Who hunts with cast HP?

[35 Whelen]

35 Whelen, I just have to ask, what was your alloy for the .45 Colt boolit?

Beautiful expansion!

I'll have to check, but I think it was 70/30 lead/COWW. Bhn as I recall was 9.0 +/-. The excel basedan alloy calculator available here is a wonderful resource and is very accurate. I use it anytime I'm looking for a specific Bhn.

35W

[Tripplebeards]

Broke in my new mold today. I noticed a crack in my HP pin on my third cast. Hope Lyman replaces it. If I didn't have bad luck I'd have no luck at all.

Took a while to get everything hot but once it was I was cooking along.

I took your posters advise and kept both heaters on my Coleman stove and warmed the pin between boolits and it worked good to heat up my mold. I'm sure I'll have a good amount of rejects my first time around but they look cool! I used COWW with 2% pewter.

I had alot better fill outs once I got going compared to casting on my range top indoors with my Lee 310 and no pewter.

I'm guessing between the hotter Colman stove and the pewter is the ticket. I did use a Lee ladle to pour as well in both scenarios.

[Tripplebeards]

I had on my non readers, safety glasses so I will have throw on the readers and start culling. I see one in the photo. It will be my BH test boolit

[Markopolo]

Those are purty sir...

[Ramjet-SS]

This is great thread with tremendous aunt of first hand expereince and knowledge.

I have been great fan of the Devestator and MiHec HP moulds. The performance up to and including elk has been fantastic. Paying attention to alloy and velocity for that allow will give excellent performance.

[6pt-sika]

In my own personal experience I've had semi mixed results . And all my use has been in the 444 . The first was the MiHec 434-295GC HP pushed with H322 shot a deer at 25 yards slammed it , air cooled WW . My next was with the Lyman 429640 Devistator again WW alloy air cooled , pushed with XMP5744 shot right behind the shoulder at 30 yards , hit the ground got up went 20 yards and I popped it again end of story . But I wasn't overly pleased with that . I next used the NOE/RD 432-350GC HP cast with WQ WW and pushed with H322 popped him at 65 yards deer ran forty yards and I shot it again boom flop again not overly pleased . I killed a pair with the Lyman 429244 HP and they were both about 65 yards both ran about twenty and flopped air cooled WW pushed with H322 . Used the NOE/RD 432-265GC HP air cooled WW pushed with H322 35 yards deer ran 20 and flop . This past season I shot a buck at 42 yards with my BRP/RD 432-400GC HP pushed with RL-7 air cooled WW and he dropped at the boom of the gun . I can't say I've really had any bad situations with my own homecast HP's , just some situations were better then others . I still have a Lyman 429215 HP , NOE/RD 432-240GC HP and a BRP/RD 432-375GC HP I wish to field test hopefully this season . After that I'd like to see NOE make available a HP version of the RD 432-300HP .

[Larry Gibson]

At least add 2% tin to your AC'd WW HPs. COWW alone, especially at 444 velocities is just too brittle. Personally I would add the 2% tin and then add 30 - 50 % pure lead, especially for the Devastator.

Ramjet-SS was absolutely correct with "Paying attention to alloy and velocity for that allow will give excellent performance."

[Tripplebeards]

I tried a few that didn't make the cut when culling in smoke's purple. AC COWW with 2% pewter added.

[Markopolo]

That looks almost pink to me... gunna have to take you off the friend list soon...

[Tripplebeards]

That looks almost pink to me... gunna have to take you off the friend list soon...

Lol. I thought it was a deep purple when I ordered the PC...it's a little light.

My pops wanted the purple for his colt 45 loads so I tried some.

[Hickok]

Lol. I thought it was a deep purple when I ordered the PC...it's a little light.

My pops wanted the purple for his colt 45 loads so I tried some.

Mix a little of Smoke's black pc in and you can get a real cool plum crazy purple!

[Gamsek]

Shoot my first roebuck at 75m this year with cast HP at subsonic velocity.

Lung shoot, went 25m, collapsed.

But I was fiddling since last year with bullet type (314-140,311440,312-159,HG#38) and I was testing them (in wet soft paper, water and ice) to see what alloy would be the best to mushroom nice at my subsonic velocity that I use in 300blk. I started with ww, then half ww/pure,
fragmentation.

then 80%ww/20 pure, all had at least 2-3% tin, large HP and I got this when I shoot wet paper at 100m

my last batch is pure lead with aprox 5% tin. Tested it shows beautiful expansion, decent accuracy and almost no weight loss. That 311410 lost 1grain.


Will try to shoot chamois with that 311410, we start chamois season on 1st of August. If lucky, I post photos.

And yes, I did read about alloys and HP, but I always always find (learn) something new on this forum and I also always test how some combination works.

Smoke's PC of course.

[Jkrem]

I plan to go old school with my M94 in 32 WS in doe season this December with this Lyman 321265 "Express" bullet, thanks to a replacement HP pin from Erik Ohlen. The mold casts great bullets, thank you Erik for your help.
Attachment 200616Attachment 200616

[Tripplebeards]

Tried some of my AC COWW GC PC (with a BH of 14.3)devastators out of my S&W 44 mag Niteguard titanium snubby today. Loaded light with 6g of trail boss. Found a couple laying a inch or so in back of the second pallet. Didn't Penatrate that well so I'll have to pump up the load.

But I was expecting to see either no expansion or shedded peddals. 2% pewter must of helped. Shedded the GCs as well. I'm guessing that's common?



This is definitely a light plinking round I tried for fun but how much energy/velocity would I need to put down a deer at 50-75 yards?

[6pt-sika]

I plan to go old school with my M94 in 32 WS in doe season this December with this Lyman 321265 "Express" bullet, thanks to a replacement HP pin from Erik Ohlen. The mold casts great bullets, thank you Erik for your help.
Attachment 200616Attachment 200616

I had a factory Lyman 311041HP once upon a time . When I eliminated all the 30-30's I let the mold go as well . Never did try it on deer , but I wish I had !

[Blackwater]

It has been my observation, from what little I've seen and what I've heard from folks whose words I trust, that deer often go a little ways when hit with cast - or any handgun, for that matter. Not always, but often if not usually. I know when LBT came out with their cast designs, I was agnostic that really hard cast bullets could do what was being claimed for them. But then, the stories and evidence kept piling up, and I couldn't NOT believe the stories. Then some time ago, 44man here came up with the theory that these extra hard, wide flat nosed bullets with their fairly "sharp" corners on the ogive, cut blood vessels rather than stretching them out until they break. Thus, the vessels bleed out more rapidly because stretching "rubbery" vessels out until they break makes their diameters smaller, just like forming a dropper from a hollow glass rod will do. It was the best theory I've heard as to why LBT type designs work as well as they increasingly seem to.

And FWIW, if anything, back when I was shooting a lot of HP's, I found that more tin in my mix helped the bullets hold together rather than fragmenting or breaking off the expanding portion of the bullets. This was mostly in wetlap tests, but those bullets were used on a few deer with very good results.

Too, with any bullet, jacketed or cast, HP or solid, it all depends on just where you place your bullets and at what angle the deer is to you, that matters most. I don't think there's a "magic bullet" that will drop them all in their tracks, but HP's of suitable size and wt. sure seem to kill quicker, on average, than solids do. Again, that's with equal placement, and bullets that easily penetrate deeply enough to reach and destroy the vitals. In my neck of the woods, a .44 or .45 anything should do very well, with proper bullet placement. But .357's do pretty darn good, too, providing the bullet chosen is appropriate.

A good hunter will kill deer with almost anything you put in his hands. A poor hunter will go hungry a lot. And the average hunter will be somewhere in between, but he'll eat good venison regularly if he applies himself to the job well.

To me, it's really amazing how little it really takes to kill a deer, IF (there's that word again!) the shot is kept within the rifle/ammo/shooter combination's capabilities. And it's also amazing what a deer can tote off in the way of a wound when the bullet is only a little off. Deer are amazing creatures, and their characteristics in many ways will always make them a bit of a mystery to all of us. I guess that's one of the things that makes hunting them so absorbing and captivating?

[TCLouis]

Smoke4320

So, lets hear the 30 Herrett load info!

[Tripplebeards]

Waiting to see my buddies kid try these out on a black bear...hoping this weekend. 7.5 BH, pure lead and 6% pewter, 44 mag devastator chronied at 1575fps. Caught them in water jugs.

[Smoke4320]

Smoke4320

So, lets hear the 30 Herrett load info!

Attachment 204748

These were my original loads. I have since switched to 49/49/2 alloy. Coww/PB/HSB

[waksupi]

Waiting to see my buddies kid try these out on a black bear...hoping this weekend. 7.5 BH, pure lead and 6% pewter, 44 mag devastator chronied at 1575fps. Caught them in water jugs.

I consider that bullet failure.