Deer hunting bullets/ How soft?

[Willyp]

What would the mix be for a bullet that would expand enough to hunt with? I have wheel weights,lino, stained glass window lead and some tin,on hand.
How fast would they be shot,in a 308 Win.

[Lefty SRH]

I've heard 50/50 WW and pure lead, but I'll let the others comment.

[MT Gianni]

I killed two antelope with the 311440, acww. There was no boolit to recover in either. I had a hard commercial 311440 rated 18BHN blow up on entry a long time ago. It was a small buck @ 50 yards and the lung on the hit side poured out through the ribs it blew up on. I shot the rest of those on paper targets. I am in the camp that thinks you need a bullet hard enough to hold the rifling, anything else can be detrimental. That seems to be 50-50.

[Wayne Smith]

50/50 Pb/ww and if you want to push them hard water drop. You are better off keeping them around 1800-2000fps and air cool.

[williamwaco]

Straight clip on wheel weights will make a good bullet but I doubt if you would get any expansion.

I think the 50/50 ww and pb is a good suggestion.
I also think 75/25 ww and pb would be just as good.
I would also consider 25/75 lino/pb

I expect your stained glass lead is relatively pure but I have never used it.

You're looking for a soft bullet - DO NOT WATER DROP OR HARDEN.

How fast?

As fast as you can with no leading and 3" groups at 100 yards. I would expect that to goal to fail between 1800 and 2200 fps. It will most likely be be different for every rifle/bullet/sizing die/lube/powder combination.

Remember this: Those bullets must be perfect. Fully formed, no flaws. There are differences of opinion on this point but I don't believe it is necessary to sort them by weight.

Happy development.


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[Larry Gibson]

Add 2% tin to the WWs and then mix at 50/50 with lead. If the .308W has a 10" twist you can get useable hunting accuracy up to 2000+ fps if you use a slower burning powder. With a 12" twist you can up that to 210 - 2200 fps, again with a slower powder. Also accuracy will be best in the first 10 shots from a clean barrel. Suggest cleaning the barrel when testing between test strings of 5 shots minimum. Clean when hunting every 8 - 10 shots, you shouldn't need more shots than that when hunting, if you do then the alloy, load and group size increase after that isn't the problem.......

Larry Gibson

[runfiverun]

cutting ww's with pure and adding another 1/2% tin, makes a tough malleable alloy thats pretty soft.
pushing a soft alloy such as this to 1900 fps presents some challenges.
so i waterdrop it.
i also put it in water up to then first 3/8th's of an inch and soften that with a torch,which returns the alloy to the original hardness.
negating the waterdrop on that part of the boolit.
this allows it to smoosh easily retaining the hardness on the rest to grab onto the rifling
and to provide penetration.
it does some serious internal damage to a deer.
has basically the same ballistics as a 30-30,it very accurate, and hits like a nosler partition.
but costs like 4 cents and some time to make.

[Tatume]

I've killed lots of deer with bullets made of straight wheel weight alloy. Recently I started adding 1% tin, but only because it helps with fill-out a little.

This year I killed two deer on consecutive weekends with soft lead bullets at 1300 fps MV, from a muzzleloading rifle.

I've never recovered a cast bullet from a game animal, and I've killed a lot of them. I think any alloy, hard of soft, that makes an accurate bullet is fine. Weight and shape are more important than composition. I like heavy bullets with large meplats.

Take care, Tom

[williamwaco]

When I was a kid, there were still a few of the old original American Bison around North Texas. They were paraded around the arena frequently at rodeos and a few brave ( idiotic ) ranchers even kept a few of them. I even went to school with a boy whose father had a bull and two cows. These were the real thing, not the bred down show animals I see around today. The bulls were so large a man on horseback could not look over their back. They were 7' + at the whithers. I have no idea what they weighed but I would guess North of 3,000 lbs. They were at least twice the size of a large Bahama bull.

The reason for this description is to point out that the entire herd, estimated at 60 million animals was destroyed in a very short period of time by buffalo hunters using .45 and .50 caliber bullets cast of what? - Pure lead.

Don't ever let anyone convince you that you can't kill game animals with soft cast bullets.

An Alaskan Moose shot with a well placed cast bullet of adequate size, is not going to charge you because the bullet was too soft.

That said, many of the big game hunters from the early part of the last century swore by the "Solids". I have seen them recovered from an oak trunk after penetrating 24" of solid oak and you could have loaded them and shot them again.

Don't ever let anyone convince you that you can't kill game animals with hard cast bullets.

An Alaskan Moose shot with a well placed cast bullet of adequate size, is not going to charge you because the bullet was too hard.


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[Blammer]

I like just plain old WW air cooled.

[geargnasher]

Add 2% tin to the WWs and then mix at 50/50 with lead. If the .308W has a 10" twist you can get useable hunting accuracy up to 2000+ fps if you use a slower burning powder. With a 12" twist you can up that to 210 - 2200 fps, again with a slower powder. Also accuracy will be best in the first 10 shots from a clean barrel. Suggest cleaning the barrel when testing between test strings of 5 shots minimum. Clean when hunting every 8 - 10 shots, you shouldn't need more shots than that when hunting, if you do then the alloy, load and group size increase after that isn't the problem.......

Larry Gibson


cutting ww's with pure and adding another 1/2% tin, makes a tough malleable alloy thats pretty soft.
pushing a soft alloy such as this to 1900 fps presents some challenges.
so i waterdrop it.
i also put it in water up to then first 3/8th's of an inch and soften that with a torch,which returns the alloy to the original hardness.
negating the waterdrop on that part of the boolit.
this allows it to smoosh easily retaining the hardness on the rest to grab onto the rifling
and to provide penetration.
it does some serious internal damage to a deer.
has basically the same ballistics as a 30-30,it very accurate, and hits like a nosler partition.
but costs like 4 cents and some time to make.

:goodpost:

Listen to these guys: 50/50 clip-on wheel weight alloy and soft lead with a pinch of tin added will get you about a 8-9 bhn air cooled alloy, but you can heat treat or water quench it to somewhere around 18 bhn and it will shoot like an 18 bhn alloy, but mushroom like a 9 bhn alloy without fragmenting when it hits meat.

You can easily get it up to 1900 fps in a .30 caliber sporter rifle with excellent accuracy and that's about the right speed for maximizing the alloy's impact potential anyway.

Gear

[44man]

I can say a 50-50 alloy, oven hardened is SUPER destructive to a deer. :bigsmyl2: And I only shot them around 1600 fps.
A .54 cal round ball makes a huge mess too. I love pure lead and muzzle loaders and have taken something over 250 deer with them.
My problem has been shooting soft with smokeless so I am still going to make some with soft noses and hard bases for next season. I ran out of time last season and never got any done.
I am thinking a 50-50 nose would work. You CAN harden the boolit without losing expansion.

[pdawg_shooter]

I take pure lead with 2% tin added up to around 2200fps and 75% lead 25% WWs up to around 2600fps, but then I paper patch.

[captaint]

I'm in the 50/50 camp. If it were me, I would like a gas check, too. And for starters, we want a nice flat point on that boolit. The 311041 comes to mind. enjoy Mike

[Reload3006]

Maybe I am just the weirdo don't know for sure and the deer I have killed sure didn't know either. I use straight up pure PB swaged by myself Hollow point Knurled makes a small hole 44 size going in and if it doesn't exit (only happened once) I have a pancake of lead about 1.5" in diameter. In other words it makes a BIG hole going out. Haven't lost a deer yet. and Pure PB holds together pretty good. So from my experience I dont think you can get too soft. If your gun will shoot it accurately.

[Bret4207]

Start with a good big flat nose design, at least something like the RCBS 30-180FN or the Lyman 311041 and you're 10 steps ahead of the game. Expansion is an iffy thing IME.

[runfiverun]

expansion may or may not happen.
i have seen hornady xtp's and gold dots not open on game also.
going to the flat point [or rnfp in leverguns] does increase internal damage over other types.

[white eagle]

if you are worried about expansion get yourself a 45-70
there is no need for expansion on a boolit with the correct design
however I have fallen into the expansion dilemma as well at times and have
forgotten or disregarded that old advice
a large meplat as long as it can be delivered accurately is awesome

[stubshaft]

Hardball 50/50 lino-pure. I prefer to depend on a well designed boolit and not worry about expansion. It is overrated to say the least, don't believe me? Why then are most African animals taken with solids?

[runfiverun]

penetration...

[btroj]

Most African animals are not taken with solids. In the past the use of solids was needed on big, dangerous game because soft points were not of reliable construction and couldn't be depended on to give the penetration required. Other than cape buffalo, elephant, rhino, and hippo there is no need for solids in Africa and even for the buff they are more for follow p shots where the angle may not be ideal and penetration is the word of the day.

As for cast for deer, I want an alloy that can expand but I want a bullet with a flat nose also. The flat nose will give good wound channel even if no expansion occurs but the alloy need to be right also. Far better an alloy a bit soft than too hard and brittle.

Like most things in shooting cast, it tends to be about finding the right balance. Bullet diameter, bullet shape, alloy, and velocity all work together.

[geargnasher]

Maybe I am just the weirdo don't know for sure and the deer I have killed sure didn't know either. I use straight up pure PB swaged by myself Hollow point Knurled makes a small hole 44 size going in and if it doesn't exit (only happened once) I have a pancake of lead about 1.5" in diameter. In other words it makes a BIG hole going out. Haven't lost a deer yet. and Pure PB holds together pretty good. So from my experience I dont think you can get too soft. If your gun will shoot it accurately.

I agree totally, but the OP is talking about a .308 Winchester. Here's my opinion, (you know what those are like! :shock:) You for sure aren't going to hit what you aim at with a .308 using pure lead at anything faster than about 900 fps uness it's wrapped in a paper or copper jacket. While I dang sure wouldn't stand in front of 180 grains of pure lead heading at me at 900 fps, I woudn't call it much of a hunting round unless the ranges are close. Just a little antimony, 2% or less, and an equal amount of tin hardened up to 16-18 bhn does the same thing at 1900 fps as pure does at half that speed, and can be shot very accurately at long ranges from a good bolt gun if the boolit fits correctly.

You can punch a deer through with a hard boolit, especially a hard one with at least a 50% meplat and kill them just fine, but I'd prefer the boolit have a chance at expansion, or at least more of a chance of holding together if it hits bone.

Gear

[pdawg_shooter]

I agree totally, but the OP is talking about a .308 Winchester. Here's my opinion, (you know what those are like! :shock:) You for sure aren't going to hit what you aim at with a .308 using pure lead at anything faster than about 900 fps uness it's wrapped in a paper or copper jacket. While I dang sure wouldn't stand in front of 180 grains of pure lead heading at me at 900 fps, I woudn't call it much of a hunting round unless the ranges are close. Just a little antimony, 2% or less, and an equal amount of tin hardened up to 16-18 bhn does the same thing at 1900 fps as pure does at half that speed, and can be shot very accurately at long ranges from a good bolt gun if the boolit fits correctly.

You can punch a deer through with a hard boolit, especially a hard one with at least a 50% meplat and kill them just fine, but I'd prefer the boolit have a chance at expansion, or at least more of a chance of holding together if it hits bone.

Gear

And that is why I paper patch all my cast rifle loads. Best of all worlds.

[waksupi]

I was shooting wheel weights at 2450 fps in my .308. Good accuracy, killed well.

[303Guy]

I was shooting wheel weights at 2450 fps in my .308. Good accuracy, killed well.What! Not even paper patched? That's pretty quick for cast isn't it?

Just to give some idea how a fairly soft lead alloy (scrap lead drain pipe), here one fired into ground rubber and was stopped in about a foot.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/22gr2205214IMP006-1.jpg

I'd guess the velocity to be around 1600fps (maybe less). That was a 303 Brit 205gr boolit. (Paper patched).

I've no idea rubber grinds compares to animal flesh but I'd suspect penetration would be greater in a critter and expansion less. It's the 'hold together' that impresses me.

On the solids being used in Africa, it's true but because folks used cheap milsurp ammo. That was back then, not any more.

[lead chucker]

50/50 WW to lead pluss a 4% tin air cooled that's what I'm going try this year with a Lyman 311299 it has a shallow cup hollow point. I think it will be great on deer and black bear. Any one here a can correct me if they think 4% tin is too much. I don't want to be wasting my tin I just want the hollow point to fill out evenly. I be shooting this in a 308 win also.

[reloader28]

4% sounds to me like an awful lot of tin.

I've had very good results with 2% in my testing.
I only shot 1 deer with 50/50/2%, but it worked very good so thats what I make.

I dont think I would use 4% just cause tin is so expensive.

[Grandpas50AE]

My best friend and myself cast .44's for the whole family for 20 years, and we all took several deer. All cast from straight ACWW, no boolits recovered (all were through-and-through's), not much damaged meat since there wasn't much expansion. For the .308, like WilliamWaco said, it probably doesn't matter to the deer as far as hardness goes, just hard enough not to lead your barrel is enough. I've shot bonded-core J bullets in my .30 cal rifle on deer, bullet goes all the way through and exits, kills deer quick, but because of high velocity there is considerable meat hemmorage even if no bone is hit.

[GLynn41]

I have used on deer a ac ww, range lead, very soft lead mix-- Lee hardness tester- gave 10-11 with the Large hp in the .41 Mihia great sxpansion and retained 135 of 211 gr-- full lenght of the deer nearly //shoulder to ham and knocked a bare spot of hair out where the boolit was --
The penta point from the same mold seems to expand slower -- but does expand well-it weighs about 215 gr - I am supposed to go hunt Indian Deer Barsaringa? in few weeks -and will use the penta point-
mv for either in my .41/ 454 or .410 GNR is 1730- 5.5" Redhawk
I also have a hp 410459 keith Lyman mold and the same mix expands very well-- have not clocked it