Could it be the silver?

[seetrout]

From everything I read here my alloy should be plenty soft enough to mushroom.....but it doesn't really.

I am working on a hunting load for an old rifle and started with coww +1% tin and at just over 1700fps average into water soaked newsprint some had no upset at all to just a slight "riveting" at the nose. Backed off to 50/50 coww/pure +1% tin and now all rivet from slightly to bumping up to just a bit over bore diameter. I would have thought that that alloy at that speed should get a nice shroom head going. All I can think is wet newsprint is not an acceptable medium or it's my tin source, which is electronic solder (96sn, 4ag).

Anyone with wisdom to share?

[Markopolo]

There is nothing like soft lead for mushrooming... have you tried just pure soft lead with 2% tin? I a a proponent of starting low and working up. Start totally soft, and then work up to hardball. That way you get max expansion and can get what you are looking for. THe soft lead bullet running about 1500fps or even slower will give you what you are looking for I am sure. It would help to know the cal of the round you are trying to work with. And the bullet design would also be important to know in order to make recommendations....give us the whole picture and we can help ya narrow it down....

Marko

[William Yanda]

From everything I read here my alloy should be plenty soft enough to mushroom.....but it doesn't really.

I am working on a hunting load for an old rifle and started with coww +1% tin and at just over 1700fps average into water soaked newsprint some had no upset at all to just a slight "riveting" at the nose. Backed off to 50/50 coww/pure +1% tin and now all rivet from slightly to bumping up to just a bit over bore diameter. I would have thought that that alloy at that speed should get a nice shroom head going. All I can think is wet newsprint is not an acceptable medium or it's my tin source, which is electronic solder (96sn, 4ag).

Anyone with wisdom to share?

My SWAG is that the silver would act like copper-supposed to make bullets tougher. And be a permanent solution to werewolves.

[GregLaROCHE]

Sounds like you need a softer alloy.

[seetrout]

It's a .40 cal slug in a round flat design with an approximately 75% meplat. I'm not really looking for maximum expansion, but some would be nice.
I hate to burn up my tin supply, but I have thought about starting at 40-1 or 50-1 and leaving the WW's for target bullets.
Not too many werewolves around here, but just in case I'm covered.
Question: With 4% silver in my tin and running 40-1 alloy...how many times do I have to shoot one to make sure it's going to stay dead?

[BNE]

Silver alloys with Lead BETTER than Tin. It makes the lead tougher. If I did my math right, (Not much coffee yet)you only have 0.04% Silver. I would be surprised if that is your culprit.

I have played a little bit with 1% Silver hollow points and they still will rip apart if shot too fast. I would try a smaller % of your solder and see what happens.

[JSnover]

What BNE said, I doubt there's enough silver to cause a problem. More lead in your mix sounds like the way to go.

[seetrout]

I wouldn't have thought there was enough silver to make a difference, but you never know.
Once I source some more pure I will try 40-1, 30-1, 25-1 until I get what I want.
Or maybe I will try 2pure to 1WW or 3 pure to 1WW (always with 1% tin for mold fill out)
What I have is 50/50 +1%. If I cut it with pure by half again...

[montanamike]

I had this problem once. How wet is the newspaper? I found out I wasn't soaking the newspaper long enough. the boolits that hit closer to the edge of the bucket where the paper had more water in it mushroomed beautifully and the boolits in the middle didn't mushroom at all.

[JSnover]

Newsprint needs to be really wet. Like soak-it-overnight-minimum kinda wet. I got decent expansion years ago with my .357 but the newsprint was soaked long enough to break the fibers down pretty good. I know it sounds like a waste but you might want to shoot up a ham or turkey for a baseline, then come up with something that gives similar results but doesn't cost so much.

[Dan Cash]

You could cast softer but you really need to put some steam behind that bullet or you are going to be hunting wounded animals. You should be getting 1600-1700 fps impact velocity. Do that with a 40 cal bullet and don't fuss about expansion; your prey will be down for the count.