The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"
Forget everything you know about loading jacketed bullets. This is a whole new ball game!
Noffsinger, can you provide the velocity and alloy hardness you were using with this RN bullet? I have some experience with round nose pistol rounds and small game and I am not a believer in them. Yet, speed does kill, so I am assuming your NOE cast is getting the job done with help from more velocity. The more information I glean the better I can decide which direction I want to go with the 35 Whelen I have. As noted above, this too is a sporterized Mauser action and FN bullets won't feed, they catch up on the edge of the chamber. The round nose cast bullets I have will feed.
Any additional information on size of animals you put down, distance to target, etc, is appreciated.
Christopher
Another alternative to 8mm bare cast is paper patching convectional .30 cal cast boolits. Being cheap and already having a selection of them, I use 2 wraps of .004 paper (copy paper cover wrapper) or 3 wraps of .0025 drafting vellum. On a .311 casting, either will get you .325 or a little more and a trip through a .325 sizer will take care of any overage. I've patched the 150gr Lyman 311466 and a plain base 180gr 311041 clone among others. With PP, I can drive a softer hunting alloy with no leading at jacketed velocity. I played with a Yugo M-48 for a while and accuracy was 2" at 100 yards when I worked out what it really liked.
With the softer alloy (for expansion) the bore begins to foul around 8 rounds and accuracy begins falling off. This doesn't pose a problem with hunting loads as if I haven't got the game in 8 - 10 shots I might as well go home and clean the rifle anyways...….
I haven't tried PC because I don't touch the stuff [except testing for others]. Besides when the PC is baked you WQ the bullets which essentially heat treats them which negates the use of the softer alloy for expansion. Same bullet of COWWs + 2% tin with the same load can be shot all day long and maintain 2 moa or better accuracy for zeroing, practice and fun shooting.
Larry Gibson
“Deficient observation is merely a form of ignorance and responsible for the many morbid notions and foolish ideas prevailing.”
― Nikola Tesla
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |