BHN for hunting boolits?

[got_lead?]

What would be an appropriate hardness for .30 cal hunting boolits? I am just starting out with cast boolit loading for bottleneck cartridges, and can use all the help I can get.

I was going to start with some 170 grain loads with my Marlin 336 30-30. I just cast up some WW+5% Sn Lee 170 grain FP's and water quenched them. I haven't measured the diameter yet, hopefully they will measure at .310 or .311

I imagine I will want to develop a couple of loads for the 30-30, a light non gas checked load for cheap shooting, and perhaps a hotter GC'd load for hunting.

I have a couple of old Lyman books on cast boolits, in those books, most of the rifle cartridges are loaded with reduced loads of pistol powders. I gather cast boolit knowledge has increased a bit since the 1960's? Up to this point I have only loaded cast with straight walled cases. Bottleneck rifle loads are new terratory for me.

Would anyone care to share their wisdom on loads?

Thanks

Dave

[Marine Sgt 2111]

WW-AC w/ 2% tin at the hardest or better yet 50/50 WW and pure PB w/2% tin. Once you make the bullets, then develope the load. .30-30 is a great cast bullet cartridge in all three catagories: accuracy, load pressure and velocity. A nice soft lead bullet at 1800 or 2000 fps that begins to mushroom on impact is far better than a non expanding bullet going 2200fps that rifles through. That is unless you use a .45-70...then your shooting a pre-expanded .30 cal anyways...

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Do not stress over bullet hardness/expansion questions. A double lung shot, spine, kidney, heart, neck,head shot will put them all down with or without expansion and leave a trail too. With the 30-30 shot placement is the key. BvT

[btroj]

BHN is only one measure of a bullets physical properties. You could use straight wheel weights and water drop for a bullet that would have roughly the same BHN as a bullet from straight Linotype. The WW bullet would most likely expand some on impact from a 30-30 while the Lino bullet would not.
I would be most likely to go with a 75-25 WW to Pb ratio. Add maybe 2% tin if you want but not more than that. I would water drop for better hardness but the water dropping will not change the bullets ability to deform at all. This alloy will deform some but not so much that it reduces penetration.
I have only used my 30-30 with cast on 1 deer and it was with an alloy like that with the 311165 RD bullet. Deer didn't go very far at all.

[Bret4207]

Start with a FN design first, a blunt RN is the second choice. For my use, pretty much straight WW has worked fine. Softer works too and so does harder IF you have a FN to start with. A HP will also work, I just hate the effort.

[phaessler]

I agree Bret, the FN designs, doesnt seem to matter, the frontal is the key I feel to making hits like a freight train anyway. Have had many bang/flops using water-dropped WW in the 30cal RD design, most were pass throughs, but the energy was transferred well.
.45-70 or 44 is another world for energy transfer, but again frontal meplat size does the talking.
Just my 0.02

Pete

[Larry Gibson]

Over many years and many dear with .30 cal cast bullets I've found that, just like with jacketed bullets, a good expanding bullet kills better. My preferred .30 cal cast bullet is the lyman 311041 of which your Lee is very similar. I use a soft maleable alloy of WWs + 2% Sn and then mixed at 50/50 with lead. The alloy is soft enogh and maleable that the expansion petals peel back as they should and do not slough off right away nor does the nose shatter as with some alloys. This mix gives a soft enough alloy (BHN 9-10 with AC'd bullets) that excellent hunting accuracy can be maintained at 2000 - 2100 fps in 10" twist .30s and 2200+ in 12" twist .30 cal rifles. They also expand quite well at 200 yards giving excellent performance across the practical effective hunting range.

I size at .311, Use Hornady or my own brass GCs and use medium and slow burning powders for best accuracy (4895, Varget, AA4350, RL19 and H4831SC) but 4895 works very well in the 30-30. I also HP my bullets to from 1/8" to 1/3 the length of the nose to facilitate expansion better. To maintain best accuracy I also clean the barrel every 7-8 shots when using this alloy pushed above 2000 fps. That's ok because if i haven't got the deer in that many shots I might as well go home and clean guns anyways.......

Larry Gibson

[Char-Gar]

There are two schools of thought about hardness of cast bullets for deer hunting.

The first is to keep the bullets fairly soft and hope they might mash out a little. If they don't good shot placement and good bullet design will do the trick.

The second is to cast them of something hard and brittle like linotype with a hollow point. The hollow point will blow off producing secondary missiles and the bottom half continuing on through the critter, much as the Nosler Partition bullet works.

No bullet of any kind is worth a hoot unless it is placed in the right place.

[btroj]

Chargar hit the key point, you have to put any bullet where it belong to get the job done.

[pls1911]

I won't dispute any of the experienced information provided above, but after a few thousand lead bullets through .30-30 I feel I've found nirvana for steel and game.
My alloy is roughly 50-50 dead soft reclaimed roofing lead and wheel weights with a bit of solder when required.
As cast my slugs are 9 to 10 bhn... heat treated, these harden up to 25 bhn or more... harder than linotype...
Performance is simply great. Slugs hold great at 2000 fps in a .30-30, and do not disintegrate on bone like linotype, and penetrate into next week.
I've never recovered a slug from 200+pound pigs or deer shot though both shoulders; critters so hit drop drop in their tracks.
My experience comes from Lyman 31141, Seaco 315, Ranch Dog 165, RCBS 30-165-SIL, RCBS 30-180-FP. heat treated, gas checked lubed withwhatever's in the luber and finally dipped in thinned JPW/LLA.
Never had any leading never... ever...
Same mix for 45-70 at 1700 fps is fine too.