Expansion from non-HP bullets?

[Avery Arms]

Has anyone been able to get reliable expansion from non-HP bullets cast from soft lead and coated?

I don't have proper ballistics gel but I recovered some bullets shot into dry sand and the faster ones came out with large, evenly formed mushrooms. All of these were cast from medium hardness lead around 12BHN and powder coated.

9mm 124g round nose 1100fps .600-650 diameter
.40 175g truncated flat nose 950fps .650-.700 diameter
.45 230g round nose 750fps little expansion

This leads me to believe that a person could get nearly ideal terminal peformance from old fashioned round nose bullets simply by matching the alloy to the load and never have to worry about special HP bullets, molds, drilling jigs or the feeding problems HP's create in certain firearms.

[williamwaco]

Has anyone been able to get reliable expansion from non-HP bullets cast from soft lead and coated?

I don't have proper ballistics gel but I recovered some bullets shot into dry sand and the faster ones came out with large, evenly formed mushrooms. All of these were cast from medium hardness lead around 12BHN and powder coated.

9mm 124g round nose 1100fps .600-650 diameter
.40 175g truncated flat nose 950fps .650-.700 diameter
.45 230g round nose 750fps little expansion

This leads me to believe that a person could get nearly ideal terminal peformance from old fashioned round nose bullets simply by matching the alloy to the load and never have to worry about special HP bullets, molds, drilling jigs or the feeding problems HP's create in certain firearms.

In my experience, soft cast bullets with a wide meplat like wad cutters and semi wad cutters will expand reliably at impact velocities around 900 to 1000 fps and up. But they will NOT match a hollow point cast from the same alloy.

I have never seen a round nose expand. Deform maybe but not expand. ( Not saying it can't happen, just never seen it. )

We would love for you to try it and post some photos of the results.

[firefly1957]

In 45 acp and 38 special expansion is wanting the same 38 bullet loaded in 357-44 Bain & Davis expanded well in water . I am also loading the Lee 309170 gr bullet in the 30-30 either powder coated or painted with Krylon this bullet is loaded to an average of 2040 f/s from a Marlin 336. The bullet performs very similar to a jacketed bullet and goes though a foot of water and though 450 dry paper pages . It is well expanded starting at 178 grs weight is 164 as recovered. I will be deer hunting with this load this year.

[Avery Arms]

It turns out the sand affected the results considerably, I built a wet target (5gal bucket + blanket + water) and tested a Federal 135gr JHP .40 which penetrated under 12" and expanded to .710" then I re-tested the 9mm and .40 coated bullets which apparently did not expand at all because they penetrated completely and left small holes in the bottom of the bucket. I'm still not giving up on round nose bullets but I will clearly need softer lead or lighter/faster bullets.

[JSnover]

I've only seen expanded RNs recovered from solid or semisolid materials (wood, soil) never from soft media (animal carcasses). If you want good terminal performance without a hollow point, take williamwaco's advice

[Outpost75]

Can't speak for what effect, if any the powder coating will have, but experience with black powder rounds, such as the .44-40 at velocities equivalent to blackpowder rounds, is that soft lead flatnosed solids of 6-8 BHN do not expand at subsonic velocities, but they begin to rivet over about 1100 fps and will begin to actually mushroom above 1200 and that nice expansion is possible with traditional alloys such as 1:30 or 1:40 tin/lead above 1300 fps if the meplat diameter is 0.6 of bullet diameter or larger. A shallow conical cup point of 0.6 of meplat diameter with 60 degree draft angle facilitates expansion of 8 BHN alloy down to 1000 fps and of 6 BHN alloy to 850 fps.

.44-40 loads of alloy, bullet shape, hardness and velocity which simulate original blackpowder loads do not expand at 900 fps revolver velocity, but will perforate and exit 36" of gelatin. The same loads fired from a rifle at 1300 fps will expand to more than 1.5 times original diameter and penetrate about 26" in the gelatin. The videos are on youtube. A typical blackpowder rifle shot .44-40 solid #42798:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRPrCl02R7E

[JSnover]

Unless your coating is in the form of a copper jacket, it's not relevant. And even if it is it won't help expansion.

[waksupi]

Too many are concerned with expansion with cast bullets. If you have a hunting bullet with a good flat point, they do the job. We get the "splash" effect with properly designed cast bullets, creating a very sufficient wound channel.

[Avery Arms]

I switched to a softer alloy and still no luck with standard 124gr 9mm at 1,100 FPS so I dropped down to a 92gr .380 bullet using the soft alloy at 1,400fps and finally got expansion in the wet target, the bullet came out at .700" at the widest point. The .380 bullet is more blunt than the 9mm which may be a contributing factor, when I get a chance I'll try some of the soft 9mm's in a .357 and see if they will expand at higher velocity than is possible in the 9mm.



L-R unfired .380 bullet, fired .380 bullet (in a 9mm) and control rounds which are Federal .40 JHP and CCI stinger .22 copper HP.

[Outpost75]

What you need to remember is that bullets which expand will have much less penetration. Especially bullets which are light for their caliber, will lack adequate penetration for personal defense or hunting use. You want not less than 10" of gelatin penetration and 12-14" is better, according to FBI test procedures. More than about 16" is not wanted for defense, but is desired for hunting big game. Factory .30-30 softpoints do about 20-24" of water filled milk jugs. Water jug comparisons do not compare, but in my experience hunting loads which expanded and penetrated at least 20" of water jugs gave satisfactory performance on deer.

[Avery Arms]

What you need to remember is that bullets which expand will have much less penetration. Especially bullets which are light for their caliber, will lack adequate penetration for personal defense or hunting use. You want not less than 10" of gelatin penetration and 12-14" is better, according to FBI test procedures. More than about 16" is not wanted for defense, but is desired for hunting big game. Factory .30-30 softpoints do about 20-24" of water filled milk jugs. Water jug comparisons do not compare, but in my experience hunting loads which expanded and penetrated at least 20" of water jugs gave satisfactory performance on deer.

I agree that penetration is more important than expansion but lightweight bullets can expand, penetrate and kill with authority if they are properly designed and moving fast enough. The 9mm load is just experimental but it has almost the same weight and downrange velocity as a .395 round ball fired from a rifle and the recovered bullet looks very similar to a recovered round ball.

[mdi]

Too many are concerned with expansion with cast bullets. If you have a hunting bullet with a good flat point, they do the job. We get the "splash" effect with properly designed cast bullets, creating a very sufficient wound channel.

My feelings too. Good wide meplat does the job well...

[pls1911]

Hard to say... killed everything I pointed at, and never had less than full pass through..
Skull bone, jaw bone, shoulder bone, hip bone, gristle plate or lotta meat...one at a time or all at once.
Expansion? I guess it's an interesting experiment, but in my case, I'd have to say if it does expand, it's ok... if it doesn't, does it matter?
Placement + penetration = DRT

[mwc]

I shot these out of my 625 into a sand bank at about 20-25 yards and this is what I recovered, 230 TL RN going at 780 with 6.2 gr. of auto comp,

[DougStump]

The PC'd Lee TL309-230-5R that I'm using in the Blackout show no sign of expanding at subsonic velocities. The beavers were not very pleased to be used as the test medium