Can you add BB's to cast boolits for better expansion?

[NATJAC]

HI,
I have been doing a lot of thinking on how i can get a lee 230 gr, 30 caliber bullet, to properly expand at SUBSONIC speeds. I have read alot of ideas to get better expansion but most of these ideas are VERY time consuming with minimal results. I did see a great idea of using small strips of tin foil in the mold.. but i was thinking that if i just drop 3-5 bb's into the mold before pouring the lead that it would allow the bullet to deform more on impact.. this is just my theory, and i was wanting to see if anybody has tried it and if they got good results with expansion. i would think the bb's would cause enough air pockets around the bb's that once the bullet impacts those air pockets would facilitate a better compression in the boolit... and, the lead would pull away from the bb's allowing the bullet more deformation.
Another question i have, is would the bb's (as long as they are somewhat evenly distributed within the boolit) cause accuracy problems, due to the bullet being out of round - weight wise.
Also, what about using airsoft bb's?? what would happen if you put those in your mold prior to filling the cavity?

Unfortunately i cannot test my theory due to my gun club restriction (can only shoot at paper targets)

[dudel]

Will the boolit be strong enough to stay together when spinning? Do a quick calculation to get the RPM. I think I may surprise you.

[dondiego]

The BB's are going to float to the top of the mold and be at the base of the boolit. You need a good clean boolit base. Do you have any nose pour molds?

[NATJAC]

"The BB's are going to float to the top of the mold" I didn't figure that.. i figured the lead would solidify too soon for that to happen... I guess i will have to try it out the next time i do a session.

"Will the boolit be strong enough to stay together when spinning" I would think there would be enough cohesion that it would hold the boolit together. I guess i could try to shoot a few to see.. I think if you use too many bb's that could happen, but that would also lighten the boolit up too much anyway.

[Yodogsandman]

Try BruceB's soft point method.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?53234-BruceB-s-Cast-Softpoints-(as-of-MAY-2009)

[Vann]

Yeah, I tried that with a Lyman 311284 and as stated, the bb's floated to the base when poured.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Does a Hollow point mold NOT interest you ?
It's lots easier to cast with, I suspect, then trying the BB thing...I'd suspect to get any kind of fillout, you'd need to preheat the BBs.

Airsoft ??? wouldn't that be a melted sticky plastic mess ?

[jcren]

I read somewhere on here where someone used one bb or ballbearing in the nose of the mold to "cup" point the bullet. Didn't have problems with it floating and even said they would sometimes stick in the mold so it didn't have to be reloaded. Multi bb's wouldn't be centered and cause imbalance in the bullet, but one at the tip should "freeze" the lead if the melt and mold are not too hot. Haven't tried yet, just passing on someone else's info.

[woody1]

One BB in the nose of a 358156 HP mould will plug the nose and will not float to the surface(base). Saves having to insert and remove the HP pin on every cast if you don't want to cast HP's. Skeeter Skelton taught me that. Truthfully, I never tested them for expansion I just shot 'em. Until, that is, I got a multicavity non-hp mould. Regards, Woody

PS - the BB always came out with the boolit when I did it.

[country gent]

Use a fired cartridge case and make a "ladle" to hold a certain volumne of lead to make a soft point from pure lead that you want. I would use a case longer than the volumne and drill a bleed off hole or slot on the back side to maintain the correct amount of lead in the ladle. ( this also could be accomplished with a angled mouth). A long handle and keep in lead to maintain temp. 2 pots one small pot with pure lead or maybe lead with a small % of tin 40-1 05 50-1 to aid fillout and adhession. A larger pot or bottom pour with your alloy for rest of bullet. In use pour nose lead from measure ladle into mould and then the base as quickly as possible into the mould on top of the nose. When all is working correctly Lead temps are right mould is up to temp there should only be a slight color change between nose and base, no wrinkles or parting lines should really show. Easiest would be to cast practice pinking bullets to get mould to temp then go to the 2 prt bullet after mould is up to temp. BBs will float. may not stay centered, and may not completely bomd to the bullets. You could hollow point the bullets after casting with a simple fixture in a drill press. A piece of steel with hole snug to sized bullt and thru hole size of hollow point desired. A stop on the drill to bear on blocks. and run drill bit into depth feeding up by hand. There are also several that will modify moulds for hollow point pins so that hollow points can be cast. The pure lead nose cast in the mould should do what you want with the least outlay of equipment and cost.

[Golfswithwolves]

Winchester has a .25 ACP cartridge which uses this gimmick. I believe it is called "Expanding Point". Since it has been in their line for many years there may be something to it, but I have not heard of any results from this bullet.

[RogerDat]

I think most calibers one can buy a hollow point mold for, or one can have a regular mold hollow pointed. or drill some bullets out. Check the NOE web site for a start. Mold might cost some cash rather than time spent messing with other approaches but since testing is difficult one might want to go with a proven mold design cast with an alloy that is known to work well with that design.

Say this one http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=1251 or one of the other RG or W/HP molds in the 404 molds sized .308 to .311

At some point if the bullet needs to expand more than a certain amount you really need a heavier or bigger bullet.

[Lead Fred]

I found a site that sold and made ballistic balls. I got some of the smallest ones, they were twice the size of the hollow point.
Would work in a 45 or bigger.

[osteodoc08]

I understand the desire to experiment, but you'd be best serrved with a HP, soft cast boolit.

[bangerjim]

Forget the BB thing. HP is what you want if you are so totally concerned about expansion.

banger

[MT Gianni]

For expansion HP or soft nose, you need a combination of a soft alloy and speed. Impact resistance helps but is not a constant. You are trying to go against science with a heavy for caliber slow bullet. The answer is to increase diameter to what you want your expanded diameter to be if you must handicap yourself with your requirements. Go with a 44 or 45/70 and punch a solid hole.

[NATJAC]

HI all, thanks for the replies! from what i have read, the hollow points really don't expand that much, but that could have been a do it yourselfer type of hollow point, i will look into the custom molds.
As far as the two part lead (with pure lead at the point of the bullet), why couldn't i go with all pure lead? I will be powder coating so the lead should be minimal.. has anybody had any good results with expansion on pure lead? (keep in mind this is for a gas gun, would there be any deformation upon chambering? how is the accuracy?) the two part lead seems to be to time consuming.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

One problem is that BBs are steel, and lighter than lead. They will not only float in it, but are likely to be erratic in how high they float before the lead freezes. Not only that but you can't get three or any number of BBs to nest in a single layer in the diameter of a .30 bullet, as people try to do with buckshot in a shotshell. The bullet is sure to be unbalanced.

Many people don't realize why this matters. If the centre of mass of the bullet is even a thousandth of an inch off-center, it is describing a spiral equal in length to the rifling twist, and .002in. in diameter. It therefore leaves the muzzle at a slight angle to the bore axis - not much, but it then obeys Newton's First Law by reverting to straight-line motion in the last direction that spiral pointed. That means about a 4.52in. group at 100 yards, additional to everything else that stops bullets going exactly to the point of aim. A bullet with off-center BBs in it could be much worse.

I would want to test the solidity of BruceB's composite bullets by hand, but it sounds good. Early in the 20th century there was a vogue for two-part interlocking bullet parts, cast in a special mould, which were swaged together. Personally I think a soft alloy bullet would do fine. There is a lot of inertia in the front end the rear end is pushing into. But a modestly proportioned hollow, possibly produced by a bullet drilling rig, ought to be fine. So, probably, would be a strip of aluminium foil between the halves of the mould, probably not quite reaching the nose. The bullet will very likely break into three pieces, but this is not a dangerous thick-skinned game rifle, and that may be no disadvantage whatever.

[mdi]

FWIW; when think of "expanding" bullets, cast are at the bottom of the list. While I haven't tried all the "gimmics" to get lead to expand, I lean more towards bullet shape. When someone comes up with an idea, there is a great chance that it has already been tried, and most failed. I remember the "backwards loaded HBWC" craze of the early '80s, looks good, sounds good, works bad...:sad:

But, I ain't sayin' stop thinking! There is thousands of methods, items, products that started with "I wonder what would happen if...".

[Hardcast416taylor]

By adding a number of steel BB`s to a mold pour there will definately be a lop sided center of gravity in the boolet. Now these may be good for shooting around corners due to the loss of the center of gravity in rotation but won`t have any accuracy to it beyond the muzzle. If you don`t want to use a HP mold, use an 1/8" drill bit or larger in a drill press to HP your rounds. Make a cut out in 2 pieces to wood to hold the round firmly why you make an HP as deep as you want. I would advise against using pure soft lead unless you enjoy getting fouling out of a barrel.Robert

[oso]

Yep, a steel ball will float in your melt, and when it centers in the pour hole of the sprue plate it will change that cutting edge when you cut the sprue. (Maybe a steel BB would stay in place if it fit the nose of the mold just right.)
So then I tried various lead balls like #2 shot and pellet gun balls. They didn't float but sometimes moved off center with the swirl of the pour. Depends on the fit of the ball in the particular mold's nose.
Man that was so much fun proving to myself that even if some came out right the effort wasn't worth it for me since I have plenty of lead SWCHP that expand so well at subsonic velocities.

[Cap'n Morgan]

I've seen cartridges for Danish Remington which used hollow point lead boolits with a 5mm steel or lead pellet inserted in the point cavity. The cartridges was provided for "Falck" a private owned fire brigade/rescue company to kill barnyard animals trapped in burning stables.

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?230202-Clarification-regarding-the-so-called-quot-Greenland-Cartridge-quot

[JSnover]

I don't know if you can still buy the .25acp "Ball Assist" loads but they consisted of a BB set in the nose. They performed like a plugged hollow point, in other words, not very well.

[haynk]

I have a Lyman 38 HP mold, don't remember the model number. Years ago I blocked the hollow point mold with a BB to get more bullet weight. I don't remember any accuracy issues. The BB did not float anywhere and remained exposed at the tip of the bullet when the lead solidified. I don't remember any expansion from the slow 38 special velocities, either with the BB or with the hollowpoint. IMO the velocity would have to be much more than subsonic to get much expansion, unless possibly using very soft alloy, which I did not do. I have recovered many cast lead boolits from dirt back stops at fireing ranges and have found few that expanded very much. Commercial jacked soft points or hollow points expand much better. Naturally, I don't know what guns fired these bullets or at what velocities.

haynk

[mdi]

I have some of thr 25 ACP Winchester loads mentioned above; a steel ball in the nose. I've fired them into phone books and nuttin' different, just like a solid. If I were to put a BB in the nose of a bullet I would choose a hollow point bullet, cast it and when cool, insert a BB into the nose cavity...

[tazman]

Why not just cast your hollow point normally and add the bb to the hollow point afterward. It could easily be glued in place and would act as an expansion button in the boolit nose.
It would depend on getting a bb small enough to fit into the hollow point, but with the large hollow points in some boolits, it should be doable.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

FWIW; when think of "expanding" bullets, cast are at the bottom of the list. While I haven't tried all the "gimmics" to get lead to expand, I lean more towards bullet shape. When someone comes up with an idea, there is a great chance that it has already been tried, and most failed. I remember the "backwards loaded HBWC" craze of the early '80s, looks good, sounds good, works bad...:sad:

But, I ain't sayin' stop thinking! There is thousands of methods, items, products that started with "I wonder what would happen if...".

It depends on the bullet. For .40 or larger bullets which must have a flat nose for a tube magazine, and are to be used on large game at black powder velocity or a little more, in firearms with the carefully calculated slow twist Winchester etc. used... cast would be nearer the top of my list. In this situation Lyman knew what they were about when they formulated their No. 2 alloy. A subsonic .30, necessarily having a faster twist, isn't so favourable, but worth experimenting with.

For a .30 caliber like the OP's, I think a ⅛in. hole is too wide, especially if it is at all deep. It can easily turn into a blunt bullet plus small fragments. If I did want to drill a hollow point I would use an engineering centre drill so that the hole would be partly rather small, with a 60° chamfered edge. I don't believe it is possible to drill it accurately enough freehand in a bench drill. It requires some kind of guide. In addition to the other salient qualities of the .303, most of the function well with a bullet which, like a 5/16in. or 8mm. centre drill, will be a close fit in readily available tubing.

There is no such thing as a bullet which is balanced to complete perfection. I showed above one part of what can go wrong - a straight-line, mathematically calculable deflection, which will be ten times as great at 1000 yards as at a hundred. But there is also a tendency for a bullet to acquire a wobble, and as the bullet is spinning, that wobble will take the form of a corkscrew path, pointing in that linearly deflected direction. It can be interesting to aim under a mid-range tissue paper screen through which the bullets will pass at the top of their trajectory. If you find individual bullets on one side of the group at mid-range and on the other at the target, you have a big corkscrew, and your bullets need attention.

163004

There is another way besides excessive fragmentation why a large hollow is undesirable. Here are three bullets redrawn from La Garde's account of the Thompson-La Garde trials. The two on the left are .45 Long Colt bullets, as used in the New Service Colt. and the third is the Webley manstopper bullet. They are in the yawing position, hopefully exaggerated, which they will assume if imbalanced and therefore corkscrewing. In the bullet on the left, air drag will apply more on the left-hand side than the right, and will have a tendency, perhaps even effective, to straighten up the bullet's attitude. At the worst the corkscrew s likely to remain small-diameter and stable. The orthodox hollow-point hs more drag on the right than the left, and the manstopper much more. The hollow-based wadcutter is an even more extreme example. Drag on the wrong side, combined with a light front end which wobbles more easily, is extremely likely to make the wobble deteriorate into tumbling.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Why not just cast your hollow point normally and add the bb to the hollow point afterward. It could easily be glued in place and would act as an expansion button in the boolit nose.
It would depend on getting a bb small enough to fit into the hollow point, but with the large hollow points in some boolits, it should be doable..

That is, indeed, the only way a BB or other ball bearing can be inserted in a bullet without harming accuracy. Crimping the nose over it would probably be the best way of securing it. I would doubt whether it would produce much expansion. It might be that the Danish example mentioned by Cap'n Morgan wasn't so much for the effect on the animal, as to make the bullet unlikely to carry far through barn walls, in a situation the shooter couldn't choose for safety. The .25ACP is notoriously difficult to make expand at all, in the weapons and pressure for which it was designed, and in its intended function was probably not to.

[NATJAC]

Hey guys, thanks for all of the replies! A lot of good information!