Flat Point VS Hollow Point Lead

[H110]

I haven't had much experience shooting Hollow Point lead in big bore revolvers and carbines.

My question is do hollow points really expand better or do they as some have suggested just shear off or blow off the lead nose.

Which type has served you better, hollow point or flat nose in the same type boolit configuration and is one inherently more accurate due to nose weight?

[redneckdan]

Hollow points have proved slightly more accurate for me. I chose a hollow point when the bullet at had has enough mass/velocity that it can stand to lose some. Ie 432640 mihec on white tail deer. I choose my alloy so that the petals should stay on but even if they blow off the base will continue through and make a nice hole for vital juices to leak out. If the bullet is at its limits i chose a flat point, ie 357 magnum with the 360429 NOE.

[WARD O]

If you match your alloy to your velocity you will not likely "blow off" the bullet nose. If you do it correctly you can get some very nice expansion with penetration.

If you prefer to make them hard, you had best stay with solid points.

[USSR]

My question is do hollow points really expand better or do they as some have suggested just shear off or blow off the lead nose.

Alloy mix is critical with cast hollowpoints. You can't just go by BHN. Two alloys with the same BHN: one with antimony and low tin will blow off the nose, and the other with little or no antimony and high tin will produce a classic mushroom.

Don

[btroj]

It is all about the right alloy. Like Don said, low Sb is key. Thisis a place where PB-Sn alloys have a place, maybe with 1% Sb or so. This should allow good expansion with little fragmenting.

[songdog53]

Some good advice from others on forum and can't add much to it other than if going to hunt whitetails hollow point works great but if have hogs around i always go with heavy flat nose boolit simply because can break hogs front shoulders and stop him/her there. I know is hard question and touhg desision but i suggest try both and which ever works best for you is one should use. Course we all want to keep trying to fine the perfect boolit and reason casting is so addictive.

[missionary5155]

Good morning One other element to try is the dual mix boolit.
I had good success with a FN pure lead nose & 50-50 base in 41 mag. Made a small ladle out of a cut off 38 special. Wrapped 12 guage copper around the base in the groove and reduced my small ladle till it held about 2/3 of the nose. You have to keep things hot and I ran two pots. Took about 2 hours to end up with 100 good slugs. If things are not hot (especially the mold) the small amount of pure will cool before the 50-50 gets there, then the nose may just pop off. I figured if I could not rip it off with pliers it was stuck good enough. I used some for accuracy test and they shot as well as a straight 50-50 from the same Lee mold (240 SWC).
A bit more work but they will expand at about 900 fps in water jugs which is about = to a ground hog. I do not remember where I read about this (Handloader ? ) but I tried it. I have about 50 255´s cast up for my 375 DW Supermag. Agaiun they shoot as well as any cast from that mold. Never used one as now I recurve them corn crunchers. Nothing like an old Bear to harvest deer.
Mike in Peru

[MtGun44]

How about these?
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/picture.php?albumid=161&pictureid=3952

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/picture.php?albumid=161&pictureid=2905

Bill

[H110]

That will work!

[thegreatdane]

MTGun, I recognize that MP! I have a whole bunch of them too. Did you use wet newspaper?

[MtGun44]

Wet phone book, same thing, really. Newsprint.

Wet newsprint gives almost exactly 1/2 the penetration of
calibrated ballistic gelaltin, and the same expansion. This is
based on looking at published results with factory loads and
then me doing the same factory load in wet newsprint. By
wet, I mean soaked overnight under water and only pulled
out a couple minutes before shooting. VERY wet.

Bill

[Lloyd Smale]

Ive come to almost prefer Dans thoughts. I bullet cast just hard enough that it does loose its pedals aint a bad thing if the bullet has enough retained weight to penetrate. I shot a 1100 lb buffalo with a 44mag lyman devestator cast out of ww plus 2 percent tin. It blew off the nose and the reamainder of the bullet exited the oposite shoulder. Ive shot buffalo with 500 and 475 linebaughs and this was the quickest kill ive seen on a bufflao. It even had my buddy Dave who owns the place shaking his head. Internal damage was severe and there was blood coming out like out of a garden hose. Why is everyone afraid to have the nose blow off a bullet. Nosler has been bragging on the partition for 30 years because it works just like that. How many here will say a partition doesnt work. NOT ME! Ive killed many animals with them. Ive had more problems with bullets that turn into big mushrooms. We had 512 hps fail miserably because the expanded so big that they acted like a big parachute and only penetrated about 8 inches. A complete failure as we chased that buffalo around all day after being hit by two of them. Buddy AL had to put it down with one shot out of my 629 using a punch bullet. We also shot a couple 200lb sheep with it that day and they didnt work much better on them. Both needed finishing shots. I think some guys use rifle mentality when looking at hp pistol bullets. A handgun doesnt have the velocity to push a expanded hp and in most cases the bullets are a much smaller diameter in a rifle when expanded and dont need as much momentum to penetrate.
Hollow points have proved slightly more accurate for me. I chose a hollow point when the bullet at had has enough mass/velocity that it can stand to lose some. Ie 432640 mihec on white tail deer. I choose my alloy so that the petals should stay on but even if they blow off the base will continue through and make a nice hole for vital juices to leak out. If the bullet is at its limits i chose a flat point, ie 357 magnum with the 360429 NOE.

[BABore]

Well said Lloyd. Yours is a common opinion of those that actually shoot real animals. I don't recall seeing many pictures of those perty mushroomed HP's with hair and blood on them.

[H110]

"Why is everyone afraid to have the nose blow off a bullet. Nosler has been bragging on the partition for 30 years because it works just like that. How many here will say a partition doesnt work. NOT ME! Ive killed many animals with them. Ive had more problems with bullets that turn into big mushrooms".

I don't want the nose to blow off my Boolits. I am talking lead not partitions. If I am going to loose 20 to 30% bullet weight at impact then I prefer to just shoot boolits 20 to 30% lighter to begin with in order to get flatter trajectories. There are other things to consider of course, however its like swinging a sledge hammer and some of it falling off before impact. Energy is obtained from retained Boolit/bullet weight.

[45 2.1]

I bullet cast just hard enough that it does loose its pedals aint a bad thing if the bullet has enough retained weight to penetrate. I shot a 1100 lb buffalo with a 44mag lyman devestator cast out of ww plus 2 percent tin. It blew off the nose and the reamainder of the bullet exited the oposite shoulder. Ive shot buffalo with 500 and 475 linebaughs and this was the quickest kill ive seen on a bufflao. It even had my buddy Dave who owns the place shaking his head. Internal damage was severe and there was blood coming out like out of a garden hose. Why is everyone afraid to have the nose blow off a bullet. Nosler has been bragging on the partition for 30 years because it works just like that. How many here will say a partition doesnt work. NOT ME! Ive killed many animals with them. Ive had more problems with bullets that turn into big mushrooms. I think some guys use rifle mentality when looking at hp pistol bullets. A handgun doesnt have the velocity to push a expanded hp and in most cases the bullets are a much smaller diameter in a rifle when expanded and dont need as much momentum to penetrate.

Nice to see someone else wake up to that fact... Good show Lloyd.


I don't want the nose to blow off my Boolits. I am talking lead not partitions. If I am going to loose 20 to 30% bullet weight at impact then I prefer to just shoot boolits 20 to 30% lighter to begin with in order to get flatter trajectories. There are other things to consider of course, however its like swinging a sledge hammer and some of it falling off before impact. Energy is obtained from retained Boolit/bullet weight.

Myself, I want that energy in the animal, not in the hillside behind it. I've shot quite a few deer to prove what i've told people.

[Char-Gar]

The original Nosler Partition bullet, which is still in production, was and is one of the very best game bullets. They always blew the front half into fragments and the rear portion continued on often to exit the animal.

Then the nose of the bullet shatters it creates secondary missiles that can do great damage. I have not shot many deer with cast hollow point, but I did a couple of times. Each time I cast the HP bullet from Linotype which is quite brittle. The nose shattered and the rest of the bullet keep on trucking and exited the animal. The deer were DRT. Some meat was lost due to the secondary missiles, but the deer went nowhere, but to where the spirits of all good deer go.

If a fellow is a meat hunter, I would stick to bullet with a good meplat and soft enough for some hope of upset in the critter. If, the fellow is not a meat hunter a good hollowpoint is the ticketed and I would spend more time considering the accuracy than what the bullet look like when it stopped.

Please note, I am talking rifles here. I have never been much of a handgun hunter, but have killed a few with the handgun.

[Larry Gibson]

I also use the .44 Lyman Devastor HP. I cast it with WW+2% tin/lead or 16-1 lead - tin alloys. I drive it at 1400 fps out of my Ruger BH and did use it at 1600 fps (same load) out of a M94 trapper. Of the several deer and pigs i've shot with it I've yet to recover a bullet and yet to find any evidence of the nose blowing off. What I did find was a very dead deer or pig that didn't go far with an excellent wound channel through and through.

I'll admit I have not shot any buffalo though so I can't speak to that. I also don't condem a class of bullets because someone used the wrong one for something. I've seen that just as often with many other types of bullets also. BTW; I don't use Nosler partitions anymore because the noses do blow off and create way to much meat damage. That's just my own preference is all. Someone wants to use the Nosler P that's fine with me. The mistake made is using a bullet designed for quick expansion in smaller soft animals on large animals like buffalo. That's not the fault of the bullet, it's the fault of the user.

Like 45 2.1 I prefer to dump as much energy inside the animal as possible with an expanding cast bullet (or a jacketed bullet) that holds together. A good HP of the correct alloy for the animal to be shot is a very good bullet to use. As Lloyd mentions they penetration of such a bullet is more than enough. I've shot enough game animals over the years with HPs in .30/.31/8mm/.35/.41/.44/.45 and .458 caliber rifles and handguns to know how well they can work with the right alloy and HP dimensions. My preference to hunt using a cast bullet is the HP'd cast bullet. I will hunt with a hard cast bullet only if I have to because the HP is, for some obscure reason, not available. Again, that is just my preference based on my own experience.

Larry Gibson

[MtGun44]

I have no problem at all with the idea of blowing off the nose in a hunting boolit. I like and
use Nosler partitions in hunting, with great results. When I was in SA, the outfitter was very
"into" boolit performance, and I provided him with handloaded Barnes 140 Tripleshocks for
his 7x57 which he dearly loved. He told me about a French guy that invented a bullet made
of pure copper with a square HP cavity and designed to blow off four petals and penetrate
with the remainder. I found the French web site a few years ago, just like the outfitter (Top
professional hunter?) said. He said that in several tests on his hunts, the smaller chunks
exited by themselves, and the overall effect was very good. Some name with a bunch of
letters like GPHX or something like that, I forget.

I prefer a self-defense boolit to hang together and blow a big hole as one piece. Pistol, lower
power and different "game".

Bill

[USSR]

Why is everyone afraid to have the nose blow off a bullet.

I am a meat hunter who likes his venison. Having a bullet blow up causing a lot of blood-shot meat is not my cup of tea. With my .45 Colt loaded with 265gr HP's at about 1000fps, I want a .70 - .80 caliber hole all the way through with a full caliber exit hole to promote rapid loss of blood pressure and a good blood trail. Just MHO.

Don

[Groo]

Groo here
There is the crux of the thread--- Will you put up with some meat loss---
do you want two holes ---do you want the bullet to stay in?
To blow the nose off is not a bad thing as it allows the base to drive deeper,
Also much damage [ better for smaller game..
Flat nose drives through to make better blood trail and for big game..
Soft Hp's would be best for game in groups so as not to hit
the ones you don't want...

[dntfxr]

Let's not forget the length of the blood trail. You definitely want an exit either way, but a HP that delivers some shock and exits will generally make for much shorter blood trails in deer sized game. That's always a plus in my book...
I'm a meat hunter so I aim for behind the shoulder either way.

[Moonie]

Its funny, I read many years ago with regards of bullet (yes bullet) failure "At what point in the animals death did the bullet fail"...

To me failure is a lost animal, not a bullet or boolit that doesn't look like you think it should when all is said and done.