The effectiveness of cast bullet designs vs jacketed bullets

[am44mag]

Here's something I've been pondering lately. What is the most effective cast bullet design for hunting, and for self defense, and how do they compare to the jacketed ammo that generally fills those roles? I know for hunting, a cast bullet with a large meplat is usually recommended. Does it make a difference if it's a wadcutter, semi wadcutter, or flat nose bullet? Where do cast hollow points fit into that? For self defense, would a cast hollow point perform similarly to a jacketed hollow point, or would you again be advised to stick to solid bullets with large meplats?

Hopefully this will prove to be an interesting thread.

[GregLaROCHE]

Like most things there is no perfect boolit for everything. You wouldn’t want the same boolit to hunt an Africain Wilderbeast as you would for a 150 lb guy who breaks into your house at night knife in hand.

I personally believe in the principle, that you want the boolit to have expended all of it’s energy just before it has exited the target. The one advantage that most jacketed bullets have is that they can be driven a lot faster thus reaching the target with more energy.

When a bullet reaches, then a lot of other things come into play. Most jacketed bullets are filled with pure lead. If it Is a ball round, and doesn’t hit a bone it will probably pass right through. There are exceptions like the .223 and other high speed magnum rounds that tumble.

So to make the jacketed bullet open up and release most of its energy, we use soft points, hollow points and modern high tech points. My favorites used to be the core lock types. Because half the bullet normally stayed together and would continue further in, the metal jacket holding the soft lead together.

With cast boolits we have the chance to play around with alloy hardness as well as boolit shape. Some people are getting some really fast rounds today, with hard lead and coatings.

So what is best is best. If I were hunting a wilderbeast, at 100 yards, I would want a méplat, very hard alloy, loaded with as much of a charge as my gun could safely handle. The boolit could stand up to the heavy load and stay together to penetrate deep. If I wanted to protect myself against a home intruder, I would want a hollow point with a soft alloy and a medium to light load to minimize accidental damage in the house.

These are my options and the way I look at solving two problems. There are many variables that haven’t been mentioned, that can change a lot. Distance being one. I am sure we will here from others with different ideas and opinions. That’s what makes the forum so much fun. I hope I will Learn something new too.

[Hickory]

This is a very simple answer to a most complex question.

Jacketed bullets.
The research & development for these projectiles have been done by the manufacture to give you the best bullet for the job you want it to do.
The problem, sometimes arises when the customer chooses the wrong bullet to kill a certain type of animal.

Cast boolits.
Cast boolits have limitations on what they can do, how fast you can shoot them and their rate of expansion. Not to mention that smaller calibers (30 caliber) that would normally be fine for moose with jacketed bullets would be some what inferior with cast lead boolits. The better choice would be a larger caliber with a heavier boolit, only because of velocity limitations. If you could get them to jacketed velocities they would not have the controlled expansion and penetration of a jacketed bullet. Plus, would you have the right alloy to give you the proper expansion & penetration?

As for myself, I'll chose cast 99.9% of the time.

[Texas by God]

Cast bullets are more fun for the money for my guns that lose no advantage by using them. Jacketed is where it's at for my high(3000 +fps) velocity rifles. That's my answer FWIW.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[GhostHawk]

Keep in mind, speed is counter productive for penetration. People like speed because it makes life easy.

A .243win cranking a 60 gr boat tailed hollow point can easily reach 3500 fps. At that speed, the difference between a 100 yard shot and a 300 yard shot is negligible. But that same bullet can hit a twig, a grass stem, and never make it to target. Or it can hit a rib and blow up on the outside, doing almost no damage.

Big bore, but cast bullets do not need speed. Look at the .45acp. Seldom breaks the 1000 fps mark, and yet it will do the job. At longer distances you need to learn the rainbow. Need to be better at judging distance. But a 400 gr cast bullet with a nice meplat hangs on to energy. Think of it like a freight train, may not be moving 90mph, but dang hard to stop. Its going to plow through whatever it finds. In 5 years of reading these forums paying attention to those who hunt with cast.
I don't think it is 1 or 2 in a hundred that find a boolit. And chances are those ran into a big shoulder bone.

The rest are pass throughs, in one side, massive damage, out the other.

Trick is bullet placement. In the world of big, slow moving boolits it takes alot more work to shoot at longer ranges.
But the rainbow can be learned.

Depends on what you want.

Me I grew up in a Shotgun & Slugs area. All my "legal" deer were taken with 20 ga 870 smooth barrel and federal slugs.
And the closer they were the easier it was to hit them. So I got good at getting close. Had several years while hunting with a medium sized party where I would down 2 or 3.

All depends on conditions and what you want.

But if it was me I'd be looking at .35 or bigger. with bullets from 300 gr and up, probably with gas checks.

[RED BEAR]

This is a very simple answer to a most complex question.

Jacketed bullets.
The research & development for these projectiles have been done by the manufacture to give you the best bullet for the job you want it to do.
The problem, sometimes arises when the customer chooses the wrong bullet to kill a certain type of animal.

Cast boolits.
Cast boolits have limitations on what they can do, how fast you can shoot them and their rate of expansion. Not to mention that smaller calibers (30 caliber) that would normally be fine for moose with jacketed bullets would be some what inferior with cast lead boolits. The better choice would be a larger caliber with a heavier boolit, only because of velocity limitations. If you could get them to jacketed velocities they would not have the controlled expansion and penetration of a jacketed bullet. Plus, would you have the right alloy to give you the proper expansion & penetration?

As for myself, I'll chose cast 99.9% of the time.

Couldn't this also be said for self defence? I asked this a while back and never did get a consciences.

[popper]

Why be concerned with expansion in SD ammo? I just want something to make holes and break stuff. Oh, same for hunting.