100 yards.

An interesting experiment would be to take a shoulder blade, packing an inch of wet phone books on one side and two feet of wet phone books on the other side. Fire a round into the inch side, through the shoulder blade, and into the foot, or more, on the other side. Tearing the foot thick wet phone books apart, you will find how your bullets perform.

 

[gmww]

Thanks. I took a buffalo several years back at 50 yards using a .54 hawkens and great plains conicals. It took two solid hits about an 1.5" from each other into the lungs and liver. They didn't exit and it still took 20 mins for the beast to expire.

Them are tough animals

 

[paulvallandigham]

You would have done better using a plain pure lead round ball on that buffalo. The round balls often penetrate better, and certainly do more damage than many conicals, that are cast too hard, and simply never expand at all.

I agree with the suggestion that you do penetration testing with whatever ball or bullet you intend to use. Compare it to a standard load with a PRB fired into the same medium.

I also agree with BrownBear about having a bullet with as flat a nose-- a " wide Meplat "--- as possible. LBT(?) bullets makes cast bullets with the nose being just slightly less in diameter than the diameter of the bullet, but with the broadest, flat meplat you can find in a commercial bullet. They are terrific on game animals, whether fired from a handgun or rifle.

Skip the Round Nose, and pointed bullets. You can't fire the pointed bullets fast enough to take advantage of their better Ballistics Coefficient, and a lead pointed bullet without a copper or brass or aluminum jacket protecting it, is just going to collapse very quickly on impact, so you don't get the penetration that a pointed jacketed bullet delivers. :thumbsup:

 

[Blizzard of '93]

I cast the Lee REAL slugs from as soft lead as possible - they shoot fine with my PRB powder charge of 72 gr 3f in my .50.
haven't had a chance to go after feral hog with them yet but I'm ready when opportunity presents.
I've taken 2 already with cast conicals from Lee molds in my '58 .44 and ROA. the smaller one shot (nailed him good in skull)from '58 the larger hog two shots (from ROA)

 

[doulos]

I now one thing, with that weight they don't have to be hard cast to penetrate. Ive put 460 grain soft lead conicals through both shoulders of a whitetail at 125 yards. Go to the Shiloh Arms forum and see what those guys are using out of their Sharps. Many of those guys have been to Africa hunting with their rifles. Most of them were using 500-535 grain bullets at 20-1 or 30-1. Not exactly hard cast.

In fact the bullet of choice for many of them is the old Government round nose at 30-1. A little different than what most would recommend because of the lack of a flat on the nose. But they say it kills well and assures straight penetration even on the largest of animals. Kind of a big round ball with a tail.

 

[Greenmtnboy]

I have casted hard conicals in the past and diden't get the upset I was looking for and accuracy suffered.
Try a 30 to one tin mix, hard enough for complete penitration(not hitting bone) but soft enough to upset filling the grooves properly.
:thumbsup:

 

[gmww]

I have casted hard conicals in the past and diden't get the upset I was looking for and accuracy suffered.
Try a 30 to one tin mix, hard enough for complete penitration(not hitting bone) but soft enough to upset filling the grooves properly.
:thumbsup:

The way I've gotten around the hardness issue not filling in the lands and grooves is sizing them. When I had the barrel made I had it made a little long. John Taylor cut about 2" off and made a sizer. The bullets are a little over sized for the barrel so I size them. Here is an example of what I do with some hard cast pistol bullets purchase at the store. BTW they do work with the hard cast stuff I've made up also.

But I get the point everyone. Softer lead, bigger front end. :grin:

 

[Greenmtnboy]

you use the sizer as you load correct?
Just wondering because if you are sizing through a sizer with grooves and lands won't it be almost impossable to line up the bullet with grooves and lands on the gun?
:hmm:

 

[gmww]

I pre-size them at home actually and not as I load. I hope that makes sense. The sizer is actually from the original barrel I'm loading too. So the grooves and lands match up. I keep the pre-sized bullets in a speed loader only to protect them. I do have to line them up when loading. It only take a split second. I can do it by feel. I place the bullet on the crown and turn slightly with some downward pressure. When they line up the bullet slips in quite easily. After a while it becomes second nature. :grin:

 

[Idaho Ron]

I have a renegade with a 1-18 twist GM barrel. It is 32" long. I wanted to do the same thing you did. I wanted a 45-90 muzzleloader. I have done a pile of testing. I have shot lead as pure as 5BHN and a hard as 22BHN. I am using the lee 405 Hollow base. Mine actually come out at 386 gr with pure lead. this bullet is a replica of the trap door bullet. I paper patch this bullet.
Like I said I have tested about every hardness of lead I could. The hard lead did shoot good but I had to clean between every shot. It also had a different point of impact. Most of them shot to the left. I never understood why. I shot enough "hard" lead bullets to say that are not my cup of tea.
The pure lead was very forgiving. I can shoot at least 5 shots between cleaning and still get sub 2" groups at 100 yards. In most cases I can get more like 1.5" groups.
I don't like bullets that are harder than 8 BHN.
You might have better luck with the custom sizer.
Ron