hot rod / soft lead/ dead

[XWrench3]

well, i finally tried my hot rod soft lead idea in my 300 win mag. using 68 grains of IMR7828. the first shot would have been in the kill zone of a deer sized animal. how a pure soft lead bullet would act at that speed (and no, i did not chrono it) i have no idea. the next two rounds downrange were not even on the 8x11 target @ 100 yards. so, scrap that idea. i am sure a lot of experienced guys are laughing, but this is how you learn. i figured, what the heck, Columbus took a chance.. and i know how to remove lead from a barrel, so it was no big deal. so now my question is this, what alloy, and roughly what velocity can i plan on shooting deer sized animals with and have good bullet performance (decent expansion w/o it coming apart)? i know i can drive pure lino hard. but i can not imagine that the bullet would perform well inside of an animal. my thinking is it would either pass straight thru, or blow up. neither of which would be desirable. my mold is a 200 grain lee r/n gas check. with conventional lube grooves. i also have a 160 grain tumble lube groove mold, but i have had issues with leading with that bullet trying to drive it hard. so i bought the 200 grain conventional lube mold, i do not have trouble with this one. is 2400-2500 fps a realistic figure? or do i need to think more like 30-30 velocity? shooting paper is a lot different that hunting. and after several years of just shooting paper, i am thinking it is time to actually use these things for what they were originally designed for.

[44man]

I don't shoot cast in rifles but that velocity is not needed unless you plan on very, very long range.
You don't want real hard in a .30 either, you need some expansion. I would think 30-30 velocities would be just right for deer. You need to find a balance between velocity, expansion, accuracy and distance.
Muzzle energy and velocity does not kill. It is how the energy is applied to the animal that kills and it doesn't matter if it is 1000 fps or 2000 fps.
I call it boolit work!

[Blanket]

I have shot 3 deer with 30 caliber cast bullets in a 30-06. 2 of them were with a Lee 180 grain RNGC cast from WW metal with 5% tin added lubed with 50/50. The load produced 1600 fps at about 20 ft from the muzzle. The 3rd was with a 190 grain bullet from a mold I made and patched with teflon tape at 2000 fps from the same alloy. All of the shots were broadside behind the shoulder shots and exited leaving about a 1/2 hole. All 3 ran between 50 to 150 yards before piling up with not much of a blood trail. I have shot both of these loads into test media of wet newsprint and basically the nose flattened out less than twice the bullet diameter. Worked well in these three deer at those velocities. All were bigger deer as well..... Russ

[onondaga]

Lyman #2 alloy continues to be the most universally recommended hunting and general shooting alloy for the same old reason:

You can expect it to expand double diameter on game at any range out to where your boolit delivers 1000 foot pounds. It is not too soft for that and it is hard enough to hold up to loadings that deliver that kind of energy at hunting distances and retain 100% boolit weight with great expansion. I believe it is superior to any jacketed bullet .

I generally run ballistic charts on my loads to determine where that 1000 foot pound clean kill maximum distance is for my rifles using Lyman #2. Gas Checking boolits will greatly extend the load range of #2 for higher velocity, higher pressure loads approaching jacketed factory ammo levels.

Try the free online software here and plug in your data on your load:

http://www.handloads.com/calc/index.html

You will be able to read energy in foot pounds at any range upon calculation. Flat nosed hunting boolits in Lyman #2 deliver this energy and expand the best for a clean kill.

You can get Lyman #2 certified alloy from Rotometals at the top of the page or alloy your own. I alloy clip on wheel-wights and Linotype at 7:3 and get very close to #2 at just over BHN 14. Lyman specifies #2 as 90% lead, 5% Tin ans 5% Antimony for a BHN 15 general purpose shooting alloy.

Charting of my grandson's 30 cal (7.62X39mm) deer hunting load fired out of a Remington Spartan single shot. Read the chart and you can see that his maximum clean kill distance with this load is 140 yards with just over 1000 foot pounds for his 150 grain FN boolit in Lyman #2 :

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c338/rhymeswithwhat/X39Bal.jpg

His ammo groups less than 1 inch at 50 Yards with these #2 alloy boolits.

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c338/rhymeswithwhat/x39ammo.jpg
Gary

[Blanket]

By the calculator my 180/ 1600 fps load was right at 1023, so it should be a less than 100 yard load. Neat calculator, thanks Russ

[williamwaco]

Lyman #2 alloy continues to be the most universally recommended hunting and general shooting alloy for the same old reason:

You can expect it to expand double diameter on game at any range out to where your boolit delivers 1000 foot pounds. It is not too soft for that and it is hard enough to hold up to loadings that deliver that kind of energy at hunting distances and retain 100% boolit weight with great expansion. I believe it is superior to any jacketed bullet .

Gary


+1 for Gary.

I am not sure about it being superior to any jacketed bullet but it is perfectly adequate for what you are asking.

I do not like anything harder than that. It is like stabbing them with an icepick. ( unless you are using large caliber rifles.

[onondaga]

The 1000 Ft. Lbs. with Lyman #2 is pretty much bang flop dead with a vital hit by a flat-nose. Really excellent shot placement doesn't need that much energy for a kill but I like to use that 100 year old standard as a guideline for my grandson.

Hope you try #2. A gas checked boolit with #2 alloy would likely appreciate H4895 with it's smooth pressure curve and some BPI Original filler to 100% density load for your 300 Win. Mag. I checked the Lyman 4th edition for a 150 grain flat-nose GC and used a reduced load calculator, It spit out 39.3 gr H4895 for the 300 WM. That, with BPI to the rim would get you ~2150 fps and a clean burn just like the load I charted above for the X39. I bet you would get great accuracy also as that is a nice low pressure load at a good hunting velocity in 30 caliber and you would have the 1000 ft lbs out at 140 yards.

Reduced Load Calculator:
http://www.handloads.com/calc/reduced.asp


Gary

[XWrench3]

Thanks Gary. You are coming to my aid once again. that's a nice calculator. with "J" bullets, this gun likes IMR7828. and according to the calculator, i should run 45.8g of it to reach 2000 fps. i have never tried reducing that powder this far. has anyone had trouble doing so? it is a pretty slow powder, so i don't THINK there would be any problem. if it doesnt work out, i can always try some reloader 15. but who knows. the 1000 ft lbs mark is always where i have drawn the line as well. there is no sense in wounding an animal, and having it run off to die a mile away, where it can not be found. or worse still, have it live long enough to die from the infection a month later.

[onondaga]

The reduced load calculator is a useful tool but it does not guarantee a load will work. Some powders are too slow and misfire, some will require fillers and compressed loads to light, some powders are too fast and the volume of filler will be heavy enough to make recoil worse.

You need to really know your powders and their characteristics when using that calculator. I hope I am not going to be sorry for recommending it. So, please be careful!

7828 in reduced loads is a tough call. It may not work without a very heavy boolit, filler and a heavy crimp. It may even require the dreaded "Kicker Charge" to work at all.

I have read about reduced loads with 7828 being trouble, again, be careful.

The H4895 is a much better choice.


Gary

[noylj]

I expect that at that velocity (what ever it was), you really could use a gas check.
My hunting with cast is with a .45 or larger caliber where expansion is not an issue. I have generally used a "relatively" soft alloy (about 12 BHN).
For me, I save the "little" 7mm and .30s for targets and fun.

[geargnasher]

+1 Gary and 44man, good real-world perspective.

I'd like to add one thing: Soft lead can be fired at impressive velocities and with good accuracy using nothing more than a paper patch. Paul Matthews has done a lot of testing with pure, dead-soft lead up to 2200 fps (which he feels is generally the limit) using paper-patched boolits. If you harden them up SOME, even to 8-10 bhn, the velocity can be pushed quite a bit more and still have good accuracy and a spotless bore. Something to keep in mind for shooting high-velocity soft lead boolits.

Gear

[XWrench3]

i have tried paper patching a little in my 45-70, mostly because i have a mold that drops undersized boolits. by beagleing it, they come out so out of round that it is not worth the effort. i do not have any 30 caliber molds that drop undersized. so i haven't tried p.p.ing in 30 cal. i have not looked around for a p.p. 30 caliber mold. that is something i may consider in the future, but right now, it is to close to hunting season to worry about for this year. besides, money is tight right now. and I have to start thinking about that major expenditure day (for parents) Christmas day. i loaded up a few rounds with 7828, but nothing i initially tried worked out well. however, 3 of the loads i tried with reloader 7 did. unfortunately, the chronograph was sitting at home (i seem to forget something every time i go), so i will have to repeat that part of the test.

[goofyoldfart]

XWrench3: you can try using a standard GG boolit, sized down and then patch up to groove diameter. Many say the GG's actually help with the griping of the paper. God Bless to all.

goofyoldfart

[XWrench3]

Goofyoldfart, are you saying to paper patch and then add the gas check?

[geargnasher]

Nope, he's saying use a regular grease-groove, gas-check style boolit and size it to just over bore diameter sans the check, and patch it back up to groove. GG=Grease Groove, and indeed they do help grip the paper at high-velocity compared to smooth-sided boolits designed for paper jackets. The gas check shank makes no difference in performance, and in fact makes it easier to twist the tail of the patch on .30 caliber and smaller.

Gear

[Bret4207]

My experiments with carcasses and game made me a fan of good old fashioned WW with a little a tin added for castability. It's a little softer than #2 and seems to hold together and expand decently between 1600-2200fps using FN and some RN designs in 7mm-35 cal. at least. I have not yet found a test medium that duplicates flesh. I've tried newspaper wet and dry, other papers, peat moss wet and dry, wood, dirt and sand of various types wet and dry and of course water jugs. So what you test with and what you find in the field may well be two different things.

The one constant I've found is that a FN always seems to do more damage and expand a bit more than a RN in cast. The sharper the RN, the less it seems to expand and damage all else being equal.

[XWrench3]

Bret4207, that makes perfect sense, as the flat nose bullet would get more of the shock of impact transferred back into the boolit, making it mushroom more. a spitzer bullet, would tend to penetrate deeper in soft flesh. but if it hits bone, i would think that they would both be about the same.

[onondaga]

The flat nose is a game getter. A large meplat with a sharp edge also cuts like a blade on the edge in addition to punching with the flat nose. The pointed and round nose boolits push the blood vessels aside when they pierce through tissue. To me the difference is like "shock and awe" versus an ice pick.

The bigger the meplat, the more impressed I am with hunting boolits. That is why I got the RanchDog boolit mold for my .458 and it is also why I want it for my 30 cal. rifles too.

Gary

[MikeS]

Gary:

This is slightly off topic, but I wanted to ask you a question regarding Lyman #2. That alloy (or one very close to it) is what I use for casting all my boolits other than using pure for muzzleloaders. I was wondering if you think #2 is too hard to cast .45 caliber HP pistol boolits used for personal defense from a 4" 45ACP? I mean I know it can be done, but will they be too hard to do any expansion? I understand that linotype can fragment very easily, but would I need to worry about that using #2 as well? My Lyman #2 alloy is made with 26lbs of pure, 20lbs of stereotype, and 2lbs of tin. I forget who it was, but when I first decided to start using Lyman #2, a forum member here gave me those proportions as being correct for making it from the materials I had on hand, and I've stuck with them, and whenever I test the hardness of my boolits I consistently get a reading of slightly more than 8 from my SAECO tester which according to the chart would be right around 15bhn which is right for Lyman #2.

[onondaga]

Lyman #2 needs to hit tissue with 1000 foot pounds to get the double caliber expansion it is famous for.

Lower the energy and there will be less expansion but a hollow-point can somewhat compensate by more surface area of the boolit nose being exposed on impact.

A raised energy level will begin to fragment even a flatnose boolit if the energy is far enough above 1000 foot pounds. The hollow-point boolit will be even more effected.

A 220 grain lead RN out of a .45 ACP at 850 fps only delivers about 355 foot pounds of energy at the muzzle. This is not enough to expand Lyman #2 alloy at all even with a hollow point. The largest diameter boolit that will function is a good choice in a 45ACP with lead and a truncated semi-wad-cutter would be my first choice for protection with lead at that load level.

You will need a much softer alloy to get substantial expansion at that energy level. 98.5%lead : 1.5% tin would be more promising and even at that load level with such a soft BHN, a gas check would be a good thing to protect the boolit base and give accuracy a better chance with the soft alloy at 850 fps. Of course a good boolit fit is even more important with soft alloys.

Harder alloys are usually needed with 45 ACPs to hold up through feeding unless the pistol is very finely tuned for the specific boolit and load level.

Gary

[Bret4207]

I'm not Gary, but IMO you're better off with a FN than a HP in the non magnum pistol and revolver rounds. Depending on expansion at 8-900 pfs is a pretty iffy thing. A good FN like the 45BD has will always work, no if's, and's or but's.