How Heavy a .45-70 for a Shoulder Pass Through?

[phigaro4570]

Hello,

I would like some advice from more experienced guys who already know what I just learned: a 350 grain PP .45 won't always pass through a deer and leave a blood trail. After getting a few deer with the soft lead Ranch Dog starting at about 1900 f.p.s., I thought I could rely on it to always put the deer down where it was, or leave a good blood trail. I mistakenly got into the thinking of trying to home in on the heart location without regard for any legs or shoulders, thinking they would not matter anyway. This season, from a tree stand, I put one through the near shoulder to get to the heart at about sundown, looked hard with my wife for blood, and, finding none, sadly concluded I must have missed.

After finding no lead in my bore to indicate a slipped patch, and rechecking zero, I went to another stand nearby a couple days later,and found my doe on the way. She was far short of 100 yards from where shot, with the near shoulder ruined, but no exit wound. I had come to think that big soft slug would practically give a blood trail with a solid hit on an ear flap. Now I need to think something different.

My first reaction was to consider a 450-500 grain PP to possibly get that pass-through penetration coupled with that great expansion in any situation, like I thought I had. Then I thought that may be ridiculous. I should use hardcast to get reasonably good damage and assured pass-through without concern for avoiding shoulders. Or, maybe continue with my 350 grain PP and start paying attention to avoid heavy bone and muscle.

Honestly, I have never tried the hardcast at the full velocity I could. I tried them at Veral Smith's recommended 1300 f.p.s. according to his "displacement velocity" idea. After losing one deer and almost another, I went to the paper patch. So, the hardcast could be quite good, but I might be in the wrong section of this forum to find people bragging on it. I would appreciate hearing the conclusions from some of you guys who have tried out these options and formed a preference.

Thanks guys,
Jerry

[triggerhappy243]

I dont understand why a 350 gr. bullet did not pass thru... unless you hit solid bone. i hear so many muzzleloader shooters say their bullets go clean thru. you had to have hit some solid bone.

[Old Coot]

Shoot them in the lungs. The bullet will pass through there. If you want complete penetration use wheel weight alloy or wheel weight and pure lead about 1:1 . When you hit the shoulder of the doe and made such a mess of it it happened because the soft slug was moving too fast for the strength of the alloy. In other words you shot the deer with a fast expanding bullet like those used for varmits just 45 cal.
Brodie

[Lucky Joe]

I use WW and pure lead 1:1 in a 350 gr. boolit. Never recovered a boolit. The largest game I have used this on is a whitetail and bones have been no problem.

[phigaro4570]

Yeah, I sure did hit all that shoulder bone with soft lead (about BHN 7) going over 1800 f.p.s. Truthfully, I thought that was the clever thing about paper patching was that you could get by with going, basically, too fast for the bullet. And I figured that's why they would be so effective, as they would end up looking like half a mouthful of chewed gum and still retain weight and, I thought, penetrate through whatever a deer might have. This might be a very unusual situation this year for all I know. The PP's sure did seem to put the stomp on the first three deer I took with them.

I guess I should do like Old Coot says and stay behind the structural stuff and in the lungs if I'm going to use these 350 gr. Ranch Dogs. The heart shot that sounded appealing to me was mainly put forth by Veral Smith and Ranch Dog himself, both of whom like hardcast. So, maybe I'm mixing a strategy and bullet that do not go together. I would still be benefitting from paper patching with a somewhat harder alloy if I was driving it too fast for that same alloy not to lead with a gas check. Maybe I was wrong in wanting to go for maximum softness.

Before I abandon the idea, though, I'm guessing my Handi-Rifle might push a 450-500 gr. pure lead PP slug over 1600 f.p.s. Does anyone know if that would be sure to penetrate a deer shoulder? And I won't be offended to hear it, as I might agree, but, does anyone think that would be ridiculous for deer? I suppose that weight and speed would make it similar to a small caliber Remington Buck Hammer slug.

I just now saw Lucky Joe's post. Could you tell me how fast you run those 350 grainers and what kind of expansion you get?

Thanks,
Jerry

[Lucky Joe]

I push these 1200 to 1250 fps. depends on some unknown factor most are around 1200 to 1215. As far as expansion through a deer I have never found any so I can't tell you what they look like, but through the front shoulders the exit is size of a quarter or perhaps a little larger. I shoot these in my Marlin 1895SS and my Harrington & Richardson Buffalo Classic, the Buffalo Classic is the one I have used for hunting. With this bullet it is spot on at 100 yds. which is a long shot for my area. I used to hot rod boolits and it's not a bad thing, just doesn't work in this situation. At least not for me.

[wmitty]

phigaro

Did you perform an autopsy on the doe? I can not imagine anything in a deer being stout enough to stop a boolit that heavy regardless of how soft it was.

[Old Coot]

Phigaro4570:
Two-thousand fps is the limit for pure lead bullets according to pdawg shooter who patched for many years before this forum was started. I believe him. I once shot a jackrabbit at about ten yards with a round ball (pure lead) in a 36cal navy revolver in the near shoulder. When I picked him up the far shoulder was gone. Jacks have a lot lighter bones than a deer.
Ranch Dog uses water dropped wheel weights; they have a bout the same BHN as Lyman #2 alloy, or about 16BHN . Alloy at that hardness will expand, but not anywhere near as much as 7BHN soft lead. Anyway if you shoot them in the lungs they go down quickly, and you haven't ruined any edible meat. A heart shot is tougher if you're shooting from a tree stand. The heart is so low in the chest and hidden by the fore leg that to hit it you almost have to wait until they move that covering leg forward, and then you run the chance of taking out the off leg. I only shoot game through the shoulders when I want it to drop right there, or I am hunting bears or mountain lions and I don't want them ambulatory after the shot. Brodie

[phigaro4570]

No, wmitty, I started by cutting in a bit and hadn't reached anything before I lost desire to continue. Apparently a possum had noticed the lights were off, because he found the back door. There sure was a big entry hole on the near side and, I turned her over and looked well and couldn't find another hole. I have made a mental note of her location and plan to try to find the bullet when things have run their course.

A number of different things have made quick kills on deer for me. But, I think the thing I was wanting from the paper patch slug was a sure blood trail. So often, it has seemed that nothing reasonable will drop a deer where he is shot even half the time. And that fixed quantity of reserve already in their bloodstream buys them a short, fixed amount of time before death. It seems like a hundred yards or a little more is the most they have on a good double lung shot. It is so nice when a blood trail takes the guesswork out of it.

But, from what you guys are saying, it sounds like I have maybe been a little too ambitious about expansion, wanting the very softest lead at the very fastest velocity. I have already been using one part WW to three parts Pb wherever I can get by without straight WW. That will be more similar to Lucky Joe's 1:1, still expand well, but buy me more penetration if I should need it again. And, maybe as important as anything, I will remember this experience and never again be so quick to assume my round guarantees me blood sign. I did actually look 20 - 30 yards in the direction I saw her run; it's not like I gave up without looking at all beyond the place of the shot. But when I found her she seemed far too close to have been lost. Jerry

[Dan Cash]

With a .45-70, why worry about expansion? It starts out as big as many lesser rounds ever expand to. A 350 grain Gould without the hollow point launched by 70 grains of 2Fg will cruise through a deer's structure side to side and might even make it end to end. A 405 grain bullet surely will do the end for end trick.

[phigaro4570]

I started wanting expansion when I tried Veral Smith's "displacement velocity" recommended speed of 1300 f.p.s. with the Ranch Dog bullet cast hard. It seemed the hole was easily corked up by fat. But really, I never gave full velocity hard cast a chance. About that time I read Paul Matthew's book The Paper Jacket in which he talks highly of "the pure lead paper patched bullet." Then I went directly to trying paper patching.

I didn't mean to slam Veral's philosophy on speed vs. meplat size. I just concluded that it did not work for me. Jerry

[Lucky Joe]

phigaro4570

I copied this from an article written by Paco Kelly. If you want to play around with expansion and penetration this may help.

A Paco secret...

Here’s a trick I write about often...to get soft nose and hard body cast bullets, cast them hard and hot, frosty bullets are better no matter what the experts say... drop them from the mold into water to temper....then place your bullets standing in water to their shoulder just above the top crimp groove, so the nose is exposed....take a butane torch and run it over the noses sticking out of the water...this detempers just the noses, so you in effect have a soft nose-hard body, cast bullet. It takes a little practice...but as soon as you see the bullet noses change color at all, pull the flame...or the nose will slump over...it doesn’t take much flame time, especially on small caliber bullets. Cast bullets made this way will resist fouling but will expand in any size animal....from rabbits on up.

[triggerhappy243]

How cool is that?

[Nobade]

Triggerhappy243, did you know Tom Cost? He was a local engineer. He did a series of experiments on making soft nose cast bullets, designed a fixture for making them, and wrote a good paper about the topic back in the early 1970's. Somewhere around here I have his paper, the last one he gave out before he died. Heck of a man if you knew him.

-Nobade

[UBER7MM]

phigaro4570

I copied this from an article written by Paco Kelly. If you want to play around with expansion and penetration this may help.

A Paco secret...

Here’s a trick I write about often...to get soft nose and hard body cast bullets, cast them hard and hot, frosty bullets are better no matter what the experts say... drop them from the mold into water to temper....then place your bullets standing in water to their shoulder just above the top crimp groove, so the nose is exposed....take a butane torch and run it over the noses sticking out of the water...this detempers just the noses, so you in effect have a soft nose-hard body, cast bullet. It takes a little practice...but as soon as you see the bullet noses change color at all, pull the flame...or the nose will slump over...it doesn’t take much flame time, especially on small caliber bullets. Cast bullets made this way will resist fouling but will expand in any size animal....from rabbits on up.

There's another way to get the nose soft, definitely more work. Cast the nose with pure lead, by only filling your mold half way, and dropping them as only a nose. Then put the pure nose lead back in the mold and pour hard lead in to finish the boolit. I believe there is a third step by putting the half 'n half boolit back in the mold and heat it up again to get the halves to bond.

The more I think of it, the it'll be easier to torch anneal the nose as described above.

[Good Cheer]

My brother's 45-70 heavy is a ridiculously accurate paper patched 500 grain swaged lead spitzer that he pushes way too fast for the future reliability of his memory. But nothing walks away.

[Lucky Joe]

There's another way to get the nose soft, definitely more work. Cast the nose with pure lead, by only filling your mold half way, and dropping them as only a nose. Then put the pure nose lead back in the mold and pour hard lead in to finish the boolit. I believe there is a third step by putting the half 'n half boolit back in the mold and heat it up again to get the halves to bond.

This way does work and you are right about the third step. Ross Seyfried had it down pat but annealing is easier. And I have had boolits seperate on impact with the double pour method. Probably rushed the process.

[triggerhappy243]

nobade, I did not know him.

[Keith Andersen]

A lot of you guys make the big mistake trying to get .458 win mag velocities out of your .45-70. The high velocity with the 300 or 350 gr bullets are chasing your tails. Most of the time they will not pass through especially when you hit bone at near 2000 fps velocities.
You will have a lot better results with the .45-70 if you keep your velocity at around 1200 fps with a 485 + gr cast at 1/30 bullet. I have yet to be able to recover a bullet shot through a Buffalo even hitting heavy bone using a 1/30 alloyed bullet. I have taken deer with angling shot that started behind the back of the rib cage and taking the shoulder out with a 485 gr flat nosed bullet and I did not recover the bullet. With the .45-70 the high velocity of close to 2000 fps does not penetrate as deep as it will at 1150 fps.

KA

[triggerhappy243]

kinda like a freight train.