Best alloy for 30-06 and 45-70 hunting bullets

[billdean]

I presently load my 45-70 with jacketed bullets..... 350 Speers that run about 1950fps. My 30-06 I load with 180gr Sierra BT at 2600fps. I am just starting too cast for both of them and would like an alloy that will work from 1800fps to about 2400,2500fps. I am not ready to mix my own yet and would like to just buy the best alloy I can for these 2 rifles and the noted speed. The molds are made by accurate. I have 30 lbs of Hardball I bought from Rotometals. Will this work OK or is there another alloy that would work better? Then again maybe what I am trying to do is not possible or I have not provide enough information. Both bullets have gas checks.

[geargnasher]

Mix one part Hardball and two parts lead. Water-quench from a hot mould and wait a month before loading them, that will do what you ask as far as the alloy itself is concerned.

As far as the velocity you wish to achieve, that will be fairly simple with either rifle assuming modern quality in good condition. Good, hunting accuracy with the 45/70 at close to the velocity you shoot your J-words will be reasonably easy to achieve, and much, much more difficult with the .30-'06.

Gear

[1Shirt]

Don't believe that there is any such thing as best for alloys for what you ask. Gear's answer is good, and I would only add that it depends a whole lot on how much paper you want to punch to learn.
1Shirt!

[landers]

Billdean I had the same question, I am gearing up for the fall hunting season and would like to cast for my 45-70. I was wondering how the 20-1 alloy I use for my HP pistol bullets would work. I was thinking the softer alloy would give some expansion at the metplate, but not like a hollow point, allowing it to penetrate deeper. Just a thought, I am interested in others input.

Geargnasher- what hardness does your alloy work out to be?

[billdean]

Mix one part Hardball and two parts lead. Water-quench from a hot mould and wait a month before loading them, that will do what you ask as far as the alloy itself is concerned.

As far as the velocity you wish to achieve, that will be fairly simple with either rifle assuming modern quality in good condition. Good, hunting accuracy with the 45/70 at close to the velocity you shoot your J-words will be reasonably easy to achieve, and much, much more difficult with the .30-'06.

Gear

What hardness would I gain from this? Its seems as it would be softer than the Hardball..........Then again the water quench may make the difference. What would happen if you water quench the hard ball...........Would it be to hard? Mostly in Alaska I would want something that would stay together
hunting the heavy bone critters like Grizzly and Moose.

[runfiverun]

the water quenching of the alloy gear mentions will bring the hardness back to the 16 or so range.
it however brings another whole set of rules to the game.
it allows the boolits to remain malleable and flexible without shear stress.
you don't need expansion or even high velocity for the 45/70 to work.
it does it's job through penetration and moving stuff around inside the animal
that's what a flat nose is for.
the 0-6 works the same way, penetration and disruption only on a smaller scale.
as far as going 20 something hundred that is well,, not impossible, but you ain't gonna do it today or tomorrow.
there are some good links on what you need to do in my sticky 'something that may help' on page 5.
the rest is gonna be trial and error.

[DrCaveman]

Ok this has prob been covered in a sticky but this thread seems a good occasion to revisit

Runfiveun & gear: you are saying that a softer alloy water quenched will be better than a harder alloy air cooled. Is this because the quenching is only tempering the outside of the boolit, sort of creating a shell? So this helps to maintain accuracy at higher pressure/velocity because the shell is able to withstand extreme forces of rifling and obturation without deforming/skidding?

Then, when the boolit reaches its hard target, the interior is still soft and so will expand to some degree, and more importantly not fragment as it penetrates?

So, start with low BHN alloy (maybe 10-12) with some antimony. Water quench for an exterior BHN of 16 or so. As far as rifle is concerned, boolit is 16 bhn. As far as target is concerned, boolit is 10 bhn.

Is this what you are saying or am i simplifying too much?

[btroj]

That is exactly what I do Dr Caveman.
With the water dropping you get enough hardness for accuracy and velocity but without the extra Sb and the brittleness it causes.
Hardness isn't always a great thing if it leads to a bullet that breaks up on impact.

[geargnasher]

A water-quenched, low-antimony .30 caliber boolit will have the same hardness throughout once it ages. 45 caliber and up can have softer cores, but the 'shell" is still very thick. Runfiverun explained why I recommended that alloy for both rifles mentioned in the third line of his post above.

Stop thinking in terms of "hardness" and "velocity" because that ain't where it's at when you start pushing things fast with cast boolits and trying to kill things with them.

The alloy I mentioned making should fully harden to about 18 bhn, but it depends on your casting temperature. The Toughness Quotient is measured very precisely, with a big hammer.

Gear

[billdean]

Geargnasher...........I appreciate your reply as well as the rest of you. I am new to casting...........well I have casted my own muzzle-loader bullets for many years........I am thinking casting modern rifle boolits may be a different story though. It seems as though casting can get pretty technical for the average guy.

I will order some pure lead to mix with my hardball if I can figure out which one. There seems to be many different types and cost to pure lead. I am not sure what that's about yet.

Will this 2 to 1 mixture of hardball and pure lead make a bullet the same size as just the hardball? Or will it cast it a different size?

[geargnasher]

The closer to pure you go, the smaller they go, but it normally doesn't cause issues unless your mould is borderline too small for the gun already.

There's a lot to this if you want to squeeze the last bit of velocity and accuracy out of your cast boolits. It doesn't have to be that tough, though. Start with the 45/70, do some reading, put together some loads, and go try them. This isn't just "follow the recipe" stuff with cast like it is with jacketed, each gun has it's own personality and you have to find what it likes. Decide what YOU like or need your cast boolits to do, and we can approach this with more specific advice on things to try, which will shorten your learning curve considerably.

One thing at a time. After you get the hang of the basics for loading and shooting cast, you can work on tuning those loads for optimum accuracy. Most of the tuning has nothing to do with the powder charge.

Cast is an entirely different set of "rules", and there are often many "right" ways to follow them, so keep an open mind.

Gear

[WHITETAIL]

You did not say what type of launching
platform you are useing for the 45-70 or the 3006.
Is the 45-70 a Trap door, Marlin, Handy rifle, or a Remington.
They take diferant powder levels.:holysheep

[billdean]

You did not say what type of launching
platform you are useing for the 45-70 or the 3006.
Is the 45-70 a Trap door, Marlin, Handy rifle, or a Remington.
They take diferant powder levels.:holysheep

The 45-70 is Marlin 1895g JM Ported. My 30-06 is a Sako 75 Finnlight.
Currently I use 52gr H322 powder with 350gr Speer for the 45-70................30-06 I use 60gr of H4831sc and 180 Sierra BT.