I recently picked up a .45 with a 1:48 twist that is nice and light for a backpack hunting rifle. I'd like to use it for blacktails, which are a little smaller than mulies on average. We've got to use lead free ammo here when hunting so the vast majority of commercially-available bullets for .45s aren't an option anymore. I've done some casting of round ball for my .50s with the Rotometals bismuth alloy and they perform well. But in .45 (.440), those balls would only weigh about 100 grains -- pretty darned light for deer, I think. So I'm looking at cast conical options to get the weight up -- preferably anywhere over 130 grains. The alloy runs about 80% the weight of lead.
Let's get the obvious out of the way -- the lead free rule is dumb. I'm sure we all agree there. Moving on...
Bismuth alloy is hard and won't deform much at all if struck on an anvil. But it will crack. If you shoot a rock, it will shatter. If you shoot in sand, you'll recover a ball just like if you shot it with hard cast lead & can probably just shoot it again without much fuss. I use them interchangeably -- hard cast lead round ball for targets and bismuth alloy round ball for hunting. Finding any info on cast bismuth conicals is pretty scarce though. I spent some time last night reading the tests of some guy who was running the same alloy in cartridge rifles and having some success with it. But those were slip fit bullets with gas checks and run through a sizing die. How they'd load and fire in a muzzleloader is still up in the air.
I know I'm going to have to invest some time and cash into experimenting a bit to see what can work and what doesn't work at all. So, at this point, I'm looking for a good place to start. Who has casted conical bullets with a fairly hard alloy, like wheel weight lead? How do they load? What are the drawbacks from a casting, loading and shooting standpoint? Hunting-wise, how have they performed for you? I know they're not going to expand and they'll have a lot of very deep penetration -- no problem there. But if I can only load it with a metal rod and a hammer, then it isn't going to be very practical for field use.
If it's all dead ends, I may just opt for the more commonly-used pistol bullet in a plastic whizzbang. But if I can figure out a home cast option, I'd much prefer that. More fun too.
Let's get the obvious out of the way -- the lead free rule is dumb. I'm sure we all agree there. Moving on...
Bismuth alloy is hard and won't deform much at all if struck on an anvil. But it will crack. If you shoot a rock, it will shatter. If you shoot in sand, you'll recover a ball just like if you shot it with hard cast lead & can probably just shoot it again without much fuss. I use them interchangeably -- hard cast lead round ball for targets and bismuth alloy round ball for hunting. Finding any info on cast bismuth conicals is pretty scarce though. I spent some time last night reading the tests of some guy who was running the same alloy in cartridge rifles and having some success with it. But those were slip fit bullets with gas checks and run through a sizing die. How they'd load and fire in a muzzleloader is still up in the air.
I know I'm going to have to invest some time and cash into experimenting a bit to see what can work and what doesn't work at all. So, at this point, I'm looking for a good place to start. Who has casted conical bullets with a fairly hard alloy, like wheel weight lead? How do they load? What are the drawbacks from a casting, loading and shooting standpoint? Hunting-wise, how have they performed for you? I know they're not going to expand and they'll have a lot of very deep penetration -- no problem there. But if I can only load it with a metal rod and a hammer, then it isn't going to be very practical for field use.
If it's all dead ends, I may just opt for the more commonly-used pistol bullet in a plastic whizzbang. But if I can figure out a home cast option, I'd much prefer that. More fun too.
