What kind of expansion

[qajaq59]

Can I expect from a 165 grain CB made with #2 alloy from a 30-30 doing roughly 1500 fps? And is it adequate for hogs if the bullet placement is correct? I normally use Core Lokts but I'd like to use my CBs instead.

[45 2.1]

Can I expect from a 165 grain CB made with #2 alloy from a 30-30 doing roughly 1500 fps? And is it adequate for hogs if the bullet placement is correct? I normally use Core Lokts but I'd like to use my CBs instead.

I wouldn't expect a lot of expansion, but you should get some. This will depend on what CB you use. The Lyman 311041 would be a good hunting boolit. If your lucky enough to find or convert a mold to hollow point, you will find it a very good CB for hunting. I would tone down that alloy to less hardness myself and you should get good expansion, especially down around 10 BHN.

[Lloyd Smale]

I wouldnt look for anything like classic mushroom expansion. The bullet may deform a little though especially if it hits bone

[Ranch Dog]

Can I expect from a 165 grain CB made with #2 alloy from a 30-30 doing roughly 1500 fps? And is it adequate for hogs if the bullet placement is correct? I normally use Core Lokts but I'd like to use my CBs instead.

qajaq...

I take it that you are familiar with hogs in that you have used jacketed bullets on them. Familiar with the country they live in and will exit to with the shot (heavy cover). I don't think your wound channel is going to look anything like what you've experienced with the Core-Lokts. I personally would be a little shy of punching a hog with the boolit and load. I live with the hogs and hog hunting here at the rancho. I see a group of hunters every three weeks, they just left yesterday, so I see a lot of hogs and I see a lot of hogs shot. I just could not encourage you to take the shot... sorry.

I would expect you to mortally wound the animal with an entry wound but no exit wound. That entry wound will clog up with cartilage and fat and then stop leaving a blood trail within 20 to 30 yards. A hog with a big hole through it's vitals can travel about 50 to 60 yards dead on it's feet at the shot. This animal will travel far. My experience is that any hog that makes it 100-yards is a lost animal.

I have personally experienced this with a "soft" boolit at low velocity and won't make this mistake again. That was with a softened BTB 250-grain LFNGC, my Marlin 375 at 1950 FPS with the shot at 80-yards. I hit the hog in the lower lungs but the boolit did not exit. The hog was in the thorn thicket within 3 yards and absolutely no blood. My trail dog, my dear Sheila that I lost a year ago, could only follow the hog about 30-yards. This dog had a reputation of finding some very poor hits. Anyway I found this hog two months later when a creek dried up. It entered the water, went under and up under a shelf on the bank. It was about 200-yards from the shot.

With the small caliber boolit I would say water quench the alloy and push the velocity up to 2000 FPS. You need to knock a hole completely through the hog.

This one event has spooked the hell out of me as I hate loosing a critter despite shooting 12 to 18 of these critters a year and seeing many, many more killed on my property. From this one shot, I've been spooked on using the 375 on down despite having a couple of excellent boolit designs down through 30 caliber. I confronted this with kills this year from my Marlin 375 and Marlin 336D (35 Rem) but I'm driving hard boolits at maximum velocity to generate a large wound channel through these tough animals. I've attached a picture of the exit wound of a hog shot with the 35 Rem boolit at 50-yards. The boolit had a BHN of 27 and a muzzle velocity of 2174 FPS. I've also attached a picture of the deer I killed with the 375 caliber boolit. Same BHN and distance. Both are huge holes!

I won't even recommend taking a head shot. I went out turkey hunting with my 444 Marlin and the Lee C430-310-RF, a 310-grain boolit loaded to 1700 FPS... I just wanted to say I killed a turkey with the 444. Low and behold I see a huge hog walking toward me while I'm calling. At 50-yards I hit that fellow right square in the head. I saw the air cooled WW shatter against his skull but he dropped like a rock. Before I got the lever cycled he was up and gone. This was a bad situation as I now had to trail a big hurt hog. I turned Sheila loose but she couldn't come up with anything. I found him and his cracked skull two weeks later... another waste. I've since lost two king sized hogs with head shots from cast boolits right here in my yard. Both of these boars had claimed our yard as territory, at different times, and we couldn't occupy our yard and picnic area from about 5 p.m. on. After the head shot, both were found dead 10 days to two weeks later. In booth cases the hard cast lead boolits disintegrated on impact. One was from a 444 Marlin and the other a 450 Marlin. The 450 Marlin shot was spectacular with my wife, mom and dad watching as the boolit deflected and came apart it cut a number of small limbs out of the mesquites as it departed. I won't take a cast boolit head shot anymore.

One more head shot story... I have a friend that has a helicopter service that kills hogs for the large ranches in our area. There is a lot of ground support with this operation as all the hogs are processed. Guys on ATVs pick up the hogs and take them to van of an 18 wheeler that is a butcher shop in the field. The fellows on the ATVs carried 44 Mags as they do encounter wounded animals from the AK shot hogs. My friend had herded a large group of hogs into a open creek bed and killed all but one of them with the AK (he flies and shoots). He kept the remaining large hog (400#+) at bay as the fellow on the ATV wanted a kill with his cast boolit. He hit the hog in the head and the boolit deflected up and through one of the main rotor blades of the Robinson helicopter. In the few seconds between the hit and getting the helicopter on the ground the machine was significantly damaged due to vibration. It was a costly lesson and the ATV dudes now just carry knifes. They lost the hog.

http://gunloads.com/fam/ranchdogmolds/Share/Adrian003b.jpg
35 Caliber Boolit Exit Wound, high velocity hard alloy

http://gunloads.com/fam/ranchdogmolds/Share/010107002c.jpg
375 Caliber Boolit Exit Wound, high velocity hard alloy

http://gunloads.com/fam/ranchdogmolds/Share/APRHogWoodsb.jpg
Frustrated Trail Dog Looking For Head Shot Hog

[45 2.1]

This hard cast business is OK and I see why you want to do it, BUT please learn to alloy correctly so you don't have a brittle hard boolit. You need a tough boolit that is hard and you will stop the blowing up with head hits.

[Ranch Dog]

This hard cast business is OK and I see why you want to do it, BUT please learn to alloy correctly so you don't have a brittle hard boolit. You need a tough boolit that is hard and you will stop the blowing up with head hits.

My alloy is correct and not brittle. I kill more game with cast boolits in a year than most people will kill in a decade.

http://gunloads.com/fam/ranchdogmolds/Share/CompressionTLC432vsBTB.jpg
My boolit and alloy vs. a BTB (one of the best commerical boolits available). Mine is tough but will not shatter.

[45 2.1]

My alloy is correct and not brittle. I kill more game with cast boolits in a year than most people will kill in a decade.

Excuse me then, I thought I just read a post above that said:

"I won't even recommend taking a head shot. I went out turkey hunting with my 444 Marlin and the Lee C430-310-RF, a 310-grain boolit loaded to 1700 FPS... I just wanted to say I killed a turkey with the 444. Low and behold I see a huge hog walking toward me while I'm calling. At 50-yards I hit that fellow right square in the head. I saw the air cooled WW shatter against his skull but he dropped like a rock. Before I got the lever cycled he was up and gone."

Perhaps I imagined it.

[Ranch Dog]

May be I should have offered more..

I've shot them with hard and soft cast boolits in the head and would not recommend shooting a large hog in the head with anything. Like I said I have seen a lot of hogs killed and I have seen jacketed bullets glance off a hogs head. The largest hog I've ever seen, I saw my dad bounce a jacketed 308 Win bullet off his head. This hog was in the 450 to 500 pound range. I told my dad not to shoot him in the head but he did. With any distance to the shot, there is just too much angle on the skull to control the angle of impact. I mean, up close you can see if you are going to hit them square and that is a different story. I justed posted a thread about killing two hogs... bang, bang in the head with the 41LC. I was behind the trunk of a live oak, they were sleeping, the 10-yard shot was a beauty and they where head dead. Out at 50-yards and beyond you can't see enough to judge just how far off a flat 90 degrees you are. They constantly move, and that increase the complexity of a square shot on a large hogs head. If the angle is any less than 90 degrees, there is too much sweep on the skull. If it is greater than 90, facing away, that is an excellent shot because it is exposing a vital area that doesn't have much protection. That isn't offered much. I will try to find a picture of one of my large skulls and post it. It is a study in protection just like their shield on their shoulders.

[Larry Gibson]

Agree with Ranch dog and 45 2.1 (though they seem to be in a disagreement); use a heavier bullet (311041 minimum or the Lee 180 FP), boost the velocity to 2000 fps and use an alloy that won't shatter. Oh yeah, don't take a head shot unless you can for sure put it just forward of the earhole into the brain, a difficult shot.

Larry Gibson

[Ranch Dog]

Excuse me then, I thought I just read a post above that said:

"I won't even recommend taking a head shot. I went out turkey hunting with my 444 Marlin and the Lee C430-310-RF, a 310-grain boolit loaded to 1700 FPS... I just wanted to say I killed a turkey with the 444. Low and behold I see a huge hog walking toward me while I'm calling. At 50-yards I hit that fellow right square in the head. I saw the air cooled WW shatter against his skull but he dropped like a rock. Before I got the lever cycled he was up and gone."

Perhaps I imagined it.

May be a better word would have been splattered. Nothing to do with being brittle... just meeting an object that will not yield.

[45 2.1]

May be a better word would have been splattered. Nothing to do with being brittle... just meeting an object that will not yield.

OK, but there were some lots of WW that had a very high antimony content, you could tell by the lattice structure on the cast boolit, and would splatter, shatter or blow as you described in air cooled condition. This topic of boolit hardness used to be an item in hunters silohette (sp). The guys would shoot a heavy plate at 100 yds and the boolit would blow on the plate without knocking it down (44 mag). They were using a hard high content antimony alloy. Finally, they found that an alloy that was "tough" but hard would dwell longer on the plate surface toppling it over, all with the same load. Much the same happens on bone and gristle or any other hard surface or material. The boolit has to stay whole long enough to transfer its energy to either pass thru (dependent on shape) or move the item being shot. There is material on this also from the days of hunting elephants with big bore round ball doubles. A lot of military applications of the same deal during black powder eras too.

[qajaq59]

I don't like a wounded critter. I think I'll just stick with the Core Lokts. The last boar never took another step after I hit him.

[jeff223]

My alloy is correct and not brittle. I kill more game with cast boolits in a year than most people will kill in a decade.

http://gunloads.com/fam/ranchdogmolds/Share/CompressionTLC432vsBTB.jpg
My boolit and alloy vs. a BTB (one of the best commerical boolits available). Mine is tough but will not shatter.

i know you kill alot of animals with your cast boolits RANCH DOG and its going to be very hard for anyone to discredit you

you are a master boolit designer,caster and hunter.

[Bodydoc447]

I have a follow-up question along these lines. I have a .45-70 I'd like to use on hogs with cast boolits. It is the standard Lee 405 grainer I water drop from a relatively hard alloy. I also have the Lyman HP Gould boolit and recent group buy 360 grain FN. Either of my guns are strong enough to really get these boolits moving (Marlin cowboy and Ruger #1). Since I moved to TX last summer I have thought about taking these after hogs if I can find a place to hunt locally (Lubbock). My question is whether I should soften my alloy by air cooling and adding more WW or keep it hard like linotype? What do you gentlemen think?

Doc

[Bass Ackward]

I have a follow-up question along these lines. I have a .45-70 I'd like to use on hogs with cast boolits. It is the standard Lee 405 grainer I water drop from a relatively hard alloy. I also have the Lyman HP Gould boolit and recent group buy 360 grain FN. Either of my guns are strong enough to really get these boolits moving (Marlin cowboy and Ruger #1). Since I moved to TX last summer I have thought about taking these after hogs if I can find a place to hunt locally (Lubbock). My question is whether I should soften my alloy by air cooling and adding more WW or keep it hard like linotype? What do you gentlemen think?

Doc


Doc,

Hard and wide is a safe, solid strategy as long as you have the velocity to keep up the hydrostatic shock. Velocity is what is doing the work, not the cast bullet. Hard works better on larger, tougher animals when going up in bullet weight or velocity is a limiter. It ensures penetration.

The real problem is that a lever (lever cartridges) can't launch a soft bullet at as high a velocities as it can a hard bullet. (without special techniques like paper patching) So in practical respects, hard is the only game in town if you need to penetrate. You simply don't have other options.

But when you have the option to launch the same bullets at higher velocity, the softer bullet will perform better at longer ranges. When velocity is no longer a factor, the bullet must do the work and then soft shines over hard. If you are always going to limit yourself to handgun ranges, then even at slower velocities, hard is the way to go.