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bbwhais
07-22-2013, 01:42 AM
I have a Marlin 444 and am reloading Lyman 250 gn devistators with gas checks to 1950fps. Question is 50/50, lino / pure soft enough to get reliable expantion / penatration on big hogs 200+lbs? On PA white-tails have not been able to recover any boolits to deturmine expantion. Any input or experience would be greatly apriecated.

leftiye
07-22-2013, 06:27 AM
The Devastator has a huge hollow point. I reduced the diameter of the point on the nose punch a little on mine, but mainly the depth to make a moderate hollow point cavity in the finished product. If driven at 2400 fps or thereabouts from a 22-24 inch barrel I'd expect the stock Devastator to lose a fair amount of weight after impacting something as tough and dense as a hog. I've got .44 boolit molds as heavy as 400 grains. Though these might not stabilize in a 38 inch twist, if fired in the proper barrel, the .444 becomes a much more well rounded cartridge. The 311 grain Lee does come to mind.

Blammer
07-22-2013, 02:43 PM
personally, I would use that same projectile in a flat point configuration with your current alloy in your 444 and you will have a dandy hog killer.

May have to fashion a new pin to make a FP

Gray Fox
07-22-2013, 03:57 PM
What you can also do is instead of the hollow point portion, just close the mold and drop in a .177 BB and make sure it settles in the hollow point hole before pouring the alloy in. If you are concerned that the exposed rounded BB might set off a primer in a magazine tube, just give the boolit a couple strokes with a file after it is loaded in the cartridge. I do this process to get about a 350 grain flat point in my Lyman 330 grain HP .45-70 mold. GF

frankenfab
07-22-2013, 05:41 PM
50/50 lino will be too brittle to get expansion. 50% WW/pure would be better.

bbwhais
07-22-2013, 06:17 PM
Thanks for the alloy sugestion. I had never recovered any expended boolits to see if they had openned up. On a side note my step father is talking his brother out of two 5 gallon buckets of clip on ww and 200 lbs of old lead pipe he was saving to scrap. Time to break out the propane frier burner and cast iron fry pan.

AricTheRed
07-22-2013, 07:24 PM
bbwhais,

I have done a bunch of load development and penetration testing with a different boolit and want to share the results.

I have been using a Saeco 300gr RNFPGC and had it modified by Erik at http://www.hollowpointmold.com/ to be able to drop two, cup point, hollow point, or flatpoint.

76828

This photo is only the flatpoints as recovered from wetpack. To make my hillbilly-ballistics-gel I took old phonebooks and catalogs and soaked then in a large rubbermaid tub at the shooting spot. Then after the books swelled up to more than tripple their original thickness we stacked them in a row of cardboard boxes.

We shot these boxes from about 50 feet to measure penetration and expansion.

In addition to the castboolits below we have tested commercial hollowpoints for 9mm, 45 and 40sw like gold dot, commercial cast, federal EFMJ, 12 and 20 ga rifled slugs, .223fmj, 308fmj, 308sp, 6.5x55fmj, but back to the matter at hand...

I cast up a bunch of boolits from some lyman#2 (BHN 15) I got From Rotometals.com and ran them through an 1894ss Marlin and a 7 1/2" Super Redhawk.

From left to right the impact velocity and penetration depth of the recovered boolits was 1600fps 20", 1700fps 17", 1450fps 26", and a squib that I needed a cleaning rod to clear.

The faster impacting boolits tumbled after expanding and shed their gas checks because of the Marlin's slow rate of twist (1:38") however I have tested this particular combination with 10 shots fired with the same load, rifle, wetpack technique and have never had over 17" of penetration even if the projectile did not tumble. The penetration on the cup and hollowpoint versions was less and they shed all of the boolit that was hollowed because of the relatively brittle lyman#2. My intentions on those was not to create expanding projectiles but to go back to the original idea of "express" designs to get higher muzzle velocity at the expense of retained weight. The cup and hollowpoints pick up 50 and 100 fps respectively with the same powder charge.

For results of a boolit with a hollowpoint cavity similar to your devestator check out...

76829

Impact velocity is noted to the right of the recovered rounds, all of these penetrated about 10" in my hillbilly-ballistics-gel. The recovered boolit I did not include here was the tiny fragments that produced a fist sized cavity about 4 1/2" deep with a 1750fps impact velocity.

The point I'm trying to make here is your 50/50 lino&lead will basically be 15 BHN. If you load up hollowpoints with that alloy they will expand and shed the petals at any velocity over prolly 1500fps and you will be left with a much lighter boolit capable of less penetration.

With hollowpoint boolits it is a bit of a dance with BHN and impact velocity. I don't want to discourage you from your stated goal but keep in mind that violent expansion and deep penetration with cast seem to be at opposite ends of the performance spectrum.

AricTheRed
07-22-2013, 07:32 PM
By the way at the bottom of the rotometals bullet casting page at...

http://www.rotometals.com/Bullet-Casting-Alloys-s/5.htm

they have a handy dandy BHN estimation formula

"Basic Rules for Harding Lead-"

For every 1% additional tin, Brinell hardness increases 0.3.
For every 1% additional antimony, Brinell hardness increases 0.9.
For a simple equation,
Brinell = 8.60 + ( 0.29 * Tin ) + ( 0.92 * Antimony )

and for hollowpoint mold stuff check out Erik's pages I found of particular use the expansion results page. By looking at the other results I was able to estimate what hardness I needed for my particular results.

http://www.hollowpointmold.com/expansion-results/

enoch59
07-22-2013, 09:41 PM
bbwhais, I have the same mold as do you and after destroying a complete back quarter off of a nice buck a few years ago and creating enough bloodshot to make me sick I retired that bullet for going into the bush after a wounded bear or taking on ten gang members with one shot ! I'm sure it would flatten anything it hit but I personally would go with a 300+ WFN cast bullet stoked with some H335. I shoot a load that calls for a 330 gr. WFN packed with 56.0 grs. of H335 and it hits hard. The bullet holds together and just keeps on trucking thru its intended target from front to back. I do have load data for the devastator if you'd like that as well.

DougGuy
07-22-2013, 09:56 PM
I'm also changing over to the WFN GC and softer alloy school of thought for my hunting loads in both .44 Magnum and .45 Colt.

Accuracy with the .45 has been good, driving these at 1100-1200f/s out of pistol at close range on deer is likely to not produce expansion but then again the wide meplat cuts a golfball sized wound channel and usually makes two very nice sized holes, the animals I have shot have ran less than 20 feet.

A wide meplat flat nose with just the right alloy for the velocity, maybe 50/50 ww to soft lead with 2% tin added would be a better choice for me than a harder HP.

bbwhais
07-23-2013, 04:20 PM
My initial intent for this load was for the boolit to punch through the sholder and have enough retained energy to scramble the heart and lungs. For through and through or end to end shots I use BTB 330 gn wfn at 2100 fps. I think that the devistator will stay in the line up with a softer alloy and be reserved for brown tastys aka deer. Lymans 240 gn rnfp if cast soft enough will expand yet still retain enough mass to drop the oinker.

Larry Gibson
07-24-2013, 11:39 AM
50/50 lino will be too brittle to get expansion. 50% WW/pure would be better.

frankenfab is correct. I have a bit of experience with that bullet also. The lino/lead alloy (even at 50/50) contains too much antimony and not enough tin. If WWs are not available then mix your lead at 16-1 with tin and consider lowering the velocity down into the 1600 - 1700 fps range. The Devastator out of 16-1 or WW/lead alloyse is a very, very good bullet and will give excellent expansion and penetration on those 200+ lb pigs.......been there, done that.

Larry Gibson

richhodg66
07-26-2013, 11:27 PM
Check out the recent thread "Cast Boolit Hog Smash Down Under". The Op in that thread shot a lot of hogs with that Lyman Devastator in a .44 Magnum lever gun with great results.

enoch59
07-28-2013, 11:36 PM
You can also heat treat your bullets to harden and then anneal the heads to drop them back to a BHN 9. I'm doing that with some 250 gr SWC's for deer this year. I'm shooting these out of my Marlin 444 at 2200 mv. Can you say Goodnight !