Giving thanks where it's due

[Ledhead]

Boolit on the left is a hollow point, starting weight with powder coat is 246gr. Total expansion is .74" and retained weight is 237gr.

Boolit on the right is a cup point, starting weight with PC was 255gr. Total expansion is .63" and retained weight is 250gr.

Both loads were loaded with 14gr of HS-6 giving an average velocity with the 255gr cup point of 1356 fps. The 246gr hollow point was not chronographed but shouldn't be much more than 1400 fps if that. Both boolits had the hollow cavity filled with silicone, this is what made all the difference for some reason.

I just wanted to say thanks to all who's helped this novice along the way. My casting addiction began as a cheap way to load .44 mag and be less dependent apon the industry for my plinking needs. Later it turned to "I wanna hunt with these things" so I purchased a 2nd hand NOE RG 265gr RD design mold and a Lee 310-430 mold.

I killed a couple deer with each but wanted to experiment with the cup point design. Hoping to find something that expanded but will still drive deep into and through the animal. For nearly 2 years I'd tweek the alloy and test only to have the boolit fragment.

About a year ago I stumbled upon this forum and began to study the archives for information. I was able to quickly develop a devastating boolit for my muzzleloader but couldn't seem to figure out my .44 mag.

The above pictures are a direct result of the help and shared knowledge of many of you here. Thanks to this wonderful forum I am now, after over 2 years of failures, confident enough to begin hunting with my handgun and not just packing it for small does and backup. Not to mention I am no longer dependent upon the industry for projectiles and putting meat in the freezer.

[Winger Ed.]

Glad ya got it all figured out.
The resources here are better than any library I've ever found.

Your situation is probably different, but for me and all the shooting I do;
I haven't found anything a j-word can do better than cast if you running under about 2,000fps or so anyway.

When I was still hunting these small-ish Texas whit tail deer, I'd hit 'em with a jacketed .30-06 or .270.
The shots all passed through and left a exit hole about a inch or less, with a decent wound channel, but nothing spectacular.
The ones I hit with a cast .30RN--- it looked like a baseball went through there.


But don't get too deep into the addiction here.
Before ya know it, your family will be calling those intervention folks who have that TV show
and try to drag you off into some sort of guilt trip'n therapy program..

[mattw]

That is a good performing bullet! Well done grasshopper!

I have a couple loads and bullets that i have arrived at similar performance in the 41 mag. I cannot say that I have not shot jacketed in the last 20 years, but the numbers are in the hundreds of rounds compared to 10's of thousands of cast loads in the same amount of time. Because of the every 4 year shortage cycles and other political reasons, I now have good cast loads for every gun I shoot including various AR and other semi-auto pistols and rifles.

Welcome aboard and be safe.

[lar45]

Looks great, what alloy mix did you end up using?

[waksupi]

Glad ya got it all figured out.
The resources here are better than any library I've ever found.

Your situation is probably different, but for me and all the shooting I do;
I haven't found anything a j-word can do better than cast if you running under about 2,000fps or so anyway.

When I was still hunting these small-ish Texas whit tail deer, I'd hit 'em with a jacketed .30-06 or .270.
The shots all passed through and left a exit hole about a inch or less, with a decent wound channel, but nothing spectacular.
The ones I hit with a cast .30RN--- it looked like a baseball went through there.


But don't get too deep into the addiction here.
Before ya know it, your family will be calling those intervention folks who have that TV show
and try to drag you off into some sort of guilt trip'n therapy program..

With that large of a wound channel, I would suggest hardening your alloy some.

[Ledhead]

Looks great, what alloy mix did you end up using?

Basically a 20:1 but instead of using pure I used 50/50.

I wanted something that could be HT so I could use the same alloy for using in sabots for my ML. 16:1 was to soft as it would expand when shot and form "wings" between the sabot pedals causing accuracy issues.

I tested 6 rounds of each HP and CP 3 of each were filled with silicone. The 3 filled with silicone provided the most uniform expansion and weight retention, the 3 without gave varying degrees of expansion. One of the hollow points without silicone shed its pedals.