Good 45-70 hunting alloy (BN) for moose

[mikeyman]

Hi all, been reading so much my head is starting to spin! Having never hunted with cast boolits I want to tap into the experience of those that have hunted large game.

I picked up a nice pre-remlin marlin CB in 4570 for moose hunting. I currently have the ranch dog 460 350Gr. RF 5 cavity GC mold and my intention is to hunt moose out to and possibly past 200 yards. To that end I have an alloy consisting of 50/50 coww/soww +2% tin. I don't have a hardness tester but based on the internet, hardness should be around 12bn air cooled? Should I be water quenching for more hardness with this bullet shape? I plan to gas check them and push them around 2000fps. Any guess as to the hardness if I water drop this allow? Thanks all.
MM

[Yodogsandman]

I recently oven HT'd some 50/50 (COWW's + 2% Sn/pure lead) at 465*F for an hour then quenched in ice cold water and got an average of 24 BHN. I think I've read somewhere here that for that alloy, 18-20 BHN was normal for water dropping from the mold.

[runfiverun]

I'd add the 2% to the ww's then cut it with the soft...
once you figure the come ups for your sights 200 yds should be doable.
I'd prefer a little more weight myself, not push things so hard, and not get carried away trying for hardness.

[dubber123]

50/50 WW to pure lead, +2% tin, (close to your formula) is about 9 on an LBT tester when air cooled. I too would prefer a little more boolit for moose, but I'm sure the 350's will be fine. My brothers last moose was with a 460 gr. WFN of heat treated WW's from his Marlin Guide Gun. 100 yds., angling in behind left shoulder, broke the right shoulder and exited. It did a flip into a small stream and laid right there. Good luck!

[DougGuy]

The joy of a GC is that it lets you use a softer alloy. The alloy you are casting is my favorite of all, 50/50+2% but I'm not shooting as fast nor at game the size of moose. What about water dropping what you already have? I would think it wouldn't be very far off optimal being just a bit harder, and water dropping may put it right there.

If you don't have a tester, no fear. There is a thread here about using Mars Staedtler pencils to test hardness and it WORKS! You can get close to what BHN number you have with the pencils. Close enough for moose loads anyway!

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...s-with-pencils

[mikeyman]

Thanks for the replys so far. I chose the 350gr thinking it will be a little faster and flatter than a larger boolit since 200yard shots will be common and I have a nice 2-7 leupold mounted. I think I will water drop for now and thanks for the tip on the pencils for testing bnh.

[BrentD]

I too will be hunting moose this year. I will also be using a .45-70 and my bullets will be 40:1 lead/tin - no wheel weights, no antimony. I would prefer a heavier bullet than yours. Mine will be a 420 gr bullet of my own design. Anticipated range is about the same as yours - 200-250 yds will be about as far as I care to go.

In short, soft is good. I may go as soft as pure lead actually.

This critter is quite a bit bigger than a moose, and 30:1 did the job on him quite nicely.

[725]

So many will work well. I'd opt for a 420 gr. WFN of 60/40 % wheel weight to pure lead, GC driven just faster than the top trapdoor loads. Settle in on the most accurate for you and your rifle in that range. Good luck.

[mikeyman]

BrentD - do you prefer softer so that the boolit will flatten creating a bigger wound channel? I understand why too hard is not good unless on dangerous game where penetration is most important.

[BrentD]

Soft expands better and that is a good thing. Getting sufficient penetration on a moose is not hard with soft lead.

But the other reason that soft can be better is also related to penetration - soft lead, pure lead in particular, bends, squashes, flattens, but does not often break up and never shatters, and that ensures that penetration will be adequate. I am very reluctant to use wheel weights or antimony containing bullets for the most part because of this issue. But I will also say that I do not have much experience with them simply because I have found very soft lead to work every time on all kinds of animals from small to large, close to far, on one continent or or another.

Paul Matthew's book, "The Paper Jacket" discusses this as well. Hard bullets are over sold for hunting purposes. Way oversold in my opinion. I think this is largely due to the influence of pistol shooters with really fast powders who are trying to push envelopes that rifle hunters (who are not trying to sell magazines anyway), just don't have to deal with.

Lots and lots and lots of moose die to .30-30s, .50 caliber roundball flintlocks and other slow, old technologies that still kill them deader than zombies every time a bullet is just reasonably placed in the vitals. It ain't magic.

Although I would never use the mix that 725 advocates, I do agree that there are, "many that will work well".

[mikeyman]

What you are saying makes sense to me and nice to see actual results on a big animal! Thanks.

[sharpsguy]

I would use a heavier bullet and slow it down. 30-1 or softer works just fine. A 480 grain flat nosed bullet such as the Lyman 457121 will cycle through your Marlin with no problems, and 1250 fps will shoot through and through your moose.

We shot four bison the last of February using 45-70 Sharps and black powder. ALL bullets were complete pass throughs, except one. The exception was one bison that was facing the hunter at 103 yards, and was shot square in the chest, front to back. The bullet was a 30-1round nosed Govt. bullet that weighed 509 grains and was traveling 1200 fps. The animal turned around, went ten feet away from the hunter, and fell dead. We found the bullet in the pelvis after 72 inches of straight line penetration. It still weighed 505 grains.

I have taken a half dozen bison and several kudu and wildebeast and zebra in Africa with cast bullets and black powder. 480 to 510 grains of bullet at 30-1 and 1200 to 1300 fps is the magic formula. Light bullets don't penetrate, and deep penetration is what kills big animals.

[BrentD]

No need for a 480 gr bullet. the 420 will do fine and the moose won' t even know the difference. 420 is more than plenty.

[jhalcott]

I take bundles of magazines and/or newspaper, phone books to test expansion and penetration of the bullets I hunt with. I KNOW it ain't real meat and bones, but does give me an idea of what to expect. I soak them and place them at the distances I will shoot at game. Only hard part is lugging them to the dumpster after the test. I've used all manner of mixture for bullet alloy in the past, but now I just use cow as a hunting alloy. (Did I mention that I'm kind of LAZY?).This alloy has a BHN of ~12 on a Lee tester. It is hard enough to penetrate 20 inches of the wetpack at 100+ yards from a 30-06, 308 or 30-30 when started at ~2100 fps. 150 grain bullet and heavier. I figure IF I can not hit a phone book at what ever range, I have no business shooting at a deer!

[jhalcott]

As far as using a 45-70 on game , I have a Siamese Mauser/24" barrel and a T?C Contender?15" barrel. I've used both on deer with COWW alloy and a softer alloy that gets 10 BHN. I've used a 420gr NEI pointy gas check, a 300 gr FNGC and a 400 FNGC boolit with great success. Also a couple Jacketed designed ones. In MY opinion a 45 cal hole thru the vitals doesn't need much expansion to work.

[runfiverun]

if you cast with an alloy of just antimony and very, very little tin [below .5%]
you might be amazed to find that it expands better than pure lead alone does.
antimony is for sure getting a bad rap when it is not the culprit everybody thinks it is.
Tin is more the bad guy in a lead alloy than it is given credit for.

[bearcove]

I agree with BrentD 420gr is plenty. I settled on a 425gr NOE mold. Even big bears or cape buffalo won't stand after one of these in the works.

[mikeyman]

I love my NOE molds unfortunately sold out of 405gr and I dont see any listed at 425? I see 480gr round nose and 530gr rcbs copy that looks interesting but probably too big.

[BrentD]

Not too big, just bigger than you need. My mould is a BACO mould make to my specs. It is also a paper patch mould. I will be using it with blackpowder but it would be pretty darn near ideal with smokeless. With the paper you could run it as hot as you could stand it.

[bearcove]

Since its a marlin you need to watch the crimp groove to nose dim. The heavies are for single shots or 458 mag. Check his ,NOE's, Ranch dog section, these are made to function in a Marlin. 405 or 425 no matter, only an accountant would notice.