How did you make the jump to hunting iwth cast?

[redhawk0]

I've been casting and shooting for years. Just three years ago I purchased a 45-70 and decided to hunt with it. I've never run a Jword bullet down it's bore since I got it. I've taken two buck with it in back to back seasons in NH. I'm hooked.

redhawk

[popper]

When WWWB 40SW was >40$/100 @ WW. Now it's 6$/100.

[brewer12345]

I wanted to cast for rifles in part because I already cast for handguns and shoot 38/357 and 44 mag in lever actions. Not a huge leap to do the same in bottleneck cartridges. I especially wanted to develop a good deer load for 30-06. I don't take real long distance shots. I could, given the relatively open country I usually hunt, but it isn't my conception of hunting. At 100 yards I think typical jacketed 30-06 loads are unnecessarily destructive for deer and I am first and foremost a meat hunter. 200 grains of lead doing 1900 FPS out of the muzzle is plenty to anchor deer and not do a ton of damage/meat loss.

[Blanket]

My father started me casting in the 60's

[ole_270]

I started casting in the 70s with a lee swc mold for a Ruger 3 screw 357. Man I wish I had that 357 back.
When the family heirloom Marlin 94 25-20 came my way the cost and scarcity of ammo pretty much dictated casting for it. A Lyman 257420gc mold kept me in ammo for years. I bought a Win 94 Ranger 30-30 in the early 90s that didn't much care for anything I could find for it. I bought a 31141 mold to try in it. Didn't do a whole lot better than the j word, but was much cheaper so I stayed with it. For the most part I was pushing them just over 1900 fps, so I tried them on deer. Worked great, it was about all I used for several years on deer. Finally got tired of the 25lb trigger pull on the winny so it went down the road. These days I'm casting for a Marlin 336 rebored by JES to 38-55. The trigger is MUCH better, and it does a number on the woods range whitetails I hunt with it.

[irishtoo]

i was casting for muzzleloaders for apox 15 years. i had all the equipment,lead, and blackpowder. i did some research and decided a .45-70 was not a big jump. at the time factory .45-70s were $2.50 a pop. doing the math, i could reload for apox 15cents each!! i bought some lee reloading equipment, mold and a couple of books and never looked back. that investment has paid for itself many times over and i am not at the mercy of storages and retailers. irishtoo

[sharps4590]

Wasn't much of a jump, if any, for me. As others have mentioned I started casting RB's for my muzzleloaders. Also as with others, that evolved to casting for my revolvers. When I got into BPC rifles it was pretty much a given cast bullet would be used and when I saw how immensely effective they were on game the next step was using cast for hunting out of my smokeless rifles. That was about 25 years ago and I haven't taken a head of game with a jacketed bullet since. It is my experience and considered opinion that jacketed bullets don't kill one bit better than a good cast bullet. I do have a couple rifles that if I ever get the chance to blood them unfortunately it will be with a jacketed bullet due to the condition of their bore or, as with a drilling I have, the rifle barrel was made about 4 inches shorter than the shotgun barrels. It shoots cast accurately but it also literally lead plates the bottoms of the shotgun barrels. One time of cleaning that off was enough. Other than those few rifles I never shoot jacketed.

I believe it was that little known gun writer, Elmer Keith, that pretty much proved a good cast bullet will out penetrate the best, expanding jacketed bullet. I believe he did that some 80 years ago.

[richhodg66]

My Dad was the most avid shooter and caster I know. So I grew up being taught that cast was how it's done. dad wasn't a hunter, but in some circles was a target shooting force to be rekoned with. As such, he tended to cast things hard, and didn't care about nose profile or terminal performance.

I started casting when I was a young man to supplement my reloading addiction, it's always seemed crazy to me to buy jacketed bullets for pistols so that started it. Began casting for milsurps a few years later. When I giot serious about deer hunting, the Kansas muzzle loader season worked better for my work schedule and casting just seemed the right thing to do so that started deer hunting with cast.

I read all the articles in the old Lyman cast manual I had including the ones on casting for hunting. Always wanted to and in 2010, I got serious and killed one with an Ideal 31141 in a Savage 340 in .30-30. Worked like a champ, and I haven't used a jacketed bullet since and I average two deer a year.

For .30s, it isn't difficult. A .35 or bigger is a no-brainer. Did it this year with a 7mm and that's probably as small as I'll go on deer with cat but who knows? Pretty sure I could do it with a 6.5 and I have some good molds for that.

[William Yanda]

As a resident of Western NY, for years I was limited to shotgun, slug only for Big Game Season. Then Muzzleloaders were an option. Only more recently have rifles been an option. That being said, someone here has a comment about a lead boolit being adequate for a whole lot of killing. There wasn't a whole lot of thinking involved. The idea of making my own projectiles was a natural extension of "rolling my own".
Season's Greetings
Bill

[DougGuy]

It was easy to switch from j to cast, just load cast instead of j words at the press and you'll be there!

[ShooterAZ]

For me, there really wasn't much of a "jump" either. Long before I started doing my own casting, I used store bought cast bullets for hunting. Primarily in handguns, but after I started pouring my own I moved over to cast in rifles as well. I still use jacketed for certain applications though.

[Harter66]

I wanted cast to shoot.my 06' a lot at half range half size targets . NV has a 1000#@100yd rule for big game and my best loads came up just shy , like 25 ftlb at 4000 ft , at 8000 though ........ On a hunt an opportunity for a no brainier chip shot at about 75 yd kicked in the door and dragged me kicking and screaming to a tree rest 10ft from the truck door . Same damage as a Hornady 3033 (now discontinued) only just little blood shot . Pretty much made my mind up for critters under 250# inside 100 yd . We have killed a half dozen hogs since then with go fast rocket sleds and fat slow sledgehammers .

[dverna]

You mentioned the .308 and cast. For most cast bullet loads it is a jump backwards using cast. In effect, it winds up being a .30/30 when loaded with cast bullets....for MOST. Some can push cast bullets that will expand faster than 2200 fps with accuracy, but it is not easy.

For the bulk of hunting, 2200 fps bullets with large meplats will work. If you need energy and accuracy beyond 250 yards, stay with jacketed bullets.

If you enjoy the challenge, start working with cast in your .308 and understand the limitations. Look at the cost of mould(s), gas checks, 250 rounds worth of powder and primers to find a load and alloy that will likely not be as accurate as jacketed bullets. And you get a load with 150 yards less effective range. But as I said, nothing wrong with .30/30 performance if that is all you want or need.

If you want to save money, buy 200 jacketed bullets to hunt with. You will have a good load worked up after shooting 50 rounds. The other 150 bullets will last a long time....3 shots to check POI every year, another 6 to adjust POI if needed, and 6 to hunt with. 10 years of hunting for about $65. BTW, I use a .308 to hunt with and have shot 14 jacketed rounds in the last three years....12 to check POI and one on each of two deer. Both deer were shot at 125-135 yards....cast would have worked but I also can get shots over 300 yards. So I use jacketed bullets...and save money to boot.

Many will argue they want to do a lot of practice with their centerfire and need cast bullets to keep costs down. That is a valid reason to use cast. But they will not equal a jacketed bullet for hunting in a . 308.

[richhodg66]

The area and methods I hunt deer with, a 250 yard shot won't happen unless you set yourself up for it. I'll get in the woods, figure out where they're moving and then arrange to be close to them when they show up either in a tree stand or some kind of ground blind. I don't just set up on a food plot and watch them from across a field.

I'd hunt this way whether I used a recurve bow or a .264 Win Mag. It's called hunting, not long range target shooting.

Cast bullets work great. Full house jacketed loads in my .30-06 didn't put them down any faster than the cast loads I've used the past nine years or so.

[wmitty]

Bought a M 70 in .375 H&H at nineteen and showed it to the old gunsmith whose shop I hung around. He looked at me and said, "You will never learn to shoot that unless you cast bullets and reload for it". Long story shortened: he was right.

[Tom W.]

Well........ I've only killed one deer with a cast boolit, a 245 gr from my .44 SBH. My youngest son took temporary possession of my 30/30 and killed many deer with loads that I had cast and we loaded together, an my friend who sadly passed away some years back also killed a pile of deer with cast loads I made for him.
I have been casting for I dunno how many years, but it's more than 43, and most of my boolits are for pistol and revolver cases. I've had some handguns that have never fired a jacketed factory load, most never fired any factory loads.
Now that I have retrieved my 30/30 and had it rechambered to 30/30 A.I. I'm doing a lot of fire forming. The same for my 30-06 A.I. it's taken me many years, but I almost have all of the '06 a.i. brass formed. I don't have near as much 30/30 brass to form, but I don't get out to shoot much since I moved to Phenix City. That and my colon cancer has slowed me down a bit.
Maybe someday........

[RugerFan]

I was living in GA at the time. My primary deer and hog killer was a bolt .308 Win. To be honest, it just became too easy to make the kill shot with my jacketed reloads. Satisfaction factor was waning a bit. I had been casting for pistol and muzzleloader for many years already and decided it was time to make the jump to high powered rifle.

Needless to say this forum was paramount in excelling my knowledge and giving me the confidence to proceed. My main concern was leading, so I cast some Lyman 311291 pretty hard and heat treated them. Probably unnecessary hardness, but they turned out plenty accurate and killed game just fine. My addiction to cast got significantly worse from there.

[crankycalico]

my main reason for looking at cast for my rifles was well, using jacketed soft points is too expensive, .80 cents a pop minimum. Using FMJ is cheaper, but those things BOUNCE very easily.

Ive always been fascinated by the old guard load for the 30-06 and wanted to figure out a good version for my .308 but MOST of the data I was looking at was well, sketchy at best and at worst a quarunteed stuck bullet. SO ive got my gear and factory cast that are common for hunting so had to think about it.

Sadly its really hard to find data for 30-30 jsp to get them to a 30wcf velocity/energy from a .308.

I have a lot of bad experience using monolithic in .243 and .223 so the use of a non expanding cast bullet is not that much of a difference because in most instances, the monolithic solid copper bullets seem to have acted like 3,000 fps drill bits.

[richhodg66]

"I have a lot of bad experience using monolithic in .243 and .223 so the use of a non expanding cast bullet is not that much of a difference because in most instances, the monolithic solid copper bullets seem to have acted like 3,000 fps drill bits. "

Where are you getting this idea that cast bullets don't expand? Have you been reading the forum?

"Sadly its really hard to find data for 30-30 jsp to get them to a 30wcf velocity/energy from a .308."

A quick check of the basic Hornady manual from the '80s I keep here on the desk shows load data in the .308 for 165 grain bullets at 2300 FPS, lots of it. That's pretty close to the standard .30-30 load of a 170 grain bullet at 2200. "Really hard to find"? Makes me wonder where you're looking, this was just one source I keep handy, if I went out to the barn and looked through my other manuals, I'm certain I'd find a lot more.

[richhodg66]

Cast bullets expand like all get out if you know what you're doing. Picture is a 7mm bullet of mine I recovered after going through about three feet of deer this past October. If anything, it expanded too much. This idea that cast bullets only poke pencil holes through things is ignorant.



Do some reading, particularly through the hunting forum this time of year, cast bullets can be amazing projectiles in terms of terminal performance, but if all you know is to cast them from straight linotype and you don't consider nose profile, yeah, it's not gonna work.