minimum velocity?

[jthomastreadwell]

What is the minimum velocity/energy does it take to drive a .44/.45 caliber 250gr hard cast nonexpanding swc bullet through both shoulders of broadside standing 200 lb whitetail deer? ..........Thanks for your responce and experinces

[Bass Ackward]

What is the minimum velocity/energy does it take to drive a .44/.45 caliber 250gr hard cast nonexpanding swc bullet through both shoulders of broadside standing 200 lb whitetail deer? ..........Thanks for your responce and experinces


Mr Treadwell,

You devil you. Got enough variables in there? Through shoulder blades or knuckle busters?

I will assume that you are going to stick the barrel up against the side of the deer here and not try to factor in velocity loss because of range. Next, thing you forget to mention is how hard is hard? Why we have guys here that hard is 18 BHN and those that think 40 isn't hard enough. And then do you want a guarantee or will 90% of the time work?

For 100%, I would say that I would go no softer than 15 BHN at about 1100 fps "strike velocity" to bust both knuckles and exit. If you have 30 BHN, then maybe 900 fps "strike velocity" will get you through. Remember, these are everytime, worst possible conditions. And you did say a semiwadcutter. If you go to a wide flat anything, velocity or .... bullet weight would have to go on up a little.

[45 2.1]

This isn't the thing to try with hardcast, you can easily loose that deer with velocities like that.

[jthomastreadwell]

what ever distance . Im talking velocity at target. with swc of BHN of 22.

[44man]

I make all of my boolits about Brinnel 15. There is no expansion and no fragmenting of the lead. Nothing will stop them, bone, meat, or lungs. I run them from 1160 to 1600 fps depending on the gun. The velocity at distance never seemed to matter and deer shot at just over 100 yd's died just as fast as one shot at 15 yd's. Bullet shape and the correct hardness works.
Personally, I would go to at least a 300 gr boolit of either a WLN or WFN configuration. They work better then the lighter semi wadcutter.

[lovedogs]

Boy, that's a tough question. You all's right... lots of variables here. On one deer it might work great and on the next it might fail miserably. It just depends on those variables. Let me give you an idea of what can happen with slow lead bullets.

I have a friend who grew tired of his neighbor letting his BIG, BIG black lab out to poop on his lawn every morning. So, one morning he got this really good idea of smacking the dog in the ribs with a projectile launched from his slingshot. He grabbed up one of his cast .45 Colt bullets and put it in his slingshot. Now, you understand that this wasn't going to fly real straight but would tumble all over the place. Anyway, he drew the slingshot all the way back and let fly. Distance was maybe 10 yds. It hit the dog in the ribs just behind the shoulder, right where we would like to hit a deer. The dog yelped, jumped, ran half-way across his yard and dropped dead!

The lesson here is that lead will kill, even if going pretty slow... if it hits the right spot.

[9.3X62AL]

I set up my 44 Special with #429421 at 1100 FPS--and my 10mm with RCBS 200 grain TC at 1100 FPS. These loads were intended for deer at pretty close ranges in chamise, and marginal shots always get a pass with these marginal loads. Same story with 44-40 WCF/200 grain FN @1100 FPD from a Win '73.

While I haven't shot a whole lot of deer during my lifetime (8), I'm not averse to passing on a shot that I don't favor--and have done so many times, including one such shot this season.

[Glen]

"A man's gotta know his limitations." I respect that kind of behavior Al. To me, that's part of what makes hunting fun....

[44man]

I might have told all of you about the time I lapped a .58 Minnie' ball mold out for a friend. Of course the final ball stuck in the bore as I fit it and the only way to get it out was to dribble a tiny bit of powder in the nipple hole, push the Minnie' all the way down and touch it off. I was pointing it at a 2X4 bench leg and actually felt the ball go past my hand through the barrel. It made a gentle "poop" sound and penetrated it's full depth in the wood. That thing would have gone halfway through a deer's chest! Kind of scary to say the least and we all looked at that thing with wonder. I don't think I got more then half a grain of powder in that hole.
Of course there would be no energy transfer to speak of but like the slingshot thing, it is still dangerous.
As an aside, that gun went from totally missing all shots at 50 yd's to being able to hit a 200 meter gong just by fitting the ball to the bore. One of the reasons I don't believe in the bump up theory, what would bump up more then a Minnie'?
It was funny too because after I shot at the gong, I could darn near re-load the gun before the ball hit the gong. In fact, the first time I shot at it, I turned around and was halfway to the bench when I heard it hit, I thought I missed! With 50 gr's of FFG, you do NOT want to get hit with that thing.

[georgeld]

You apparently have no respect or desire to eat much deer meat, right?

Why would you shoot one broadside thru the shoulders?????

Front edge of the chest is a much quicker, cleaner killing zone than shoulders are.

And there's not any meat to ruin in the ribs either where 1/3 of the meat is in the shoulders.

Consider it, ok?

[NickSS]

Just by chance not design I killed a white tail deer with a 444 Marlin loaded with a keith style SWC and Just about 1800 fps. My aim was off or I judged the speed the deer was running at a little wrong because the slug hit both shoulders from left to right and it piled up like it was pole axed. The bullet went clean through and was cast fro straight WW air cooled. So I figure 1800 fps works great.

[Bret4207]

As a very gross generalization, I would say a 44/45 cal SWC of no more than 12-15 BHN at 1000-1200 fps would generally pass through. Depends on a lot of other things other than just weight and velocity though. A tensed up deer is going to be harder to penetrate than a relaxed deer, and if he's running the muscle/bone structure changes. He'll be dead either way, just might be 50 yards farther on is all.

[JudgeBAC]

Deputy Al: Have you shot a deer with the TC bullet out of the 10mm? I posed a question in the CB hunting thread about a truncated cone rifle bullet. No responses as of yet. Does anyone have experience with a truncated cone bullet on medium size game i.e. deer?

[Bass Ackward]

Deputy Al: Have you shot a deer with the TC bullet out of the 10mm? I posed a question in the CB hunting thread about a truncated cone rifle bullet. No responses as of yet. Does anyone have experience with a truncated cone bullet on medium size game i.e. deer?


Judge,

I did not respond to that because you wrote a trunicated cone "point" bullet. I took that as a pointy bullet.

A meplat, is a meplat, is a meplat on no matter what the bullet design.

But a pointed semi wadcutter or a pointed trunicated cone, or anything else pointed is going to have to have be treated just like a jacketed bullet to do any good and pushed at rifle velocities to do it.

[44man]

Judge, if you are talking about the LBT style boolits, that is all I use. They seem to kill faster then the semi wadcutter because the meplat is larger. They work great from the larger rifles. Just have to remember that the smaller the caliber, the softer (Or hard but ductile.) the boolit needs to be so you get some expansion. In other words, a .30 caliber with a hard boolit and the little flat nose is still a small boolit and makes small holes. As caliber increases and meplats get larger, less and less expansion is needed and when you get to about .44, none is needed. In general, the semi wadcutter has a smaller meplat then the truncated cone although there are exceptions.
It is a balancing act with boolits for hunting. You can kill a deer with a hard pointed bullet or one that explodes but you will lose the majority of those shot that way.
Most of the large caliber muzzle loaders and guns like the 45-70 do very well with balls and round nose boolits but they are soft lead, expand and hang together for penetration. Hit a bone with pure lead and it expands and takes out several inches of bone as it continues to penetrate without losing much weight. Some of the worst bone destruction I have had was with a .54 caliber ball. I hit the shoulder and spine and it looked like I was using a .300 Weatherby. I did not recover the ball either.

[9.3X62AL]

Judge--

No deer yet with the RCBS 200 grainer. I'm going to try some coyote calling soon, and the 10mm will go along and use the song dogs for test media.

To be blunt, I'm not as happy with the RCBS TC design as I am with the Lyman #429421. (THERE is a state secret disclosed, eh?) The boolit is quite accurate, and within 40-50 yards I'm confident of placing the shot well. I'm just not real impressed with the boolit's relatively small meplat (about .230") and miniscule "sharp shoulder". This boolit's performance might benefit from Bruce B's softpointing regimen, but unalloyed lead striking the pistol's feedramp is an unknown at this time--will it feed reliably, and how battered/distorted will the nose get--and what effect will that as-yet untested distortion have on accuracy?

In short--the 10mm isn't really field-ready for deer hunting with the RCBS castings--if I left that impression with my prior text, I am sorry for that. I've wrestled with this question for a number of years, having had a 10mm of some kind for quite some time. I think the Hornady XTP 200 grain at 1100 FPS would be a great deer load. The W-W 175 grain Silvertips are a great social engineering load, with rapid expansion and 1280 FPS velocity. The more I think on it, a 200 grain design mimicking the BD-45 nose profile would be better--and I might have Dan at Mountain Molds cobble one up for me.