filling HP with soft lead

[acsteve]

I have read lots about varrious methods of heat treating and soft points. I was wonding if a wide deep HP of Lyman could be filled with soft lead to create a Partition of sorts or would the lead just separate. Deer just arnt very tough. I am particularly interested in HP 357- pistol at 1200ft and 45-70 at the lowest velocity which shoots accurately. I am very cautious about shot sellection and only take broad side shots.
Last season I worked up a RD 350gr of 20-1 at 1500ft but work preculded time to hunt.

[Larry Gibson]

Last season I worked up a RD 350gr of 20-1 at 1500ft but work preculded time to hunt.

Should be a thing wrong with that:smile: You'll be pleasantly surprised at how well 20-1 expands when pushed to 1400 - 1500 fps, especially with a WFN. I am a proponant of HPs when they are needed but an HP shouldn't be needed in that application.

However, with HPs filled with lead. Unless filled when the base ally was still hot enough to liquify when the lead was poured the two alloys would not mix to "glue" the lead point in. Lyman made handgun moulds some years back with two cavities; one for the base part of the bullet to be cast harder and the second for the nose portion of lead. The nose had to be epoxied into the base.

You might give some thought to filling the HP cavity with silicone sealent. It sticks in there and makes a nice sort of "ballistic tip" that is soft, flexable, won't fly out and guishes very well enhancing expansion. Witha good GC'd bullet alloys can be soft enough to allow exoellent expansion at quite a bit less than your desired 1200 fps.

Larry Gibson

[missionary5155]

Greetings
Unless you have alot of tin I would switch that mix to 75% lead and 25% WW or harder. Last deer I popped with a 375 Supermag was chugging along at about 1250 fps cast of 75/25. Clipped a rib going in and another going out. Exit was large enough for my thumb to pass through. Used this to duplicate a 38/55. At 1500 fps you could use 50/50 mix and save your tin for mold fill out applications.
The old elephant hunters looked at 20/1 as a hard boolit to pop elephants with. Course that was muzzleloaders and BP cartriges propelling 10 guage and larger monster boolits.
Mike in Peru