soft vs hard

[MT Chambers]

For deer or smaller go softer with a GC, for bigger or tougher game; I'd go harder, faster, with a GC. Has always worked for me in my 45/70. I have also shot buffs. and moose with pure lead bullets in my 50/90 Sharps.

[taco650]

Yep, my RF boolits in .44 and .45 are Gas Checked, IMO those GCs are one of the required components that made the combo work like it does. 50/50+2% (bhn12), collet style factory crimp, 1:16" RH twist, Ruger lands & grooves, 1180 - 1200f/s velocity, throats .0005" over boolit diameter, long 11° forcing cone, Wolff 30oz trigger return spring.

Everybody does it differently. What you have to do is keep researching, keep trying things until you hit on the combination that the gun likes and you like and can shoot with your best degree of accuracy.

I've been working with the Lee 430-310GC for a while now and it hasn't been as easy as I initially thought. My DW 44 just doesn't like it. My SBH 7.5" is coming around but haven't settled on an alloy yet. All I have around is COWW, some pure and some range scrap. I think I'll try some 50/50 of COWW/RS next and water drop it. I've also found that my SBH likes it going at least 1k fps. I tried it around 800 fps but accuracy was terrible. Thanks for the info 44man & DougGuy.

[Blammer]

Of the two deer I've killed with my 44mag handgun, one with a HUGE HP 300gr projectile and the other with a 240gr Round Flat nose. They both died within 30 yds of where they were shot.

[44man]

You can't shoot the heavy boolits too slow in the .44 unless you have a 1 in 16" twist. You just need a little more velocity with 1 in 20". The Lee 310, LBT 320, etc, NEEDS around 1300 to 1320 fps.
You can't make the heavies as fast as a 240-250 but you don't need or want that anyway.
I use 21.5 gr of 296, Fed 150 for the Lee and LBT and it has shot out of most .44's the best except the boolits are too heavy for a S&W. The S&W has a faster twist of 1 in 18-3/4" so it could be shot slower but there is too much recoil inertia on parts.
With a Ruger just working up or down 1/2 gr will open groups.
I made a mistake making my mold and it came out 330 gr, I found 21 gr of 296 works best.
I read about a few that use 23 gr with the Lee and it is way too much, pressures are high and accuracy just plain suffers.
If I was shooting 240 to 250 I would soften the nose only to compensate for the higher velocity.
I just can't shoot softer alloys in the whole boolit to satisfy me.
I would in every case, also soften the nose in a .44 rifle. To look for faster with a hard boolit and just the meplat does not work. My grandson shot a big doe with a .44 rifle, behind the shoulder, she spun around and he shot again. The second shot actually came out the first entry hole. I did not pace but she made a good 150 yards. So far I had to drag her down the hill into a neighbor's yard. With the same boolit, the revolver would have her down in a few yards.
Looking at the .454 and how fast they are, I would never use a hard boolit but they don't like too soft for accuracy either so the soft nose would be the answer.
As you stray too far either way with velocity, it is more important to get boolit performance along with accuracy. Then as animals get bigger and bigger, you need to rethink things.
The farther a boolit travels in an animal, the harder you can go.
The first deer I shot with the JRH was over 100 yards and I could not hold still so I made her come to me. I was on foot. When she got about 30 yards and in the clear, I shot her in front---BIG MISTAKE! The boolit was hard and did almost nothing in the lungs but when it reached the liver things started to happen and then the guts! Before exit, it just blew internals to mush, she went up and came down on her belly, not her feet. never seen anything like it. I never want to clean another deer like that. Boolit travel distance and the slowing of it in passage is different then a sideways shot. Dwell time! There is a ring to that, that I have come to believe in.

[Indiana shooter]

So 44man, what would you say the effective velocity range is for a hard boolit is at impact? My kids use a h&r with an 18" barrel in 44mag. My modified lee mold throws boolits at about 255 gr. I have been using the 240 gr XTP down loaded to around 1400 fps (book velocity), they are older and can handle a heavier load now. I'm thinking about using my 255 gr boolits and loading to around 1600 fps. Do you think that to fast for a hard boolit?

[mnewcomb59]

When your hard cast doesn't do any damage the first foot of penetration in the animal, this means you have too much sectional density for the animal. You either have to change the sectional density with expanding a heavy bullet, or going to a lighter bullet. You want the bullet to slow down a little in the animal, not coast clean through losing less than 100 fps.

Same exact reason I prefer 158s in the 357. Much more shock power but still exit wounds every time. Yes I'm a firm believer in penetration and I prefer 2.5-3 foot compared to a hollow point's 14", but I don't need no 5 foot penetration for a deer.

[TXGunNut]

I like a large meplat and an alloy that I know will hold together through a heart-lung shot on small S TX deer or a shoulder hit on a 250+ lb hog and anything in between. I don't shoot 43 Mag but I do hunt with a 45 Colt and I doubt critters can tell the difference. I suspect I get a bit of expansion but I prefer penetration over expansion with major caliber boolits. I hunt the thick stuff so if a critter runs 100 yds it can sometimes be a tough track unless there is a good blood trail. An exit wound helps with that.

[.30-06 fan]

For me as a rookie boolit caster, soft or hard, if you you cant't place the bullet where it needs to go, it want matter to much where your bullet lies on the brunel scale.

[44man]

So 44man, what would you say the effective velocity range is for a hard boolit is at impact? My kids use a h&r with an 18" barrel in 44mag. My modified lee mold throws boolits at about 255 gr. I have been using the 240 gr XTP down loaded to around 1400 fps (book velocity), they are older and can handle a heavier load now. I'm thinking about using my 255 gr boolits and loading to around 1600 fps. Do you think that to fast for a hard boolit?

I think 1600 is too fast for a hard boolit on deer. I would surely soften just the nose. I was amazed how well it worked when I did not soften the entire nose to the drive band. I wanted enough ogive hard for cylinder steerage and they proved very accurate with POI the same as a full hard.
But I had some doubts about how little I softened until I found I was holding a sledge in my hand instead of a stick.
Now to get my paper punch, 45-70 BFR and the sharp stick 317 gr boolits at 1630 fps to do the same. I made a heavier WFN for it and it did not work either.
I am 100% sold on the small soft nose. Very easy to make
There is one thing that bothers me yet, the small dipper loses heat fast so I need to get the lead in the mold quick. I am going to make a ladle out of cast iron with a small cavity for the nose pour so it stays very hot.
I have the LBT soft nose pouring pot, made by Lee. I cant pour a seamless boolit with it.
I tried the reheating of the mold stuff and it is kind of ridiculous, harsh on a mold and so slow it is crazy. With the dipper and a level mold my pace is about the same as ladle casting one alloy.

[white eagle]

I found the one way to make the soft nose is to let the mold get hot not to the point of destroying the mold but like getting continually frosty boolits
I use mainly brass and that material seems to hold heat better but cast iron would be just as good aluminum is hard to regulate but it heats up quick
use a 45 acp on a wire for the nose dipper and follow up with my regular ladle
mainly use small hps but when I want to use a sp thats how I do it

[DougGuy]

Well hell why not just weld the nose in there? Cast a big HP in the hard alloy, use a 50w soldering iron with a 1/8" tip, work some flux down in the bottom of the HP and get the tip of the soldering iron to melting some of the alloy and feed it some pure lead fine shot and solder it in as it fills up.

[Motor]

An interesting thread for sure. It seems for deer and hogs that the bigger calibres have an advantage.

Even without getting into "advanced" casting procedures you can make a big heavy boolit that will kill cleanly and quickly without expantion.

Personally if I had to choose I would take penetration over expantion for a slow moving boolit any time.

Being a muzzleloader hunter and watching soft lead round balls totally flattening out and not going through a deer shoulder bone has left me with this opinion.

There has been some very good information on this thread but very little towards what works best in 30 caliber. The smaller diameter provides a better sectional density but this may only make it penetrate better.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I cast a Lee 160gr 2R TL. This is a pointed boolit. My best shooting load with this boolit shoots 1850f/s. I think this boolit cast at a hardness of 16bhn which I often do, would very likely pass through a deer (without hitting solid bone) like a full metal jacket.

If this is a correct assumption what hardness would work but still be able to punch through a shoulder bone?

Or, believe it or not I,ve made a trim die of sorts. I use this die to file the nose flat after loading for use in tube fed 30-30. With the nose flat would it be a better game boolit than pointed?

Oh. One more thing. I'm not worried about DRT. There is nothing that can make a DRT a sure thing except shot placement as in head or spine and both are low percentage shots and I won't try them.

Motor

[41mag]

Well to date I have only used my 454 to put down one deer and several hogs. I can however say this, that 44 cal 310gr Lee does hit hard in the right velocity range as 44man said.

I pour it as well and having shot it enough to know it shoots well from my Redhawk out to 100yds I have shot lengthwise through my sand filled 5gallon buckets at 25 and 50yds at velocities of around 1300'ish fps.

With the 454 using basically the same bullet in the 300RF I am getting 1550fps with my hunting load. This poured from straight air cooled wheel weights shoot great and hits like a freight train. Everything I have shot with them has hit the ground or more like been knocked to the ground. I posted this a while back but it is still a good demonstration of the impact of one,


This was closest to moment of impact at 50yds as I could get form the video. As you can see they hit with some authority. The recovered bullet is in the middle here,


That said further testing with the Accurate 454280C form my 45 Colt using a bit softer alloy resulted in the following bullets recovered from my sand filled bucket trap at 50yds. These are running about 1100fps over a load of HS-6.


I put two of these through a decent 250'ish pound hog. Granted I didn't get slow deliberate shot placement as he snuck right up behind the grandson and me while we were sitting on a hillside at the farm. All I had time to do, was draw, point at meat, and shoot. The first shot hit him at about 10yds somewhere just in behind the shoulder as we could easily see the golf ball sized ball of fat from the resulting exit hole when it spun him completely around. The second shot went in somewhat like the first only from the now opposite side as he managed to get a grip on the soft sand and leave the vicinity. He managed to make it a hundred yards or so and get up underneath a tree top covered with vines and we didn't find him until the next afternoon when we followed the "clean up crew" in. It was so thick even they couldn't or wouldn't crawl in after him. Had it been a deer I am sure it would have been a little different but the fat, or gut, from the hog plugged the holes up and he left nothing what so ever for us to follow. Even the dog lost him after about 50yds.

I think that if you were to use straight air cooled WW with a cup point you would probably have about what your looking for. I have some poured up in a similar configuration but haven't had a chance to load them and try them out yet. The RFN however will deliver the goods for sure, but if you wanted just a touch of expansion you could soften it up or use the cup type HP verses the deep wide cavity.

One more illustration before I leave it with you. Here is a pick of a 45-270 SAA bullets I poured up a while back. Its the one on the far left and I used the small HP pin which is about 3/32 in diameter and about 1/4'ish deep. This alloy runs around a 10'ish BHN and was shot out of my 45 Colt at about 1050fps. As you can clearly see it more or less flattens right out and penetration would be lacking. While it might do wonderful on a straight lung shot, anything else might be wasting a good amount of meat as well as leaving a long tracking job ahead of you.


I realize you are asking about the 44 magnum and the Lee 430310RF, but I thought I would put something up as a comparrison to the alloys your looking into and in the velocity ranges your asking about. I don't have any pics on this PC of that specific bullet so figured I would show what I DID have.

Hope this helps.

[44man]

Air cooled shot fast should work. Try annealing the gas check for them, it increased accuracy for me with air cooled.
For the 30 cal you might need some nose upset too. I never shot a deer with my 30-30 yet, rather use a revolver. But I made some boolits from 75-25% and they shot very good, that might be one to try on deer.

[Motor]

44man, For my 30cal, I cast with lead/linotype. Can you recomend a specific hardness? Also would you advise to make them flat tips or just leave them pointed. My "trim" die makes them have a flat point that is about the same diameter as the primer.

Motor

[waksupi]

Just throwing in an opinion here. As long as the bullet doesn't slump when fired, Brinell is hard enough. Rule of thumb, 1000 fps, Bn12, 1200 fps, Bn14, 1400 fps, Bn 16. Seeing a pattern here? Two Bn points over your velocity.This holds pretty close to what works for me.
These hardnesses can be achieved by varying oven temperatures when hardening.

[Motor]

Thanks that's great. I usually cast them 16bhn. They shoot 1850 f/s from my 7.62x54R. So would you say they would OK to leave pointed or should I make them flat points like I do for the tube fed 30-30?

Motor

[waksupi]

Thanks that's great. I usually cast them 16bhn. They shoot 1850 f/s from my 7.62x54R. So would you say they would OK to leave pointed or should I make them flat points like I do for the tube fed 30-30?

Motor

If you plan on killing anything, better make them flat.

[tdoyka]

i'm a new cast booliter, i've never shot a deer with a cb, and my cb's have to be bought( it'll take a couple of years, then it cast boolits forever). i've killed a pile of deer from the 243 to the 45-70 all with j-word bullets.

what i'm trying to figure out is the cast boolit's brinell hardness number(bhn). my bhn is 13 for the 45-70( http://www.moyerscastbullets.com/index.html ) and my ranch dog( 444 marlin and 30-40 krag) has 95% lead, 2.5% tin, 2.5% antimony( http://www.carolinacastbullets.com/ ) i think it is 12-14bhn?

anyway, how does hardness and soft count? is it 10, 12, 14, 16 ....bhn? or do you find the lead, tin, and antimony mix?

i'm sorry about hijacking this.

[Ramjet-SS]

44 for deer Devestator HP = DRT if you hit them in the boiler room you will not damage allot of meat.
45-70 I have great performance with the 340 grain HP Gould design HP at around 1100-1500 FPS.