Alloy opinion and ?s

[gunslinger20]

I am thinking about trying Lyman #2 265gr. WFN pistol boolit in a sabot at 1900 fps from a muzzleloader for deer hunting. Whats your opinion?

[375RUGER]

a bit hard but it'll make a nice hole if that's a .44 or .45 boolit. Why not just 2/2/96? or straight WW?

[gunslinger20]

Its .454 unsized, I want to make sure to get 2 holes one in and one out. WW composition varies so much, I just dont want to get too soft for 1900-2000 fps.

[runfiverun]

a muzzle loader shots pure lead about 300 fps slower than that.
i'd bet the ww alloy would do just fine at 1900 fps.

[montana_charlie]

What kind of powder charge gives you 1900-2000 fps in a muzzleloader?
CM

[Larry Gibson]

A bit hard, suggest mixing it at 50/50 with lead.

Larry Gibson

[44man]

Yes, at that high velocity, soften the boolit. Hard is a hole punch and will not give you internal damage.

[375RUGER]

you'd be suprised at how well a solid boolit of 1/2 WW, 1/2 pure, + some tin will penetrate.
I put a medium load 250g of the above 44 mag through 50some inches of test medium and water. The boolit was only slightly warped to one side, no nose deformation. I think I could have shot it again.

[MtGun44]

Much harder than needed. With a sabot, you can shoot pure lead and get great
expansion. Of course, a hard case WFN will penetrate all the way through.

Bill

[gunslinger20]

What kind of powder charge gives you 1900-2000 fps in a muzzleloader?
CM

70.4 gr. (weighed) blackhorn 209. Blackhorn 209 is harder to ignite but I have fired 50 rounds without swabing the bore in a knight long range hunter, also very accurate. 1/2" groupe at 50 yards I havent shot this boolit at 100 yds or beyound. Barns all coppers shoot 1" at 100. I want to shoot my cast boolits instead. I also have 315gr. boolits to try. Two holes is a must evry time.

[41mag]

Here in the middle is a straight air cooled Lee C452 300 RF which left the muzzle of my Raging Bull 454 at 1550'ish fps recovered after penetrating two upright 5 gallon buckets full of water at 50yds. Measured it was over 24" of penetration and it hit the third one hard enough to leave a permanent indention which almost cut through he side. If I take the same bucket, fill it with the packed sandy moist dirt from our farm, these same boolits will simply blow right on through 8 out of 10 times, and the ones which DO stop are usually right against the bottom and at ranges of no less than 50yds for any chance of recovery.



Here is the initial moment of impact as best as I could catch the frame from the video,


and here is the actual whole sequence,

[gunslinger20]

Here in the middle is a straight air cooled Lee C452 300 RF which left the muzzle of my Raging Bull 454 at 1550'ish fps recovered after penetrating two upright 5 gallon buckets full of water at 50yds. Measured it was over 24" of penetration and it hit the third one hard enough to leave a permanent indention which almost cut through he side. If I take the same bucket, fill it with the packed sandy moist dirt from our farm, these same boolits will simply blow right on through 8 out of 10 times, and the ones which DO stop are usually right against the bottom and at ranges of no less than 50yds for any chance of recovery.



Here is the initial moment of impact as best as I could catch the frame from the video,


and here is the actual whole sequence,

Thanks for the help evryone I also have that same mold, that is the other boolit that I have shot at 50yds with very good accuracy.After lamenting it casts a little heavier. It sounds like acww will get me a pass through with either boolit.

[blaster]

You need tin more than antimony. Antimony gives hardness which is unnecessary for a saboted application. What you need is tin. 10 or 20 to one would give you resistance to slump plus, malleability, and toughness to pass through light game up to black bear.

[huntrick64]

A few years ago my son and I wanted to test the effectiveness of Lee's .452 RNFP 262 grains for hunting whitetails. ML bullets are supposed to be pure lead, right, so that is how we cast them. We decided to shoot them through 24" .50 cal muzzleloaders. Using 110 grains 777-FFF and a sabot. These things were doing about 1,800 - 1,900. We each shot does that were about 60 yards away, standing broadside. Each doe dressed around 105 - 110 lbs so there were adults. One deer flipped sideways completely over in the air and landed back on her feet (it was actually unbelievable to see). She then fell flat on her face, dead. The other one rolled sideways completely over, got up and jumped over a fence about 20 feet away. When she come down on the other side of the fence, she went straight to the ground, dead.

Neither deer had exit wounds. Neither deer was hit in the shoulder, but only in the rib area. In one deer we found the bullet against the opposite rib cage, but with no damage to that side. Both lungs liquified and the entrance hole gaping open. Bullet is a little smaller in diameter than a 25 cent piece and totally flat. Appears to be 98 percent weight retention. That bullet lays on my desk as a reminder. I will post a pic if I think of it.

The other deer had the same size bullet in it, but that bullet was stuck in the first lung! Yep, never even penetrated the second lung, but the second lung was totally blood shocked. The entrance hole was even bigger than the first deer and probably around 1 1/2 " diameter. About a 3" diameter bald spot around the entrance hole.

Both bullets totally expanded on impact and therefore didn't penetrate at all. Pure lead was WAY too soft with this flat point bullet. I do think 50/50 or even straight WW would have been better. Glad they were smaller does and not some 250 lb buck. probably would not have fared well in that situation.

I give you the graphic details because I have either killed or been witness to over 100 muzzleloader kills most using pure lead projectiles and some of them even 2,000 fps. However, all of these other kills used a very rounded bullet with either a plastic tip or a small hole HP. Those bullets allow quite a bit of penetration before starting to open up. Now, I deer hunt with that Lee bullet or a 285 gr. Keith out of my bisley for deer hunting, but I cast it out of 50/50 and it is only going 1,200 fps.

Bottom line - My vote would probably be a KT bullet around a BHN 12-14 at 1,900 fps. Hope this helps.

[oldfart1956]

Two holes is a must evry time.

I agree. I don't subscribe much to this theory of "expending all it's energy inside." It didn't expend anything....it stopped. Hydraulic shock.....balderdash. Good on ya friend. Just my opinion of course. Audie..the Oldfart.

[Wayne Smith]

Consider the fact that Remington made 45-70 bullets out of 20-1 and Sharps out of 16-1. At 1100-1500 fps they were known to penetrate two bison standing side by side.

For your application I would go with 50/50 and be happy.

[GMT210]

I use a mihec 45-270saa HP, with an MMP hth-24 sabot and 100grns of Pyrodex, about to play with Blackhorn. deadly and surprisingly flat shooting. I've cast "pure" stick on wheel weights as well as a 94-2-4 alloy, both shoot very well and mushroom out very nicely. I don't feel the need for the pure lead since I am shooting sabots and will be pushing the velocities with Blackhorn this fall. The current Pyrodex load took 8 deer last year amongst friends that I casted for.

[MBTcustom]

When I was shooting inline ML's I used TC sabots that allow 45 pistol boolits to be used. I have shot deer with a WW Lee 45RN TL boolit. I was shooting 100 grains of pyrodex and got complete pass through's. If you truly are getting 1900FPS, then you don't have a problem.
Add a little tin to keep the boolit from shredding and breaking apart, but anything over 1200 FPS with a .400+ caliber boolit is going to go through a whitetail and kill anything on the other side as well.
Lyman #2 is way-way too hard for this application (actually, I feel that its too blasted hard for any hunting application.
If it were me, I would cast them out of pure lead, fully confident that the energy transfer is going to be astounding. Shoot a deer and see what happens. You will not be disappointed. However, if you walk up to the deerly departed and you are displeased with the massive amount of trauma that your boolit has inflicted on Bambi, you may make a mental note to add a little tin to the projectile in the future so that it does it's job just a little more cleanly.
That's my 2 cents.

[gunslinger20]

So much greate info. What are your thoughts on streight acww. I just havent shot cast up to 2000 fps thats why the ?s about alloy and two holes a must evry time .

[44man]

Velocity and expansion match.
I have shot a few hundred deer with muzzle loaders from .45 to .54 using round balls and never recovered a single ball. Pure lead. Same with Maxi Balls.
Too fast and hard only gives penetration. Small animals can't slow it enough to do damage.
Too soft will stop boolits and the boolit will absorb a lot of energy itself if it is shot too fast.
Many suggest 50-50 and that is a good way to start.
The last word is what you see in the field when you open a deer.
I can't and won't say what alloy is best at 1900 fps because I just don't know. I DO know that too hard and fast can fail.