311008 for deer...or, what is the largest animal you would shoot with this boolit?

[oldblinddog]

Know your gun, your own limits and what to expect from the bullet...

That's a pretty good philosophy right there!

[missionary5155]

Good morning
Have hunted 50 pound or so critters with the 32 WCF for many years. I would nit consider any cast flat nosed boolit of less than 115 grains. A 35 pound ground hog or raccoon takes a very good "thwap" through the shoulders or brain to get anchored and not running back to it's hole or tree. Lighter weight cast (under 105 grains) just will not get done what I desire. There is no recoil with this little caliber so why use light boolits unless you are hunting bunnies or tree rats ?
If my 32-20 Savage Bolt rifle was all I had I would shoot corn crunchers down in the river bottoms I hunt. 90 % of all my white tail shots are less than 20 yards. Farthest to date is 33 yards. But happily I can choose a much more powerful cartridge to get the job done and will continue to do so. I am beyond the age where crawling through brush looking for tiny little red spots on leaves and sticks is a fun challenge. Give me an expanded caliber .50 hole or larger clean through that leaks like a fire hose.
Where I grew up in Michigan 32 WCF was not considered a "good deer caliber" unless the shots were very close so exact shot placement was near guaranteed. It was not considered "good hunting practice" to go about just poking holes in hard to find white tails. The 30-30 was viewed as a proper caliber. Anything less was viewed in unsavory light. "Boy we ain't hunting ground hogs no more" settled a lot of debates.
44 WCF and 38 WCF were viewed as more "up close calibers". Sufficient in the hands of a good shot. But woe to the feller that lost a deer to bad shot placement. Any one who needed dogs to find a wounded deer was not held in any esteem.
Mike in Peru

[OnHoPr]

90 % of all my white tail shots are less than 20 yards. Farthest to date is 33 yards.

I am beyond the age where crawling through brush looking for tiny little red spots on leaves and sticks is a fun challenge.

Here, here Dang, that's pretty close, especially after about the 4th or 5th day of camp eating chili and beans and all the rest of the camp foods. My shots usually range from 75 to 125 yds with 40 being about the closest and a few quite a bit further. Sounds like you could have come up with a great buckshot gun and load combo for those ranges. That yardage is usually my bow range. I have had to cut a shirttail once or twice though. Those deer have a lot of space around them especially when their running. With the newer 3 pt rules in a lot of the sections of the country it just may be a scheme to get hunters to get deer closer to them before shooting. Trying to count 3 pts on one side is pretty ludicrous in a field scenario when most bucks do not fit the "Bucks of Tecomate" pictorial status. I have had to let a few bucks go and their backstraps in the past few years just because I couldn't really identify and count all those little scraggly points even at 50 yds with a scope when they are moving along with a little brush here and there. I also think that that 44-40 and 38-40 loaded in a strong action in todays standards are pretty decent deer thumpers. How about a package of bologna and shirttail where backstraps should be hanging.

[Larry Gibson]

I have shot several black tail deer with the Lyman GC'd version of that bullet out of an M1 carbine. Velocity was 1850 fps and all were between 50 - 100 yards +/-. As I recall the 3 deer I shot with that bullet were all one shot kills with the deer not going far if at all. Shots were to the heart and penetration was through and through.

Having shot deer in the Texas Hill country (West Kerr Ranch) I would not hesitate to use that bullet again in the M1 Carbine on the white tails there shooting from stands at not more than 100 yards+/-.

Larry Gibson

[oldblinddog]

Thanks, Larry. That's what I was thinking. I have several other boolits more suitable to the .308 like the 311041 or the Accurate 310180Q Ranchdog XCB, so I don't know if I will ever try it.

[Larry Gibson]

oldblinddog

Same here, once I obtained I obtained a 311041 and a 30-30 then a .308W I didn't ue the 30 Carbine anymore for deer hunting. Still use it for coyote calling and standing by for home defense though.


Larry Gibson

[Screwbolts]

I am also curious as to what states the 32-20 is"illegal" to use for harvesting Deer?

Just curious, do you know anyone that has ever harvested a deer with a Bow and arrow, yes they usually use a broad head. I am fortunate enough to know a fellow that has harvested a nice little buck with a naked arrow. No I don't use or own a sliver shooter. But this good friend fessed up one day to how he pulled the wrong arrow out of his guiver and punched a LONG, I mean real LONG wad cutter right threw a deer's boiler room at just under the speed of light, you know, way less than 300 FPS. The Deer apparently didn't realize it wasn't supposed to die as quick as if a broad head had traveled the same rout. Go figure.

Ken

[jhalcott]

Many states have a minimum caliber and energy regulation, most REQUIRE 1200 FPE for a LEGAL weapon for deer hunting.Md. has a 1200 fpe for rifles and 700 fpe & 61/2" barrel for a handgun. My Grand dad told me of shooting BARE cedar arrows when he lived in New York as a kid. No one he knew used a broadhead!

[Rattus58]

I stand corrected... Looked up my current state of residence and bordering states and the only legal deer rifle requirement is center-fire ammunition with expanding bullet ammunition larger than .22 caliber.

I previously lived in places which had muzzle energy requirements or overall cartridge length limitations.

But agree that if it was a matter of use a .32-20 or starve, the answer is easy.

Oh.... you must mean Hawaii.... haha...

I'm thinking that game departments are going to have to start rethinking a lot of the data they rely on for rules. Rules should have to apply to the resource, for conservation, or safety. I know that this isn't an Air Gun site, but consider that airguns use lead bullets. It is becoming abundantly clear that foot pounds of energy matter and that you can easily kill deer with less than 200 foot pounds of energy. It always comes down to shot placement with light bullets of any stripe is my belief and if a head shot is what your talking about... there have been thousands of deer taken with a .22 with properly placed long rifle rounds. Today even, 25 caliber pellets are dropping deer with head shots so FPE... like here in Hawaii where you need 1200 foot pounds at the muzzle for a long gun, but are able to go handgun hunting with .357....

.32 caliber? If you know how to use it should be plenty of gun... although a picture I once saw of a hunter shooting at a grizzly bear with a 32-20 I think is a bit of a stretch and license of sales practice....

[Dan Cash]

In desperation, I would shoot any thing that walked. On purpose, coyote out to 150 with a 1650 MV.

[Bigslug]

This is a thought experiment.

OK. I can think.

NATO considers a 115-ish grain 9mm round nose FMJ at 1100-ish fps adequate for use on people who are trying to kill you back. This Lyman slug has the same weight, higher sectional density, an actual meplat, and, if we're talking about the .32-20, should be drivable to 1500 fps or so with a decent bore fit and a decent lube. I got nine milk jugs of penetration out of my hybridized .32-20 Martini chamber with a wheelweight 130 grain FN at only 1200 fps - I've got them going 1500 now.

Would I try an elk across 400 yards of canyon with that rifle? Nope. Would I take a sub-100 yard deer shot if the right angle presented itself? I would and I hope to.

We're all to a greater or lesser degree victims of post-WWII 20th Century marketing's attempts to convince us we need something "better" than what the other guy makes, or "better" than what we hunted with last year - bigger, faster, flatter, farther, foot-pounds, shock effect, bone-breaking blah, blah, blah. If you can drive a semi-ragged hole through both sides of a deer, putting it in an 8" circle with the heart being at the bottom rear edge, you'll have a deer on the ground in about 15 seconds. There's nothing in the physics of that that this humble 115 grain flat nose will find perplexing - it's just that you'll never hear it from the advertising department.

[skeettx]

Remember the NATO logic is to wound the enemy and cause their care to take up many more personnel from the battlefield.
Not so with game animals, we want to stop them and not have to track them.

Mike

[rking22]

You beat me to it What NATO or the military uses has very little pratical application in the game fields for that very reason. A wounded soldier takes 3 men out of the fight, a dead one takes 1 out of the fight. Not a good plan for hunting and I personally don't see the logic in combat, or personal defense for that matter. As others have said , yes it will killa deer just fine, moreso with a GC, but most of us have a 3030 or equilivent. I understand wanting to use a certain rifle to hunt with, for me it is a M25 remington. I may hunt with it a little, a GC 120 at 1500+ and treat it like a long bow will work fine. I don't mind passing up shots till I have the perfect presentation. We don't recommend this due to many people reading these posts from Google ect, and not bothering to read the whole thread. Using a 32-20 on deer requires a level of disipline that the run of the mill "deer hunter" lacks. Shoot just read the "sight in day at the range" stories posted here sometimes. I know a guy shooting a 300Win Mag that cannot keep 3 on the paper at 100,from a rest, and thinks he can hit deer at 700 yards! My M25 will put 5 of those on a golfball at 50 yards, about 10 to 20 yards farther than I usually shoot deer. "Just because you can dosen't mean you should" is applicable here. Needing food is a whole different picture, vs sport hunting. A 22 rifle fed many familes during the hard times of our past (and future???).

[oldblinddog]

"Just because you can dosen't mean you should" is applicable here.

Actually it is not. That statement implies that this is a discussion about what is the minimum boolit to use to kill deer and it is not. Also, everyone seems to want to put this boolit in a .32-20 (handgun or rifle) at slow velocities. I have several times in this thread tried to convey that this will be loaded into a .308 Win and run as hard as I can make it go and that it is about the capabilities of 115 grains of lead with a wide meplat. If I can get complete penetration of the animal, the question then becomes why do I need to launch 150-180 grains of lead down range? There are reasons to save on lead after all.

So, given equal accuracy, why use a 180 gr 311041 at 1900 fps when I might use a 115 gr 311008 at 2350 fps? Again, this is NOT a discussion about the ethical way to kill a deer, but a discussion about the performance capabilities of this boolit.

Hmmm...sounds kind of like an Elmer vs Jack discussion sort of...

Anyway, it is all very hypothetical..

[rking22]

. Also, everyone seems to want to put this boolit in a .32-20 (handgun or rifle) at slow velocities.
So, given equal accuracy, why use a 180 gr 311041 at 1900 fps when I might use a 115 gr 311008 at 2350 fps?

Anyway, it is all very hypothetical..

The reason is that the 311008 bullet doesn't carry a gas chek, I see that yours does and that increases the potiencial velocity. If you can achieve equal accuracy at 2350fps I am way interested in following along. In my experience it becomes very difficult to get good accuracy at those speeds in a typical rifle. I prefer to keep my life simple and use more of a cheap simple alloy than less of a more difficult to find and harder alloy to achieve the same results. Different approach but no less valid. For me I prefer the longer heavier boolit to the short and hard but fast one. I like 2 holes per shot and am not a believer in "energy" or velocity as the ultimate predictor of bullet performance. That applies to deer hunting, now I would like a 311008 GC at 2350 for varmits, I think i would be explosive. Sounds interesting !

"
Hmmm...sounds kind of like an Elmer vs Jack discussion sort of..." Yep it definatly does

[oldblinddog]

Yeah, shoulda put a link to my NOE mold in the first post.
http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/product...lab75g1oh81793

I cast some a couple of weeks ago, but as usual, I haven't even had a chance to size, much less, load any. On a brighter note, I have achieved Gold Elite status on my hotel points...

[Bigslug]

Also, everyone seems to want to put this boolit in a .32-20 (handgun or rifle) at slow velocities. I have several times in this thread tried to convey that this will be loaded into a .308 Win and run as hard as I can make it go and that it is about the capabilities of 115 grains of lead with a wide meplat. If I can get complete penetration of the animal, the question then becomes why do I need to launch 150-180 grains of lead down range? There are reasons to save on lead after all.

So, given equal accuracy, why use a 180 gr 311041 at 1900 fps when I might use a 115 gr 311008 at 2350 fps? Again, this is NOT a discussion about the ethical way to kill a deer, but a discussion about the performance capabilities of this boolit.

Well, since you're using a real engine to drive it. . .

A heavier bullet will care less about the animal's presentation, bones in the way will matter less, and fragmentation/ablation take away a smaller overall percentage of what you had to begin with, and, with all that considered, be less fussy about what you cast it out of. The extra momentum gives you more options. If you hunt an area where you're tripping over deer, all you're looking for is meat, and it's simply a matter of waiting another 30 minutes to get a broadside shot, sure, use the little bullet. If, on the other hand, your area makes you work for it, or you're waiting for the shot on "The One", that whole "saving lead" notion is the falsest of false economies. Go heavy and you won't have to sweat the marginal angles.

That statement made, you don't have to go AS heavy. As I've said elsewhere not so recently, I think the majority of us latter half of the 20th Century types tend to kneejerk-select bullet weights based on the fragmentary performance of older soft-core jacketed rounds. The harder cast stuff digs deeper, and you therefore don't need as much of it. 115 might be a bit on the light side for every situation, but a wheelweight 140-165 flat nose should solve ALL your potential deer problems. 180's. . .thems be elk boolits.

[MT Gianni]

One thing a copper jacket does well is resist erosion. As a bullet expands it erodes particles while traveling through flesh. The faster you push it the faster it erodes. The cost difference between a 115 gr bullet and a 165 gr @ $1 a lb is $0.0014. Nose flaking and a heavy base to push in a straight line have been the reasoning behind hunting with heavy for caliber lead bullets and it has worked well. I believe the target animal deserves too much respect for experimentation when we know what works.

[oldblinddog]

Texas hill country deer are about the size of antelope and probably far easier to kill. They are also quite plentiful, many hill country counties having triple the population of a lot of other states' totals. It's not that hard to get a perfect shot. Still, I have numerous other molds that will do the job better so I doubt I would ever try the 311008 on a deer. It is just idle speculation about the "qualities" of the boolit. 115 grains of lead is overkill on a bunny (I've seen one die when shot through the ears an inch above his head with a .22 long rifle. ) and under kill on a 90 lb deer. Probably just right on a 40 lb coyote.

As for saving, I mean more shots from the lead you have, not less money.

[barrabruce]

size it down and paper patch it.
Use say ww ac or about that hardness 12-15 bhn.
Drive it with a case full of slow powder.
Might be interesting...but I think they would slow down quick and be wind prone.
Should turn something into a red mist.....crows anyone????