What Your Favorite Hunting Alloys?

[ChristopherO]

In the past my experience with casting has been with pure lead for muzzleloader conicals and Lyman #2 in a 30/06 because this was recommended for a plinking/coyote bullet up to 2,000fps. Easy enough.
Some say Lyman #2 is perfect for deer, elk and so forth. Others say it is too hard. I have only a very little of it left to try out. Couple pounds at best.
Now I want to cast for a 45/70 with 405 grain fngc bullets, probably the RCBS .45-405. The plan is to load from 1,500 to 1,800fps to see what I decide on for speed. I have on hand many pounds of plumber's lead scrap, a pig of linotype and more linotpype print pieces. (The pure lead is reserved for muzzleloader use, only) The plumber's lead is soft but has enough hardness to make loading in the muzzleloader considerably more difficult once fouling is in the barrel. Lost the ww in a distasteful move some years back so none of those to add to the mix.
With this inventory of metal in mind what do you recommend as a good hunting alloy in this size bullet and velocity?
Thank you for your thoughts.

[MBTcustom]

Mix 2lb of Linotype to 15 pounds of roofing lead. Water quench your bullets and try them. They should be just fine. Use a bullet with a wide flat nose on it like the Ranch Dog versions.

This is alloy should be close to 50/50 + a sniff of tin.

[ChristopherO]

Thanks, Tim. Sounds like a good place to start. I suspect firm enough to grip the rifling but soft enough for some expansion while penetrating deep.

[Larry Gibson]

"Now I want to cast for a 45/70 with 405 grain fngc bullets, probably the RCBS .45-405. The plan is to load from 1,500 to 1,800fps to see what I decide on for speed."

ChristopherO

I've been shooting cast bullets out of my 45-70 (Siamese Mauser) at those speeds and higher speeds for 40 years now. I've tried a lot of different alloys with both PB'd and GC'd cast bullets. For the 3 GC'd cast bullets I use (RCBS 45-300-FN, Lyman 457483 & Lee C457-500-FN) an alloy of 16-1 lead - tin has proven the best for velocities up through 1900 ps. The accuracy is excellent and expansion is something to behold as there is no brittleness the alloy since antimony is not present . I'd suggest you buy or scrounge a little tin to mix with your lead and forgo the use of the linotype for something else.

I'm suggesting this as an alternative to Tim's suggestion Tim's is a good suggestion if you don't want to find some tin ad just use what you have.

Larry Gibson

[lobogunleather]

I have several 5-gallon buckets full of old wheel weights and a couple hundred pounds of linotype metal bought new from a foundry. After considerable experimentation in the 1980's I found that my handgun bullet needs were well served with straight wheel weights, and all of my rifles needs (.30 thru .45 calibers) were met nicely with a 50-50 mix of wheel weights and linotype. This continues to work today just as well as it did 30 years ago. Many thousands of bullets down range, and hundreds of game animals ranging from bunnies to Rocky Mountain elk.

[Tatume]

If you must use lead and linotype, then five pounds of linotype and 14 pounds of lead will give you about 1% tin, 3% antimony, and a hardness of 12 BHN. This will cast well, shoot well, and if not hardened will expand okay. All of the recipes mentioned so far are worth trying.

[44man]

I base what I use on what it does to deer and have made boolits too hard. I too love pure with a ML but it just won't shoot from my other guns.
Adding tin will toughen for sure so as long as you take rifling, go for it.
Having shot deer with the 45-70 with 50-50 WW and pure, oven hardened to 20 BHN has shown it did not change expansion and the deer were a mess.
The best I did was to keep my boolits hard and making the nose softer. What I don't like is the little dipper from a shell case, it just does not hold heat to pour good. I still plan on a cast iron dipper as I watch time slip away again.

[quilbilly]

My favorite alloy is pretty uncomplicated but takes a little patience to put together - 60% pure lead (clean old roofing lead will do) and 40% hard chilled birdshot (mostly coming from garage sales). I add four size 7 tin fishing splitshot (found in Walmart under lead-free sinkers) per 2 pounds of the alloy. Boolits made from this alloy have given me great expansion and penetration with at least 90% weight retention in hunting calibers including 6mm, 257, 7mm, 30 and 338 all at velocities around 2000 FPS.