Hollowpoint failure

[Rick R]

I’ve searched the forum but I’m still not sure what I’m doing wrong. I cast a 260gr .431” hollowpoint boolit using an NOE mold with half COWW and half pure lead, water dropped. Shooting them out of a 4” S&W 629 over 10gr of Unique into water jugs the nose completely blows off leaving a 190gr RN that goes thru six jugs. How do you guys get your cast HP boolits to make pretty mushrooms?

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I’m sure they will leave a mark but it bugs me that I am not doing something right.

TIA

[EMC45]

Maybe skip water dropping?...

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

Rick,

Although some folk are fans of cast hollow point bullets, the results will always and forever depend on the alloy and the velocity at impact. Simply because they have no controlling factor such as the jacket found on "J" bullets.

I agree, stop the water quenching.

I use a 50/50 - Wheel Weights/lead, water quenched for my 465gr Wide Flat Nose bullets used in my 45/70, but I do NOT seek expansion! Reason, The large meplat of the WFN bullets.

These quenched bullets test surprisingly hard considering the alloy. This bullet/alloy is awesome on game from the 45/70.

So, expect variable result with your cast hollow point bullets. While possibly effective in use and giving "classic" mushrooms, that perfect/classic result will only happen in the rather narrow window dictated by the alloy and impact velocity.

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[jmort]

I would add some tin

[Shuz]

I would add up to 2% tin to your alloy and drop the water quenching.

[Rick R]

Thanks guys!

I tried some without water quenching previously, same result.
Time to fire up the caldron and bubble up a new potion with a pinch of tin. Hold the quench.

[vzerone]

I think many have the wrong idea of how a cast hollow point should work from a pistol/revolver for the bigger game such as deer. You want that hollow point to open and mushroom only after it has initially entered the body right upon entering the vital, do a lot of damage, shed the mushroom, then punch the rest of the way through exiting the body. Then you have two holes for a blood trail. This of it as a Nosler Partition because that's what it does if you drive it fast enough to do so. You do not want it to open up just hitting the deer on the surface tissue. As for varmints you want it to explode. Water is a bad thing to test hollow points in. 50/50 with ww's/lead is more malleable then just ww's. I wouldn't water quench it either.

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

Just a personal thought here, but with the results I had this past Fall on two deer shot with .280gr Wide Flat Nose fired from my RUGER 77/44 and after seeing repeated results on deer and elk with a heavier WFN fired from my 45/70, simply FORGET the Hollow point.

A large meplat will get er done! And do so without the sometimes good/bad results of a H.P.

The WFN meplat is always large. If it expands a bit, well fine, but you have no need to rely on that. It is always consistent and always big.

My .44 deer were taken with just plain old Wheel Weights used for the alloy. One at a lasered 95/100yds. Complete pass through and dead where it stood. Second, a nice buck taken at 50yds. +/- facing me and taken through the neck with the bullet passing completely through the neck bone then on into the shoulder and through the shoulder blade before exiting on the back of the shoulder. Of course, dead where it stood.

Possibly a good read for the O.P. would be the book by Vearl Smith of Lead Bullet Technologies (LBT). OR, Check it out on line.

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[OS OK]

For velocity @ <1,000 FPS @ impact ... use Pb + Sn to achieve BHN number ~
(V @ impact / 100 = BHN target blend)

For velocity @ >1,000 FPS @ impact ... use COWW + Sn to achieve BHN number ~
(V @ impact / 125 = BHN target blend)

*Sn makes the Pb malleable/ yet soft enough to mushroom @ lower velocities and not fragment or be so soft that it shears off the nose in sheets (irregular shaped pieces & thin) in the picture below (not enough Sn blended in yet) Here the velocity was 760 FPS, .38S snubby.

219083

* With COWW's there's the Sb & As to contend with that makes the blend more towards brittle than malleable, adding Sn reduces the tendency to frag and makes the blend more malleable to mushroom & retain it's weight.

Not knowing the exact percentage of your alloy, only knowing that there is Sb & As there makes it a little tougher to get the blend just right. Only experimentation will prove your blend of metals.
If conditions are that you have to penetrate clothing or thick hide sometimes you need to put a silicone plug in the HP to penetrate through the porous materials that would interfere with the HP's ability in developing adequate hydraulic pressure within the hollow point cavity to open it up.

These Keith HP's with the small HP are hard to work with @ lower velocities...results all over the map, all unacceptable.

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Using silicone to plug the HP cavity results were more predictable.

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HP's work correctly, open wide & retain weight within a window of velocity on each blend of bullet metal versus it's velocity. A wide open mushroom only tends to stop penetration like a parachute & deliver all it's energy into the vitals causing them to liquify to some extent. Your intended purpose is the main factor, as in hunting a large animal where penetration is the first concern. Sometimes just a wide meplat is a better choice.

[Rick R]

I have two molds for this boolit from NOE, a four cavity normal FN /gas check and a two cavity gas check with pins. I hunt with the flat nosed boolit in my SBH and Marlin 1894 but have never got a shootable deer in range while carrying either gun. It shoots great groups out of either gun over a max load of 2400.

The HP version may be a tad more accurate but not enough to make any Real World difference. I’m really just “what if’fn” as a viable defensive load against two and four legged varmints.

vzerone,
These would definitely frag about the first 8” and then leave two holes to leak.

CDOC,
I use this alloy in my various .45-70’s with a 360gr FN and it will stack deer up nicely. With no meat loss either.

OS OK
Thanks for the well thought out reply with pictures! Raining and cooler here tomorrow, sounds like a good day to be in the reloading shed casting. :castmine:

[USSR]

Your alloy is WAY too hard. Skip the water drop, seriously reduce the Sb, add lots of Sn, and this is what you get.

Don

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[Tom_in_AZ]

Just a personal thought here, but with the results I had this past Fall on two deer shot with .280gr Wide Flat Nose fired from my RUGER 77/44 and after seeing repeated results on deer and elk with a heavier WFN fired from my 45/70, simply FORGET the Hollow point.

A large meplat will get er done! And do so without the sometimes good/bad results of a H.P.

The WFN meplat is always large. If it expands a bit, well fine, but you have no need to rely on that. It is always consistent and always big.

My .44 deer were taken with just plain old Wheel Weights used for the alloy. One at a lasered 95/100yds. Complete pass through and dead where it stood. Second, a nice buck taken at 50yds. +/- facing me and taken through the neck with the bullet passing completely through the neck bone then on into the shoulder and through the shoulder blade before exiting on the back of the shoulder. Of course, dead where it stood.

Possibly a good read for the O.P. would be the book by Vearl Smith of Lead Bullet Technologies (LBT). OR, Check it out on line.

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

I agree. Forget HP and go the WFN route!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Larry Gibson]

As mentioned; add 2% tin to the COWs before mixing with lead and air cool them.....don't water quench. A better alloy for the load you are using would be 20 to1 or 30 to 1 lead to tin w/o any antimony.

[Gamsek]

Choose wisely if you wanna hunt big creatures. HP which don’t shed HP but rather mushroom without loosing any weight can stop rather quickly.

MP copy of 432640 Devastator 253grs with deep HP at 750fps penetrated 6” in wet soft paper (soaked for many days). Same penetration on same day in same paper was with 200grs 432-423 penta HP. HP’s were made from pure lead+2% tin. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180424/6a043f3f6142c4910b9b75c12caa1847.jpg

MP copy of solid H&G#503 penetrated 18”, some were ww, some half ww/half pure, same velocity. Air cooled. Penetration length mirrors my 140grs TSX from 7x64 at 2950fps.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180424/d8b6505be89b0f4535d460398e1c62a3.jpg

I will repeat that with same HP’s but with higher velocity to see what happens.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

You have had some good advice on alloys. Antimony is cheaper than tin, so it is used in wheel weights on a scale that makes bullets brittle. Also any large hollow is going to make any bullet likely to shed its point. Here is one that I feel almost automatically failed, unless you wanted fragments scattered around looking for a blood vessel.

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You would probably do better by making a hollow point pin with a smaller, conical cavity, and by using something like the tried and tested Lyman #2 alloy (no longer a Lyman product), which is 5% by weight of tin, 5% antimony and 90% lead. You give or take a little for variation in the composition of wheelweights, it can be made as follows:

5½ parts by weight wheelweights
3½ parts lead
1 part 50-50 bar solder

Water as testing medium gives the ultimate in hydraulic expansion, and soaked paper may be closer to what happens after a bullet passes through hair, hide and possibly light bone. Anyone who de-rims rimfire cases to swage .22 bullets, or uses jackets in that size or .17, has the means to try something which might help control expansion:

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This is rather like the old Gould bullet, which offered alternative applications as a rather excessive, Express-style hollow-point, or an explosive bullet by the insertion of a .22 blank. I would want the latter to have a rim recess and excessive "headspace", for a dropped rifle cartridge always falls on its nose. They should most emphatically be for recreation only, not use on any kind of game, and I wouldn't want to fire one at anything close up.

I remember some testing I once did, firing .22 rimfires into water. Solids keyholed and stayed sideways after different depths of water, although the striations showed they were still spinning. Observe in my left-hand picture how they had the same attitude after different distances.) HV hollow-points (the old Eley, for which they perhaps mendaciously claimed 1400ft./sec.) mushroomed very nicely, stayed nose-forward (perhaps because they were shorter), and hit rock with a light impact at shorter distances than the solids. CCI Stingers disintegrated in a very short distance into water, the largest piece being a button of only 7gr. or so which used to be the base. I once killed one of our greyhound-sized roe deer, after as short a run as a centrefire bullet often allows them, with four of those within a palm's size of the chest cavity, but the heart untouched. Even if that was still legal, I wouldn't try it again after that test.

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[brewer12345]

Interesting stuff. I am planning on getting a hp version of the rcbs 200 grain 35 mold from the mihec group buy under way. This boolit does 1700 fps or so from my rifle and I would like to experiment with alloys. I think 90/5/5 looks like a good place to start, perhaps with a shallow hp. Is there any reason to think this would be too hard?

[OS OK]

Interesting stuff. I am planning on getting a hp version of the rcbs 200 grain 35 mold from the mihec group buy under way. This boolit does 1700 fps or so from my rifle and I would like to experiment with alloys. I think 90/5/5 looks like a good place to start, perhaps with a shallow hp. Is there any reason to think this would be too hard?

I'd guess that 90/5/5 would be an excellent start working with a stock bullet metal at that velocity. Lyman no. 2 is the same blend @ 15 BHN...if anything you may need to back off from there on hardness...just spitwadding but, 3%Sn/4%Sb/93%Pb @ 13.2 BHN air cooled would be where I'd start testing and blend up from there. It's easy to increase with small amounts of component metal but it's harder to blend down...I usually end up with a pot full of expensive bullet metal that missed the mark.
Another consideration is, "what bullet metal did we really end up with after blending/casting/testing?" I try to weigh the components as accurately as possible but when I get to where I'm satisfied with the results what really is the percentages in that last successful pot? I suppose the best way to end up with a workable recipe is to get the final blend X-rayed.
I wish I could give you better info about rifle HP's but thus far all I've concentrated on is pistol/revolver.

[Larry Gibson]

Interesting stuff. I am planning on getting a hp version of the rcbs 200 grain 35 mold from the mihec group buy under way. This boolit does 1700 fps or so from my rifle and I would like to experiment with alloys. I think 90/5/5 looks like a good place to start, perhaps with a shallow hp. Is there any reason to think this would be too hard?

That is Lyman #2 alloy and at 1700 fps it is too hard. For that velocity better place to start is with a 95/2.5/2.5 alloy. Better yet would be a 16 to 1 alloy(lead to tin).

[brewer12345]

That is Lyman #2 alloy and at 1700 fps it is too hard. For that velocity better place to start is with a 95/2.5/2.5 alloy. Better yet would be a 16 to 1 alloy(lead to tin).

95/2.5/2.5 is about what I have used for the solids, which is basically coww plus some tin. I am guessing 16:1 would be pretty soft but hold together well, so I might try that. At what velocity would 90/5/5 be appropriate?

[jmort]

I have found 94/3/3 to be the perfect balanced alloy
You can heat treat to 21 BHN plus, but it will settle around 21
I also like 20 to 1 lead tin alloy
These are the two alloys I use


duc·tile
ˈdəktl,ˈdəkˌtīl/Submit
adjective
(of a metal) able to be drawn out into a thin wire.
able to be deformed without losing toughness; pliable, not brittle.
synonyms: pliable, pliant, flexible, supple, plastic, tensile

[Walter Laich]

all new to me and good stuff here

thanks everyone for posting this

[fredj338]

Alloy & HP shape. I found after testing a bunch of diff HP designs, if you want it to hold together at higher vel, like over 1200fps, you want a shallower cup point to support the mushrooming tip. Deep HP w/ thin nose portions will almost always blow off over 1000fps, IMO.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/DSC_0041.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/fredj338/media/DSC_0041.jpg.html) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/9mm-136-1200.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/fredj338/media/9mm-136-1200.jpg.html)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/452-251.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/fredj338/media/452-251.jpg.html)

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Interesting stuff. I am planning on getting a hp version of the rcbs 200 grain 35 mold from the mihec group buy under way. This boolit does 1700 fps or so from my rifle and I would like to experiment with alloys. I think 90/5/5 looks like a good place to start, perhaps with a shallow hp. Is there any reason to think this would be too hard?

That is an extremely bullet-shaped bullet, but on game probably doesn't tend to go club-headed as one with a wide meplat will do. I don't think Lyman #2 alloy would be bad, but agree that less antimony would be a good idea, and quite harmless with a gas check at that velocity.

I like the look of their round-nosed 204gr. gas-check mould even more. Sandwiching a cigarette paper in the mould is an old trick to get something like expansion from a bullet that otherwise wouldn't, and nowadays aluminium foil would probably be even better. It can't harbour moisture which, while unlikely to produce a geyser, might produce a bubble. It could either run all the way to the point or be a narrow strip that leaves the point united.

[lwknight]

Bottom line here is that if you want HP performance, you will have to spend a little money. The Lyman No.2 alloy is not famous just for nothing.
The Sn/Sb/Pb ratio of 5-5-90 is great for controlled expansion and weight retention. You get a 15 bh and toughness all in one package.
At one time antimony was cheap and Taracorp came up with "hardball 2-6-92 which is great and basically equal to the No.2 but not for H.P. terminal ballistic performance.
If you are serious, quit pinching the pennies and do what is long been proven to work.

[17nut]

70% meplat (or better) and 1400-1700fps hit speed, cant do better than that with cast!
Check: Veral Smith "Jacketed performance with cast bullets", the bible regarding cast bullet shooting.
That man has forgot more about shooting cast than i have ever learned!

[Elkins45]

I have found 94/3/3 to be the perfect balanced alloy
You can heat treat to 21 BHN plus, but it will settle around 21
I also like 20 to 1 lead tin alloy
These are the two alloys I use


duc·tile
ˈdəktl,ˈdəkˌtīl/Submit
adjective
(of a metal) able to be drawn out into a thin wire.
able to be deformed without losing toughness; pliable, not brittle.
synonyms: pliable, pliant, flexible, supple, plastic, tensile

I bought 1000 pounds of 96-2-2 and have been generally pleased with it, it if (when) I shoot it all up I’m probably going to bump the Sn and Sb by one percent for the next batch. There are probably very few needs a 94-3-3 mix can’t handle for centerfire shooting.

[dverna]

Very interesting thread. Thanks to all that contributed!!

I may never hunt with a cast bullet but I appreciate the experience and knowledge shared. Just for clarification.....

Adjusting hardness to match terminal velocity for reliable expansion of HP's appears to be important. In practical terms, if expected ranges will be 50-250 yards, do you select an alloy that "works" at 150 yards and deal with too much expansion up close and less expansion at longer ranges?

I like the idea of a wide meplat as that will do its thing at any range. The trade off of a lower BC may be better than dealing with reliability of HP performance.

Larry Gibson mentioned in another thread (on the 7x57 for elk) that he had little success with cast on deer with the 7mm. The .30 calibers worked better. Is that due to the smaller meplat of the smaller bore?

[Outpost75]

1:30 or 1:40 tin-lead at 1300 fps in a bullet having a meplat 0.7 of bullet diameter does not need to be hollow-pointed to expand. Original .44-40 black powder loads perform well in soft lead, solid, flat-point.

If you want bullets to mushroom at subsonic revolver velocities use the above alloy with a shallow cup point, just enough to help initiate expansion, but not having a sharp corner at the bottom of a deep cavity, which functions as a stress riser for the expanded petals to break off.

219316219317219318219319

[Rick R]

Thanks for all the shared knowledge guys!
After a quick inventory I’m going to need to acquire some tin. Rotometals has some tin nubbins that are only mildly alarmingly expensive. I figure a couple pounds will make enough alloy to keep me in .44 HP boolits for a while.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

You don't get the occasional bargains in tin or tin solder that you do in lead or antimony-rich alloys. Still, when I consider the cost of powder to shoot the stuff, I reflect that it isn't only my wife at sales time that understands spending money to save money.

In the UK we have velocity requirements which come close to ruling out cast bullets on deer, and below them there is a size gap which makes just about any a good replacement for the .22LR hollow-point. But Outpost's results are very much what I would have expected.

Here, though, is my vice or press operated hollow-pointing device which will press a cavity of the size and shape needed, in a non-brittle alloy. It maintains good concentricity of mass if it is a close fit to bullet diameter. IYou could make the plungers with new ones having shoulders to contact the die though, so that you can just squash as far as it will go, and get consistency from one bullet to the next. I just shortened the plungers so that they came flush with the ends of the die, but that doesn't let you do a heavier bullet with a spacing collar in front of the shoulder.

219360

[evoevil]

lot of good reading ......... gave me a headache, lol. Need to save this as I get further along in casting

[KVO]

Piggybacking off of Ballistics in Scotland's system, l was able to use a push through sizing die as a drill bushing, in this case the NOE system. The Lee sizers work too, but don't hold the projectile as firmly due to the long taper as compared to the NOE bushings.
1) Push boolit into the die with an over size push rod or piece of flat stock that sets the boolit flush with the die base.
2) Find a cheap drill that is a slip fit in the top of the die with minimal wiggle. In this case, I used a "P" letter size drill bit.
2a) I changed the angle on the bit for a steeper cup point type HP. I free handed the angle on a grinding wheel, the lead is soft enough that it cuts fine even with just one flute in contact.
3) Use a stop collar on the drill to set your depth. I found a pack of them on Amazon for 8 bucks. I at suspect a piece of drill rod turned to the desired profile and sectioned into a "D" reamer would work great.
4) Use a hand drill to cut HP to depth, HOLDING THE DIE IN YOUR HAND, allowing it to float. If you try with the die screwed into the press, it will bind and potentially wallow out or damage the ID of the sizer die/ sleeve.
5) Push boolit out of die with push rod.

I will add that I prefer to cast HP, but the above makes for easy experimenting without having to buy a new mold. All of the below were cut with the same drill bit in the same die body using different bushings.

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