Cast Spire points for hunting?

[Tripplebeards]

I've seen some spire point molds for the 44 and 500's. I would assume these are meant for target shooting and not hunting applications?

[white eagle]

most likely yes
they do not have the meplat to upset tissue and cause damage

and would likely pencil through anything shot with them

[BK7saum]

I would say that the effectiveness of spire point cast boolits depends on the velocity of the boolit. I have a 35XCB mold/boolit that I plan to try in my 358 Winchester coming soon. I'd say any velocity north of 1800 with a relatively soft alloy should upset plenty for hunting. In revolvers, I'd relegate spire point molds strictly to target shooting as you wouldn't get the velocity needed. In a hard alloy, even at rifle velocities the boolits likely wouldn't expand or upset. Like anything, alloy, velocity, and boolit shape have to be matched in order to get expansion or to avoid over expansion.

[Dan Cash]

I killed one deer with a .45-70 using a Lyman "Schmitzer" bullet pushed by black powder. 100 yard shot, deer dead right there with a half inch hole through it side to side. I have killed deer with a 200 grain spire point casting from a Lyman mould in my .30-40. 150 yard shot, deer dead right there; nice exit hole but no bullet to examine. With enough juice, spire points work fine.

[quilbilly]

I tested several molds in 25 caliber in my 250 Sav. All were about 103 to 105 gr with one being a spire, one a semi-spire, and one a RNGC. Accuracy-wise, the spire and the semi-spire were the better ones but when I did terminal ballistics tests, the RNGC was far superior with deep straight line penetration and good expansion. No doubt all will do for hunting (there are no degrees of dead) but I load the RNGC for that purpose and even the RNGC gets 2 MOA with iron sights which is more than adequate for hunting. There are casting techniques to improving hunting terminal performance of a spire point CB which you can find on this board.

[Hickok]

My Sharps Berdan 54 caliber uses a spire point boolit. It kills deer nicely, but with a slug that big, the deer are like tissue paper.

[DonMountain]

I have used a selection of cast projectiles for deer hunting over the years, and find the flat tipped ones in the same caliber and weight range always far exceed the killing response of pointed cast projectiles. It appears that the pointed projectiles may hit better at longer ranges, but out to 200 yards with 200 grain 30 caliber projectiles its hard to tell the difference in hitting point. Flat tipped ones always kill faster and leave a bigger blood trail. A lot of the pointed projectiles leave a minimal blood trail resulting in lost deer. A 400 grain flat tipped projectile fired from a 45-70 is the ultimate deer killing rifle. But a 44 Mag, 8mm Mauser, or 32-40 with flat tipped projectiles always kill faster and are easier to find then their pointed "target bullets" of equal weight.

[sixshot]

Had a Lyman #257418 spire point mold one time & it shot really good on paper but I never once tried to kill anything bigger than Ground Squirrels with it, they came out the same size as they went in. This from a Ruger 250 Savage & a Ruger 257 Roberts using RL7 & 4895.

Dick

[dkf]

If you can get the point to mushroom on impact it would help for a hunting bullet. Make some softpoints.

[Motor]

I've done a little informal testing using the Lee .312" 160gr 2R. By simply filing back the tip to create a diameter about .2" (making it safe in a tube magazine) makes a very noticeable difference impacting water filled jugs.

Doing this only reduces the bullet weight about 3gr. I'd imagine it would make a difference as well on meat.

I do know this as fact. A Lee .50 cal. 250gr REAL cast to 12BHN (this boolit has a cone shape tip with small flat) shot at a velocity of around 1200 f/s will shoot straight through a whitetail deer at 50 yards (rib-heart-rib) like a full metal jacket.

I had to really search to find the exit hole. IF it wasn't for the 1/2" hole through the heart I don't know how far it may have went.

BTW: The reason the boolit was 12BHN was because it was being shot from a .500 S&W revolver. I have since switched to the big flat nose 440gr.

Motor

[Smoke4320]

Pencil in pencil out
Requires heart or lung hit and distance to recover downed game

[BAGTIC]

According to the US Army Ballistic Research Laboratory spitzer nosed bullets almost always yaw 180 degrees and proceed base forward. A spire point is just a spitzer with a shorter than usual nose length. I would not be surprised if they too yawed though perhaps a little slower because of the short nose length. The main advantage of the large meplat bullets is that they create cavitation that produces an enlarged channel diameter upon entry. Once a bullet turns base forward it can not have a larger meplat. People have experimented with bullets fired base forward for years, apparently successfully as long as the bullet remains intact. The main problem was that jacketed bullets tend to have soft cores and are fired at much higher velocities than are common for cast bullets so that a bullet that sheds its jacket would fragment quickly.

[BAGTIC]

It will not make the bullet act like a one bladed propeller. Severe nose damage would cause the bullet to yaw severely and proceed backwards until it exited or stopped. The reason so many people thought bullets were passing straight through like a pencil is that the sciences of terminal ballistics were rather primitive back then and many conclusions were erroneously based based on the premise that if both the entrance and exit holes were approximately bullet caliber the bullet must have passed straight through.

[BAGTIC]

most likely yes
they do not have the meplat to upset tissue and cause damage

and would likely pencil through anything shot with them

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