The "Inscrutable" Cast Softpoint EXPANSION TEST

[floodgate]

NV, MT:

So you've got the "book bug" too! Yes, Quatermain figured in "King Solomon's Mines" and a couple of others, too. As I recall, his favorite "piece" was a Purdy(?) "cape gun" (popular in South Africa, and named after the Cape of Good Hope), a side-by-side with one barrel for shot and the other rifled.

The novels don't "read" as well today as they did to me sixty years back, either, but are still a bit of fun. I think they are available in those inexpensive "three books bound as one" special editions, usually available used for $1.00 or so; check at AbeBooks.

Doug

[NSP64]

Hey Bruce B! It's Thursday night and I eagerly await the next installment of the testing. I found this thread and your sticky, while I 've been off work sickIt has been entertaining and informative enough that the pot is warming up as I type

[BruceB]

Thanks for the kind words. Either tomorrow or Saturday will see the trial shoot for The Box Mk II, so I hope to have something to report soon.

Powderburnerr dropped-off a big roll of leach-pad plastic on his way to Reno yesterday, and that may figure in a new design IF required. I still have hopes for the plywood version as strengthened. We'll see.

[Nardoo]

In 'King Solomon's Mines', Quartermain's kit consisted only of:

Three express rifles with 200 rounds of ammunition and three Colt revolvers and 60 rounds of cartridge for himself, Sir Henry and Captain Good.
Also two Winchester repeating rifles with 200 rounds of cartridge for Umbopa and Ventvogel.
(They could not drag their heavy elephant rifles across the desert.)

Bruce, I think you have more in common with Allan Quartermain than just being the hero of the story. One hundred and thirty-two years apart and both having fun with big guns.

To quote:
First of all I loaded all the rifles, and informed him if he touched them they would go off. He instantly tried the experiment with my eight bore, and it did go off, and blew a hole right through one of his oxen that were just being driven up to the kraal, to say nothing of knocking him head over heels with the recoil. He got up considerably startled, and not at all pleased with the loss of his ox, which he had the impudence to ask me to pay for, and nothing would induce him to touch the gun again.

I belive he would approve of your experiments!

Nardoo

[Bret4207]

NV Curmudgeon:

It comes from a character in a series of English mysteries, a lawyer named Rumpole, who refers to his wife as "She Who Must Be Obeyed". But it really goes back to a turn-of-the-century series of English adventure novels by H. Rider Haggard: "She" and "Ayesha, the Return of She", about an Indiana Jones type, Allan Quatermain, who gets involved with a sort of witch-priestess a few thousand years old, whose subjects are forbidden to speak her name, and refer to her by that phrase, and..., and.....

Oh, never mind; check it out of the library and read it for yourself; it's a real hoot.

floodgate

They made "She" into a movie back in the 60's or 70's. Scared the heck out of me when she, (She?), turned to dust at the end. I had a much more vivid imagination back then.

As for "King Solomons Mine", please!!!!! SHARON STONE!?!?! RICHARD CHAMBERLIAN!?!?!? Worse yet, PATRICK SWAYZE?!?!?!?? No, no, a thousand times NO! You want the Stewart Grainer/Deborah Kerr edition form the 50's. My goal in life as a young guy was to grow up to look just like Stewart Grainger, complete with bush jacket, and distinguished graying temples. Alas and alon, I ended up looking more like Wilford Brimley or Homer Simpson.......

[BruceB]

Yep, I am "on-call" for today, and working for sure tomorrow, so it'll be a couple of days before I get to fire the next test.

"Literature"....one of the worst cases of Hollywood truly massacreing a decent story line was when they transformed the Matt Helm books (by Donald Hamilton) into a REALLY lousy comedy with Dean Martin.

The Matt Helm books are pretty decent spy/terrorism/action books which were far ahead of the times (1960s), and the hero is nobody to cross. In one book, the terrs have Helm's child when he captures a female member of the enemy group. He sends his wife away from the motel room while he takes the captive (and a knife) into the bathroom. He comes out with the information he needs and the woman captive is dead in a bathtub full of blood.

Older books like these are easily available from www.abebooks.com which I've used extensively for some years now.

[floodgate]

Bret:

Yep, Stuart Grainger was a perfect Allan Quatermain, just as i had visualized him.

Nardoo:

You're right, but doesn't Allan Q. carry a "cape gun" in one of the other novels?

Doug

[montana_charlie]

one of the worst cases of Hollywood truly massacreing a decent story line was when they transformed the Matt Helm books (by Donald Hamilton) into a REALLY lousy comedy with Dean Martin.

I fully agree. I think I read every one of those.

He comes out with the information he needs and the woman captive is dead in a bathtub full of blood.

I guess waterboarding didn't quite hack it...
CM

[Bret4207]

My Grandfather used to read those Matt Helm books. I used to sneak a look. Some of it was pretty racy for the time!

[NVcurmudgeon]

They made "She" into a movie back in the 60's or 70's. Scared the heck out of me when she, (She?), turned to dust at the end. I had a much more vivid imagination back then.

As for "King Solomons Mine", please!!!!! SHARON STONE!?!?! RICHARD CHAMBERLIAN!?!?!? Worse yet, PATRICK SWAYZE?!?!?!?? No, no, a thousand times NO! You want the Stewart Grainer/Deborah Kerr edition form the 50's. My goal in life as a young guy was to grow up to look just like Stewart Grainger, complete with bush jacket, and distinguished graying temples. Alas and alon, I ended up looking more like Wilford Brimley or Homer Simpson.......

I NEVER watch remakes of movies. Consider "Stagecoach." Bing Crosby as the drunken doctor, Ann Margaret as the "soiled dove", and Ty Harden as the Ringo Kid?

[Bret4207]

Yup, yer sure right there. I figger anyday now they'll remake the "Thin Man" series with Brad Pitt and Jennifer Lopez. Or "The African Queen" with Ben Affleck and Shannon Dority or something like that. Some things you just don't mess with.

[BruceB]

We now return you to our regularly-scheduled topic......(*I* am just as guilty as anyone else for topic drift, and I don't worry about it!!!)

While sticking close to home yesterday, I found time to cast and load a few 311284 softpoints. At 1800 fps designed impact velocity, I'm hoping to recover these and see how they performed.

The design is about the best of the easily-available .30 bullets for hunting purposes, I think, ESPECIALLY IF IT WILL EXPAND RELIABLY. Nominal weight runs about 220 grains, although I didn't weigh these ones. I used a dipper which throws around 70 grains of pure lead. The softpoint area extends just about .330" along the full-diameter portion of the nose from the 'point'. These bullets were water-dropped.

Another day or two...(sigh)

[NSP64]

I was wondering about water dropping these 'duplex' bullets. I wasn't sure if it would affect the nose?

[BruceB]

I was wondering about water dropping these 'duplex' bullets. I wasn't sure if it would affect the nose?

Very good question.

One of the wonderful qualities of pure lead is that it's unaffected by water-dropping, quenching, oven-heat-treating, etc etc. It stays at the same dead-soft "hardness" regardless of what happens to the alloy in the shank, and thus is PREDICTABLE in its behavior even while we adjust the BHN of the rest of the bullet. This quality of predictability is exactly why I'm sticking to a two-alloy bullet rather than trying to adjust the BHN of single-alloy projectiles.

In the upcoming test, I have some oven-treated bullets as well as water-dropped and air-cooled ones, and some of these hardnesses are set up for direct testing against each other within the same bullet type and velocity. If The Box holds up, it should be very interesting. A direct comparison between a water-dropped .416-350 and an air-cooled .416-350, fired into jugs of water a couple years ago, CLEARLY showed the harder bullet penetrating much farther than the softer bullet.

As in my title above, this is the day for the next trial. It's getting complicated, because after the rice failed to soak up COLD water and expand as I expected the last time, I am going to put it into HOT water in a new 30-gallon metal trashcan, and apply a weed-burner to the can until the danged stuff behaves like it should. Starting this process as soon as it gets to be full daylight, I expect to head out for some shooting around noon. Not only am I now on the hook for 180 pounds of rice, plus the plywood, plus the sealant, plus the new trashcan, plus another new 20-lb propane cylinder, but I also indulged to the extent of buying a new digital camera for the occasion! If this doesn't work, I am gonna be TEED OFF.....

It's just 15 degrees now, with highs expected to be 43, so it's cool but fairly-decent clear weather and it shouldn't affect the test very much. I'm hoping to have some photos on-line tomorrow....if it all works. Watch this space later today, as I will post some measurements and weights as soon as they're available.

Fingers are crossed here.

[dubber123]

So start cookin' some rice already!

[robertbank]

Minus 4C here today with light snow - you are killing me! Don't let your pinkies get to cold with the temperature at 43F. BruceB how long did you spend up in the Territories?

Take Care

Bob

[BruceB]

Mornin', Bob.

Hey, right now we are COLDER than you at 4 degrees C!!! Of course, the temp will go up after sunrise. Ahhh, Nevada....where you need both the truck heater AND the A/C on the same day....

I lived in the NWT from 1964 through 1997. The only things I miss are the hunting and fishing, and the 5000-square-foot home my wife and I built with our own hands on the shore of a beautiful lake...which was frozen from late September to early June, of course!

[armoredman]

"Cold", thats like inside my refrigerator, right? We have three seasons, hot wet, hot dry, and mildly cool.

[ktw]

The design [311284] is about the best of the easily-available .30 bullets for hunting purposes, I think, ESPECIALLY IF IT WILL EXPAND RELIABLY.

Not to be argumentative, but I am wondering about this statement. I had a hard time deciding whether or not to join Blammer's NEI 311284 group buy. I have always considered it a good design, particularly if you are shooting 30-06/30-40 Krag (I am not, my hunting rifles tend to be 30WCF). In the end I decided a flat point 30 cal heavy (like the RCBS 30-180-FN) would probably be a better HUNTING bullet for my money than the 311284.

I am wondering what characteristics of the design make 311284 a particularly good bullet for use on game animals?

-ktw

[BruceB]

ktw, sir;

You'll note that I only mentioned the 284 design as "a good game bullet" ESPECIALLY IF it can be made to expand reliably.

In my book, and based more on general hunting experience than on my extremely limited use of cast bullets for hunting, the ideal bullet will be as heavy as I can practically obtain in a given caliber, because modern velocities are not easily available to the cast-bullet hunter. Therefore, the 220-grain .30-caliber and the 300-grain .338 /.358 are the logical choices for the most-common rifles in our collective racks. If I can't have the speed, I WILL have the heavier bullet weight.

I will opine again that point shape is not important IF the bullet expands easily, as I expect my cast softpoints to behave. If such expansion is not going to occur, then I won't recommend ANY cast bullet for shooting big game. A reliably-expanding .30/220 can duplicate the .30-40 jacketed load, and that is not a bad department in which to be. I've killed moose very neatly with the .303/215/2200 fps factory load, so I KNOW such a load will work on deer and elk as well.

Without expansion in a given cast-bullet load, that load shouldn't be taken hunting, in my opinion. I've seen some animals shot with non-expanding bullets, and the experience soured me badly on the idea of using such loads.

I'm almighty curious to see what transpires later today.