I am confused...

[David LaPell]

Well, after doing some testing, I tried out another batch of #358156 hollowpoint bullets. These were a 50/50 mix of wheelweights and soft lead (recycled lead round balls). The BHN on these is about 11. I tried these at the same velocities and powder charge in my Outdoorsman as the other bullets. These were also shot in a stack of wet newspapers and the penetration was about 12 inches. As you can see they expanded and fragmented. The one on the left only weighs 106 grains, the rest about 95 all down from 150 grains. So do I stay with the other bullets that were harder but retained about 125 grains of weight. Which one would be better for whitetails?

These were the softer 11 BHN bullets.
http://i561.photobucket.com/albums/ss57/Smith29-2/picture2620.jpg



The bullets cast from straight wheel weights
http://i561.photobucket.com/albums/ss57/Smith29-2/picture2574.jpg

[runfiverun]

had those not sheared off think of what they would look like.
then imagine the wound chanell that was created as they opened and smeared off.

how is the accuracy???

[MT Gianni]

12" penetration should be a pass through on many whitetails especially through lung tissue. If they are hearty enough to penetrate a shoulder I would hunt with them.

[Larry Gibson]

In most WWs the antimony is high and the tin is low. The antimony makes for a harder bullet and if the ratio to tin is high it creates a brittleness to the alloy. This is evident in the sloughing off or the expansion petals as your pictures show, even with the + 50% lead.

I suggest you add 2% tin to the WWs. This will balance out the ration of tin to animony, make it more soluable in the lead and make it more maleable. Then add the 50% lead.

In your outdoorsman velocities you may find 60 or 70 % lead is necessary to achieve the desired expansion charactoristics. You may also want to try 30-1 or 20-1 lead - tin alloys. All part of the fun is figgering it out. Once you do you will be pleased with the results.

Larry Gibson

[MtGun44]

With proper placement either would result in a quickly dead deer.

Bill

[44man]

The 358156 is a wonderful boolit.
I would go to 75% to 25% pure with a tad of tin added to see if the boolit holds together better. Keeping weight up for deer is important. Petals that shear off will reduce internal damage and penetration. Even a rib can ruin your day.
The .357 is pretty fast but boolit weight is light.
I am not surprised the WW boolits also broke but wet paper is tough on a boolit. It has no relation to an animal.

[gasboffer]

I've taken white-tail with the Hp and the Sp 358156. The solid resulted in more clean kills than the HP. More penetration, I suppose. This was with a .35 Remington.
Straight wheelweights on both.

[nanuk]

I am not surprised the WW boolits also broke but wet paper is tough on a boolit. It has no relation to an animal.


that is also what I have been lead to believe.

[Hardcast416taylor]

After using the 50/50 alloy for a few "years" and the WW straight for a more than a "few years". Those bullets performed about as they should have with the alloys used. As was said already "just imagine the wound channel these bullets would have made".Robert

[Blackwater]

My own experiments with the old Lee 150-SWC bullet (actual wt. 142 gr., nominal) tended to show that tin content was perhaps more important than alloy was. Tin not only helps fluidity, but also tends to help keep HP's noses from fragmenting and/or breaking off. They held together significantly better with 2-4% tin added than when cast of pure WW's. I played with alloys a bit, but the biggest noticable difference came when I played with tin content. More tin riveted out more consistently and held together significantly better.

[jdgabbard]

I agree with those here. Your BHN is a little high, and you've got a little too much brittleness to the boolits. I would suggest like those above, that you go higher on the percentage of pure lead, and lower on the WWs. Add tin as needed for fillout and you should be good.

[Moonie]

More lead, more tin less antimony. Tin makes the alloy tough, antimony makes it brittle, this is an over simplification but 50/50 WW/pure with about 1-2% tin should make a much better alloy for what you want, depending on the velocity. Less velocity more pure lead. For 45 acp velocities 1-20 tin-lead isn't a bad choice but might be a tad soft to make the transit into the chamber unscathed.