Gates Extreme Meplat Bullets

[44man]

I think if people took the time, they would find that most cast bullets used today are used on game.
I have no problem with any bullet designer doing an indepth study on cast designs for range performance indeed.
What I do have a problem with critics lambasting someone's design, what ever it is used for..and not presenting their designs that they feel are better...just that simple indeed!
I have been in this gun and ammo thing all my life...and this is nothing new. In my opinion cast performs within a certain velocity and range and that is reflected in all the ammo we build and sell.
This thread has taught me one thing......stay off other people's turf and I plan to do that exactly. I did not understand what was the prime purpose of Cast Boolits indeed. I did not realize that heavy gun critics would be brought in to work over something as simple as some'one's idea what were good handgun game bullets.
I have many friends over here that I work with and will continue to work with on many ongoing projects indeed. But you will never see me post another spec sheet on bullets. So, friends, I do not know anything else to say. It has nothing to do with hurt feeling, it's just I see it as a no win situation indeed. If one reflects on this thread, there was no designs coming forth from this critics. ...only more self-center self expression. A great opportunity was missed where all of us could discuss the posted designs, rather than vague about this or that.
Regards, James

James, you know I have agreed with you every turn of the dial. You are going about it the way I would.
There is no perfect boolit design and I do not profess to have one. I work for accuracy first, then tailor failures on game to a change in either alloy or whether a hollow point would work better without changing the meplat. Velocity that a certain boolit is shot comes out as more important in the long run. Your boolit will do everything until it's parameters are exceeded. I found just changing meplat had zero effect when shot outside the correct velocity without an alloy change. YOUR BOOLIT WILL FAIL IF SHOT WRONG BUT WILL PERFORM BEYOND EXPECTATIONS IF SHOT CORRECTLY! And I bet I can make it shoot super tight groups WAAAAY out there.
My boolits also fail if shot wrong and no person here can claim any other design will not fail at some point.
This talk about boolit design only has to be ignored in the quest for a hunting boolit because even a round nose or a round ball works when using the correct velocity and alloy as does a boolit with a large meplat or a pointy nose.
If shot wrong a full wad cutter nose will fail and a pointy boolit will do a better job based on how it is made and shot and the other way around holds true too.
We are touching on stuff here that is important to hunters and there is no use for hanging on one point only because it worked once. Yeah, I killed a trapped fox instantly with one smack in the nose with a stick, but the next had to be beat many times so that must mean I need to find the exact stick again. Sorry, it just does not work that way.
I wish James, me and all the rest of you had the complete answer but none of us does and maybe never will. How easy would it be if we all shot the same size animals with the same caliber and same velocity from the same rifle or handgun?

[44man]

James, I do give you credit for making the effort to design a bullet specifically for the Marlin 44. There is a need for bullets tailored for lever actions as demonstrated by the popularity of the RD molds. Lever guns can be very picky about what they will feed and few shooters are willing to do the experimentation required to produce a "proven" design.

I could show you my pet designs, but I do not claim them to be the universal bullet for every application. My designs are tailored to my guns and my purposes.

My philosophy on meplats is to use as big a meplat as the gun will tolerate and still produce decent hunting accuracy. By "decent," I mean as well as I can shoot under field conditions with iron sights. Say, 6 - 10 MOA in a packing pistol or 3 - 4 MOA in a ghost-ringed Marlin.

That said, at lever action velocities and with hardened WW alloy, flat point bullets usually "rivit" on impact, becoming nearly a full wadcutter, so one need not lose sleep over meplat size, within reason.

Meplat may be more important for handgun velocities that are too slow to "rivit" the nose as rifle velocities normally do. Meplat may also be more important for "between the ribs" lung shots where little resistance is encountered.

My philosophy on penetration is that most any hard cast bullet will penetrate satisfactorily, so there is no need to waste lead and pulverize your shoulder attempting to create a load that will penetrate more than the other guy's load in some artificial test medium. If the bullet shatters both shoulders of a bull elk and keeps on sailing, I can force myself to live with that.

Pics show complete penetration through both shoulders of 5 point bull elk. Excessive meat damage. Bullet exited. Elk went down and didn't get back up. Marlin, heat treated wheelweight.



Guess the cartridge. Was it .... ???????

A) 45/70

B) 450 Marlin

C) 50 Alaskan

D) 444

E) 44 mag

F) 357 mag

I will not guess about the caliber because all you list will do the same. Hitting bone will give you secondary projectile damage from bone fragments. Blood seepage into connective tissue looks bad but massive meat damage looks like pulp. I have no idea what you refer to about massive damage! Was it bloodshot or did it look like the meat was put on a concrete block and beat with a sledge hammer? All wounds will produce bloodshot meat as blood seeps between muscle groups. That damage looks right but it looks like you cut away more meat because it was just bloody.
I separate muscle groups when I butcher and blood is NOT in the meat but between it and it washes off.
If you are injured by a blow or fall and get a black and blue spot, that is blood seepage between muscle groups from a damaged muscle. But if the muscle is blown away and is mangled, that is meat damage.
If it is not more then 3" diameter at the spot of the shot, the shot was good and meat damage is not bad. If the whole shoulder was destroyed, I would worry.
I think you did well, good shooting.

[runfiverun]

the areas around the bone at the tip of the knife are mangeled worthless bits of flesh.
but they were caused by the bone fragments not the boolit....imo.

[44man]

the areas around the bone at the tip of the knife are mangeled worthless bits of flesh.
but they were caused by the bone fragments not the boolit....imo.

That is normal with the correct boolit, bullet. You still did a great job. Good eating left.

[Crass Whackwords]

Please indicate distance and velocity when you answer. The damage is impressive.

Approximately 50 yards, muzzle velocity 1725 fps, meplat 0.270".

About 10 pounds of meat was lost from each shoulder. That would have been typical for a jacketed bullet, but I am not used to seeing that much damage from cast, even when there is bone shrapnel.

Most of my cast hunting experience is with short barreled revolvers which just poke a finger sized hole. Rifle velocities are a whole 'nuther story.

[Dixie Slugs]

The question still arises.....what was the caliber and alloy hardness?. Quite frankly that is more tissue damage that I am used to seeing with our cast bullets....James

[runfiverun]

i think that with his velocity and small meplat there was too much energy concentrated in one spot.
i have seen damage such as this caused with shotguns at close distance.
the bones are the culprit.
with that size meplat i am gonna say the 357. and maybe from a carbine too.

[Crass Whackwords]

The question still arises.....what was the caliber and alloy hardness?. Quite frankly that is more tissue damage that I am used to seeing with our cast bullets....James

357 Mag, heat treated wheelweight.

I've only shot 3 large critters with this rifle/load, and bullet placement was poor in all 3 cases. But -- bullet performance was awesome. Only one bullet recovered so far, just under the skin, on a bull moose.

No doubt the bone shrapnel contributed to the mess in the pictures, but cast bullets poked through the same bones at wheelgun velocities usually pencil through, leaving clean, finger sized holes.

Hard cast bullets and lever guns are a happy combination. Lever gun velocities are enough to cause impressive tissue damage with hard, blunt bullets, yet velocities are not so high as to destroy the bullet.

HTWW will often "rivit" at rifle velocities, becoming essentially a full wadcutter, which is not a bad thing.

[Dixie Slugs]

What bullet weight?....James

[crabo]

[QUOTE=Crass Whackwords;525587]357 Mag, heat treated wheelweight.

I've only shot 3 large critters with this rifle/load, and bullet placement was poor in all 3 cases. But -- bullet performance was awesome. Only one bullet recovered so far, just under the skin, on a bull moose.

Crass, Would you please tell us what weight/ powder charge you used and show us a picture of the boolit. You ask us to guess and then you dribble out the info a little at a time. Come clean and give us the details.

[Pepe Ray]

Seems like Crass likes to be coaxed.
P.R.

[44man]

The worst mess I ever had was a large doe shot on a dead run at 220 yd's. with a .280. Hit behind the shoulder, it destroyed both lungs, the bullet came apart and sprayed the snow with spots of blood in every direction from shrapnel. The deer was bloodshot from the base of the head to the tail. Since I bone my meat, I was able to wipe the blood off with a damp cloth, no loss of meat but a full day to clean her. I sold the rifle! Needed money for a revolver of course.
Bloodshot meat can be cleaned, pulped meat can't, big bone hits do the most pulping.
Here is what the .475 hard cast does to a heart with no meat damage.

[Dixie Slugs]

Interesting indeed! We also have used the .357 magnum (in both the hangun and carbine) with our 180 gr truncated cone bullet and have never seen as much meat damage as was shown. It looks to me like the velocity has high and a lightweight bullet fragmated on the bone? We do push out 44-265 gr bullet to 1800'/', but it has shown no tendancy to frag on big bones eiither. The boys in South Florida that do crop damage contol on deer on the farms tested it also. General comments were that the bullet penetrated well from any angle.
However, it all deepens on the bullet performance the hunter wants.....you can push any lightweight bullet, cast or otherwise, fast enough and it will blow apart on heavy bones.
Here again though, we design our bullets (as large as .730") for handgun, carbine, and rifled shotgun barrels....1200'/"up to about 1800'/" and for brush hunting use. Above that velocity, we depend on one of the best jacketed bullets, such as the Nosler Partition. But, as I said before, we are interested in game bullets only. On our shotgun bore ammo, we just re-introduced what the Brits used many years ago....but with modern components.
Regards, James

[GLynn41]

I have been-- or the more southern we--I am from Mississippi__ thinking about the designs posited -- -- when you started this good thread-- I love to learn and I have learned from this -- you had designs and experience ready to go -- so we were somewhat at a disadvantage in the discussion--(I certainly was anyway) here is my only and current design .400' nose, .33 meplat- 255 gr in weight depending on the alloy of course-- the bullet will shoot about as well with out the gc as with in a normal .41- I say normal because I have 2 wildcats--- and the boolit will shoot very will out 110 long steps which is far as I have tried it -- not used in my .41 Marlin yet or the 41/445---as to killing ///the 4 deer that allowed me to shoot them with this bullet up to 40 long steps or so -- have shown about the same results
measured 1.2-5" entrance and exits, the holes were rather oblong?- very damaged to torn apart lungs- rib fragments on the ground - good external bleeding - holes in the hide were just like the nose of the boolit-- I use this boolit in my hand guns- - and muzzler loader with a sabot- and hopefully soon the Marlin & contender thanks for all your thoughts
I have other .41 molds but this is pretty much it as far as hunting at least for now
here is the bullit

[44man]

I see a difference in the two cases as far as sizing goes. Why does the left one look as if it is not sized down far enough?

[paul edward]

Thank you.

PED

[Dixie Slugs]

Glenn...Those are good looking game bullets indeed. I have always like the 41's and have owned a few over the years...Rugers and Smiths.
I did not realize that most of the people here, as I have been told, are not interested in cast game bullets. I have been involved with Marshall Stanton, owner of Beartooth Bullets since 2000 and have worked with them on game bullets designs...or re-designs....or whatever.
Recently I finished a four part write up on cast bullets for the Ruger Old Army revolvers....the last two parts on hard cast hunting bullets for the 45 Colt in the Kirst Korventer cylinders.
Since I retired, most of my hunting now is for large true wild hogs....not these little Feral knots we see and hear some much about. Pound for pound, I think a mature wild boar is one of the most dangerous animals walking. Hunting them is a close drill and one can not risk speculation as to whether the bullet will perform or not. Sometimes I think those that hunt these Tuskers in close situations, including myself, are down right fools. It sure is more exciting than sitting in a tree stand and snipering a deer.
Regards, James

[MT Gianni]

James, Don't get me wrong, I have a big interest in killing game cleanly, we just have a 6 week season in MT to do that. Most of my practice with rifles and handguns it to get my body, eyes and hands in tune for when that comes around. I can keep tuned as well with a 243, or a 9mm as my 45's. Gianni

[Dixie Slugs]

I have never questioned anyone interest in killing game cleanly indeed. I have only tried to discuss hard cast bullet designs for game bullets!....James

[GLynn41]

.44 -- the first one is a 41/44---- ballistics 250 cast performance 1500+ these bullits have a lot of bearing area so not so fast-- about 1400 -1410 --I think lots of folks are interested in cast on game but certainly other things too--I thought i remember 'd you from Beartooth - I have read much of your thoughts at times--I try to listen some one who has more inexperience than I weather it is casting or hunting -- I made the bullet up at Dan's and so far have not really wanted another one- happy with this one--next I want to hunt a boar with them--may be soon