good lessons learned yesterday

[Lloyd Smale]

My best friend Al and i had a memorable but fun hunt. Learned some good lessons yesterday. Learned a guy should be trying to fix wha isnt broke.
We spent the whold day looking at bullet failures. First and probably the only good shot of the day was the wifes hog. She shot a 200 lb sow with a #1 4570 loaded with 540wfngcs that I had hollow pointed and cast out of #2. It was a one shot kill but the size of the exit hole told me that if it would have been a bad angle or a bigger animal it would never have exited.
Second animal was a 4 horned sheep that Al shot twice with HPed 470 swc out of his 500 linebaugh. It took two good hits and hardly flinched and was put down with a 450 swcgc that was soft pointed. we tested the bullets in a big chunk of peanut butter dave feeds his animals and the soft point gave about twice the penetration the hp did but a hard cast easily doubled the soft point. So then on the the next sheep. I think it either took 3 or 4 hits from Als 500 to put that one down and i know at the end he had to borrow ammo from me so i dont know wheter it was a soft point or a hp that put it down finally.
Now the buffalo. Probably an 800lb cow. First ill have to buck up and admitt to my great shooting. First shot i missed a cow clean. We went back to work in a differnt spot and i shot a cow on the trott but hit it a bit to far back. We chased it around for well over an hour trying to figure which was the wounded one to get another shot at it. At the end it was gettting toward dark and i told al and dave to just shoot if they could. Well this cow went down in a blaze of glory. The three of us cut loose on it. Dave hit it once in the shoulder with his 500 using my soft points its spun and i put one behind the shoulder on the opposite side. It took off running and Al hit it with a 75 yard off hand shot with his 44 using punch bullets. It hit it in the hump. (only bullet of the day that gave complete penetration) then i put one in the head along with Dave putting one in the head. NOT ONE of these bullets gave good pentration. All were found. All looked like neat little mushrooms and none did the job a good bullet should have. This load was 31 grains of 4227 so it was far from a mild load and it shows a guy how much of a joke energy dump in an animal was. those animals were taking hits from these big guns all day and barely flinching. All the bullet were still inside so all the energy was dump in the animal.
Ill say this and all bet Al will agree totaly. I WIL NEVER hunt anyting bigger then a small whitetail deer witha soft point or hp bullet again and even in the case of a whitetail its more of a stunt to use something other then a hard cast then an advantage as neither of us has ever had a problem with hardcast killing before.

[Bret4207]

You need a bigger gun!

[dubber123]

At least it wasn't getting filmed live for one of those TV hunts Lloyd!

[Lloyd Smale]

funny thing is it actually was. A guy was vidioing it that is trying to break into the hunting show market. I dont think that fiasco will make the cut though!

[44man]

It is good to read actual experience. I have been against the energy dump thing forever and always use hardcast (relatively). Tough but not brittle. Maximum penetration even on deer.
I have been dumped on, torn limb from limb on all forums with guys comparing high velocity rifle bullets to handgun boolits. Seems as none has noticed that all premium rifle bullets are designed to not only open because they are too small to start with, but are made to retain as much weight as possible to gain vital penetration. A rifle has enough energy to push an expanded but still heavy bullet deep.
Use a big enough rifle and there is a lot of energy applied to an animal, only good for a trophy hunter that cares nothing about saving meat. Increase the size of the animal and then the powerful rifles look like a pea shooter to the beast. Penetration is still the killer.
When you open a revolver boolit, it loses penetration. (The reason I hate the .357 because the boolit is too small and light, open it and it goes nowhere.)
Lloyd has done a lot to clear up things to the "energy dump" crowd. Nice job! :drinks:

[waksupi]

Lloyd, sounds like you had quite a goat roping.
I'm glad you told people about the hollow points, in particular. With cast bullets, if you are shooting anyting bigger than a gopher, they are just a bad idea. Why would you want to shoot anything with a bullet that you know is lighter, and more frangible than a proper cast bullet? Not me, as I had seen the results over the years of people trying them on various types of animals, with dismal results.
Thanks for the report!

[MT Gianni]

funny thing is it actually was. A guy was vidioing it that is trying to break into the hunting show market. I dont think that fiasco will make the cut though!

You would be surprised at what editors can do. Gianni

[45 2.1]

Lloyd, when you learn to get away from brittle alloy, you will find hollow points work fine. Anytime you hollow point a high antimony alloy, it will do just what you say. Try a tough alloy (with extremely low antimony or other brittle constituents), either air cooled, water dropped or oven heat treated and the results are different. This has been proven on all kinds of small game, deer and buffalo by several guys.

[Lloyd Smale]

How would that then explain the failures of the soft pointed 500s and the hollow pointed 4570s we shot that i made with a #2 body and a pure lead nose and then hollow pointed. I can say one thing we had quite a collection of perfectly mushroomed bullets so if your looking for that as a mesurement they are great. Im sure some bullet manufatures would have loved to be able to claim there bullets looked so nicely expanded. The hardest bullet we shot was the hp 4570 540 and it was cast out of air cooled #2. We didnt recover that bullet as it was the only one that gave complete penetration. to me a bullet fails when it doesnt penetrate enough to take out the vitals and thats where the failures were here not in bullets breaking up. the only case we had of that was Als load and that bullet was cast out of #2. it had a huge hp and it would loose the whole front end and leave about a 200 grain wad cutter. Now that one id say would be considered a failure like your talking.

[45 2.1]

How would that then explain the failures of the soft pointed 500s and the hollow pointed 4570s we shot that i made with a #2 body and a pure lead nose and then hollow pointed. Any boolit like that will blow the soft nose off, hollowpointed or not when a tough animal is hit. You haven't given enough information to really analyze what the problem is. I can say one thing we had quite a collection of perfectly mushroomed bullets so if your looking for that as a mesurement they are great. Im sure some bullet manufatures would have loved to be able to claim there bullets looked so nicely expanded. What is the length of the boolit and the length of the soft nose on it. 5/8 to 2/3 of the body should remain to penetrate. The hardest bullet we shot was the hp 4570 540 and it was cast out of air cooled #2. We didnt recover that bullet as it was the only one that gave complete penetration. Same question. I would have expected that one to do that, the 462560 I would guess. to me a bullet fails when it doesnt penetrate enough to take out the vitals and thats where the failures were here not in bullets breaking up. You find the pieces? the only case we had of that was Als load and that bullet was cast out of #2. it had a huge hp and it would loose the whole front end and leave about a 200 grain wad cutter. Thats how I make varmint hollowpoints which will work for side shots on deer also. Hunting stuff is different. I get excellent expansion with shoot thrus on deer here. We don't have bigger game. Bruce can tell you what proper alloy does with bigger stuff, I believe he has already tried to do that though. Often for bigger stuff, you would use a tough ductile non brittle homogeneous alloy water dropped and push a 350 gr. at about 2200 fps and get premium jacketed type expansion / penetration. Bigger calibers will require you do some testing to ensure it works right for what your trying to do. Now that one id say would be considered a failure like your talking.[/quote] One alloy HP boolits work better than the two part ones your trying. HP size and depth need to be balanced to the impact velocity.

[Bass Ackward]

Sorry for your experience Lloyd. Has to really have been a hard day for the soul to endure for all of you.

But this doesn't change my mind. I still believe there is nothing wrong with having energy transfer or soft bullets. " If " you are blessed with sufficient penetration for the game at hand. IF you want to shoot soft, you have to have enough velocity or enough bullet weight to penetrate from the angle of interest. If you have enough of either of those, game over.

If you don't penetrate completely, then you can't be sure and you are "under gunned" for soft. You have no choice but to limit your angles, shot placement, go harder, or smaller on the meplat or all of the above.

From the description of the .... peanut butter testing, it sounds like it showed exactly what you could expect your animal results to be. So what I really get out of this as an arm chair quarterback, is the value of testing before hand and trusting the results to make the correct decision.

[insanelupus]

Lloyd,

From what I'm reading, you are saying that most of the bullet failures stemmed from two things: Hollowpoints & Softnosed bullets.

The Lyman #2 AC load that passed through then was plenty "hard" for the job at hand then?


I'm looking at casting some .32 Special for Deer and .45-70 & 35 Whelen for elk and had decided to go with AC Lyman #2 for everything (Flat and Round Nosed designs). Wanting to make sure I'm on the right track here.

[Bass Ackward]

Insane,

Oh good handle.

With a rifle you have a minimum range where the bullet "can have" too much velocity and open too quickly thus lowering penetration. You will also have a maximum range where either no expansion occurs to create some shock or the slug just won't cut a larger than bullet hole. At that point it simply bleeds out poorly.

Regardless of what you want to use, a wise step is to always test at these ranges so you know what to expect. Problem is getting and using the same medium from year to year so you can compare apples to apples with what you observe from the medium to the game you are trying to mimic. Cause truth is, everything is only so effective at showing you. But it really can save you if you are too slow, light soft or hard.

Helps to find out what kind of distance is the most popular opportunities too if you aren't local. No sense working for effectiveness at 200 yards if it is more important to hang together at 50. It will be different for the round nose than the meplat too.

Different parts of the country have different stuff readily available to do this, but I use cattle bone, wet news print and plastic milk jugs filled with water to test both limits. If I had to guess, I would say you will be soft in the Whelen assuming 250 grain bullet. Might be OK with the 45 depending on the bullet weight. But why guess?

[Lloyd Smale]

I understand first that these were some tough tests. buffalo are big and big boned and have a tuff hide. Pigs are just tougher to penetrate then any other animal there size and those sheep had big heavy wool coats. I dont have the bullets with me my buddy took them home to do some measurements. I can say that the soft pointed 450s out of the linebaugh looked like a classic mushroom the noses were probably 75 caliber and folded back perfectly right to the crimp grove where the harder lead started and retained most of there weight buy looking. the 540 that shot the pig and exited was a ballistic cast 540 wfngc that was hollow pointed with a tool that puts a hp cavity in it like a lyman devestator. It was all #2 and id guess in that case by looking at the would channel it lost its nose but still had about 400 grains of bullet to keep pentrating. Probably acted somewhat like a nos partition. two shots were made with a 4570 with 405 rcbs rfs cast with a pure nose and a not so radical hp. these were used by dave to put down two bow wounded pigs that day and dumped both pigs. Neither bullet exited and they too were nice looking little mushrooms.


Id hesitate to say they didnt work as they both dumped both pigs. The real failures were the 500 linebaugh hps that had the huge cavity. they hit and broke and lost there noses and made very shallow wounds. One sheep put down with my soft nose 500 was put down hard but the bullet just made the far side of the heart and stopped. NONE of he 500s soft points went more then about 10 inches in the buffalo. Personaly i think it was like was mentioned before that its a matter of the 50 cal bullet being so big to start with that 1200 fps just isnt enough speed to push it when it expands. It probably acts like a big parachute. Ive killed other buffalo before with 500s and 475s using kieths and lfns cast out of 5050 ww/lyno and everyone has went about 50 yards and keeled over. Bullets have allways exited and its allways left huge blood trails. I know we were pushing some extreems here with bullet designs. the big hp 50s especailly. We about knew they were not going to penetrate on a buffalo and thats why we used them on the sheep. I guess im not dumb enough to think anyone of these bullets wouldnt pull the wool out from under a whitetail deer. But I really dont need a whitetail deer load for the .500 and if i did a hard cast works just fine. I guess thats my point in this whole thing.


Ive killed lots of game with hardcast. Ive never lost an animal. Ive never tracked one more then a 100 yards. So what is the advantage to a hp or a soft point. We certainly proved that on animals the size of buffalo and even sheep that dumping all the energy a 500 linebaugh has inside the animal hardly makes it flinch let alone knocks it off its feet. I know with a hardcast that if i do blow a shot. Which if you handgun hunt long enough your going to do eventually and the animal is wounded and going away at any angle i can put a second shot into it that will make he vitals with a good shot. Not just put a blister on its but. Dave has been in bussiness for about 15 years guiding pig hunters and can tell you many storys about pigs shot with jacketed handgun bullets that failed to penetrate. Hes got a scar from 112 stitches on his leg from a pig that was wounded by a well placed shot with a xtp in the 41 mag. he put it down at his feet with his 500 after it gored him. I hear all the time people saying they hit something with hard cast bullet and it ran off and didnt die. I say bs to that. YOu put a hardcast where it belongs and the animal is dead. If you dont recover it VERY QUICKLY you either blew the shot or are one poor tracker.


Ive heard the same bs about bow hunting for years. Put an arrow threw the lungs of a dear and it cant live. It doesnt need to expand to kill a deer quickly. I may still fool with some soft nose and hps in the sixguns and lever guns but I sure wont use them on anything bigger or heavier boned then a deer. Told the buddy it was about like when i had nitrous on my old grand national buick. 9 times out of 10 it was a killer one time out of 10 i had a mess and for what. I was bracket racing anyway and what was a gaining going faster i could win either way and do it without more reliably. Just like hunting. A soft nose bullet might dump an animal on time out of 10 right on the spot but you risk failure doing it and a hardcast will kill everytime no muss and no fuss
How would that then explain the failures of the soft pointed 500s and the hollow pointed 4570s we shot that i made with a #2 body and a pure lead nose and then hollow pointed. Any boolit like that will blow the soft nose off, hollowpointed or not when a tough animal is hit. You haven't given enough information to really analyze what the problem is. I can say one thing we had quite a collection of perfectly mushroomed bullets so if your looking for that as a mesurement they are great. Im sure some bullet manufatures would have loved to be able to claim there bullets looked so nicely expanded. What is the length of the boolit and the length of the soft nose on it. 5/8 to 2/3 of the body should remain to penetrate. The hardest bullet we shot was the hp 4570 540 and it was cast out of air cooled #2. We didnt recover that bullet as it was the only one that gave complete penetration. Same question. I would have expected that one to do that, the 462560 I would guess. to me a bullet fails when it doesnt penetrate enough to take out the vitals and thats where the failures were here not in bullets breaking up. You find the pieces? the only case we had of that was Als load and that bullet was cast out of #2. it had a huge hp and it would loose the whole front end and leave about a 200 grain wad cutter. Thats how I make varmint hollowpoints which will work for side shots on deer also. Hunting stuff is different. I get excellent expansion with shoot thrus on deer here. We don't have bigger game. Bruce can tell you what proper alloy does with bigger stuff, I believe he has already tried to do that though. Often for bigger stuff, you would use a tough ductile non brittle homogeneous alloy water dropped and push a 350 gr. at about 2200 fps and get premium jacketed type expansion / penetration. Bigger calibers will require you do some testing to ensure it works right for what your trying to do. Now that one id say would be considered a failure like your talking. One alloy HP boolits work better than the two part ones your trying. HP size and depth need to be balanced to the impact velocity.[/QUOTE]

[insanelupus]

One of the things I've been looking at in bullet design is the flat nose vs. round nose. Most of my shots would be under 100 yards, but the opportunity for 200 is there.

I've been thinking real hard about flat nosed bullets. Mostly because in handguns, I feel they kill better than a round nose design. But I'm beginning to think that for all around general use in a rifle, a round nose design may be the best balance of aerodynamics, penetration and expansion that a person could expect, if they were wanting a round to pass the 100 yard mark. (I.e., the .35 Whelen @ 2200 fps).

Coming from a jacketed bullet background, this casting stuff is all new to me. I will soon melt down my first WWs and form ingots. Kind of easing myself into this stuff. I'm still trying to find a mold for the .45-70 and .35 Whelen.

Real world experiences are the best testamonies I think, thanks Lloyd.

[Bass Ackward]

But I'm beginning to think that for all around general use in a rifle, a round nose design may be the best balance of aerodynamics, penetration and expansion that a person could expect, if they were wanting a round to pass the 100 yard mark. (I.e., the .35 Whelen @ 2200 fps).

Your there. My 60% meplats at 14BHN expand all the way down to 1400 fps on deer. The momentum of a 250 grain bullet makes that 225 yards from a 2100 fps muzzle and about 280 yards from 2200. There is no minimum range for deer toughness game.

[Lloyd Smale]

do not hunt with round nosed cast bullets. they dont fly much if any better out to 2 or 300 yards and they dont create a large enough wound channel in an animal and are actually poor at penetration. they often take a dive inside an animal and fail to make the vitals. Its one place that a guy should really look at soft noseing if you insist on using round or pointed bullets.
One of the things I've been looking at in bullet design is the flat nose vs. round nose. Most of my shots would be under 100 yards, but the opportunity for 200 is there.

I've been thinking real hard about flat nosed bullets. Mostly because in handguns, I feel they kill better than a round nose design. But I'm beginning to think that for all around general use in a rifle, a round nose design may be the best balance of aerodynamics, penetration and expansion that a person could expect, if they were wanting a round to pass the 100 yard mark. (I.e., the .35 Whelen @ 2200 fps).

Coming from a jacketed bullet background, this casting stuff is all new to me. I will soon melt down my first WWs and form ingots. Kind of easing myself into this stuff. I'm still trying to find a mold for the .45-70 and .35 Whelen.

Real world experiences are the best testamonies I think, thanks Lloyd.

[Wayne Smith]

I've ordered the Lyman Gould hollowpoint mold for my 45-70. I think that the combination of using it hollowpointed for deer and with a lead roundball in the nose without the pin is probably two of the most useful designs for this caliber. I already have the Lee 405 and the Lyman 458125 molds. Once I get the NEI collarbutton mold I'll be almost satisfied?

HA! See my post under SingleShots. "Sigh, they don't make what I want"

[StrawHat]

I've ordered the Lyman Gould hollowpoint mold for my 45-70. I think that the combination of using it hollowpointed for deer and with a lead roundball in the nose without the pin is probably two of the most useful designs for this caliber. I already have the Lee 405 and the Lyman 458125 molds. Once I get the NEI collarbutton mold I'll be almost satisfied?


Wayne,

In the book 40 Years With the 45-70, Paul Mathews devotes many pages to the 457122.

I have used the BB in the hole trick to make a solid. Sized them with a flat faced top punch and pushed the BB down flush.

Also used a lead round ball in the nose (.445 diameter or so) for a soft point and cast the base of harder alloy.

Eventually learned 20-1 does all that I ask it to do.

Good luck

[MikeH]

Thanks to Lloyd Smale for sharing the experience. And thanks to everyones' comments. I've hard cast (water bucket) alloy close to #2 for 7mm, 30 cal and 45-70 but have never had an opportunity to use them on game to see how they'd do. None of mine are HP. (never have recovered any at the range either to see what they looked like).

Mike

[leftiye]

Lloyd, Maybe you need to go to a 700 grain boolit in that 50 cal. and keep the 1300 fps to get a mushroomed boolit to privide penetration? I'd guess that even then you might like the soft point performance better than the hollow point.