Heavy Cast Hollow Point Bullet

[Southern Shooter]

If this bullet had a hollow point, cast from clip-on wheel weights, and weighing in at 335-340 grains..............

1) What velocity would start to open it up? What would be the low end required velocity?

2) What would you feel comfortable using it for in the woods or mountains? Hunting and/or protection?

3) Would it deflect easily off of a large animal like Russian Boar, elk, moose, bear?

41500

Thanks

[375RUGER]

Is it supposed to be a .375 rifle boolit?
I would think that the velocity you are searching for would depend on the size of the cavity- you can make the cavity small or large. Probably the FP will mushroom with air cooled COW at 1500fps or so. HP will start expanding long before that. Anything over 900 FPS will be quite acceptable.
I'm not sure what you mean by deflecting off of an animal.

[Southern Shooter]

Hi,
It is actually for a .454 Casull.

By deflecting, I mean, once it has entered the animal, would it be knocked of course very easily by bone or think muscle or gristle. At 900+ FPS, would the expansion slow it down, too much?

Thanks

[Larry Gibson]

Straight clip on WWs are not really a good alloy for HP bullets, the antimony content is too high and the expansion petals, if any, will shatter or break off too soon. A better alloy would then be the WWs + 2 % tin + 50% lead or 16-1 lead - tin. Both those alloys will expand, given a proper HP down to 1000 fps or so depending on target substance. Cast of 40-1 or 30-1 lead - tin alloy you could push that bullet to 1000 fps or so and get expansion down at 750 fps or so, again depending on target substance. Cast of pure lead you could push to 800-900 fps and expect expansion at lower velocity. The design of the HP and target substance govern ow much expansion and at what velocity.

Either alloy will limit the practical accuracy capability of that design to 1600 fps or less, the softer the alloy the less velocity for any practical accuracy. If you want to push soft malleable alloys(so they expand) at higher velocity then a GC'd design bullet is needed.

Larry Gibson

The 454 Casull is capable of 1500+ fps, depending on barrel length so I strongly suggest a GC'd bullet if you really want any accuracy at that velcocity with a malleable alloy.

[Southern Shooter]

How about the softer stick-on wheel weights for the hollow-point at 900-1,000 FPS?

[HollowPoint]

I use lighter weight bullets in my 45 auto but the profile is similar.

As flat as the point is on this bullet and as large in diameter as it is, there hardly needs
to be a hollow point on the end of it to get the performance one may hope for.

Even on my lighter weight bullets that are air cooled WWs I get excellent expansion and although
I've never chronographed them, they can't be traveling any more than 900 fps.

To control the amount of expansion I've been getting I simply replaced my hollow pointing spud with one that forms a shallow cup-point.

On a cast slug as big as yours this seems like an ideal bullet for cup-pointing rather than a traditional hollow pointed flat nose. A cup-point would give you both expansion and penetration while at the same time mitigating the chance of the hollow pointed nose shearing off.

HollowPoint

[Southern Shooter]

HollowPoint,

That is an idea that had crossed my mind. I am glad you brought that up. It sounds logical and effective.

Thanks

[429421Cowboy]

Depending on what you found acceptable, would a boolit that was hard enough to shear the petals off but still have the base be a good thing? In such a heavy boolit you could afford to lose the nose petals and still have plenty of base to keep ploughing in. I have heard that's the way the Lyman Devistator design works but have no experence with it. Seems like it might be the best of both worlds if it actually worked that way and i'm not even a big user of HP's right now. At the velocity your looking at that would be a good design in a heavy .45 Colt as well.

[Wayne Smith]

for Russian Boar, Elk, Moose, and Bear why do you want to hp it anyway? You want penetration on all of those animals. For thin skinned smaller animals maybe, but I'd go with solids for your intended game.

[Larry Gibson]

I push the 275 gr Lyman .44 Devastator at 1350 fps out of my Ruger 6 1/2" FTBH and 1500 fps out of my Contender. Expansin is excellent with either the WW+2%tin+50% lead or 16-1 alloys. I've not found any evidence of the expansion petals breaking off but I have not recovered any bullets from game yet, all have been through and through with excellent exit woulds exhibiting very good expansion. I've been shooting game with HP cast bullets since '68 in handguns and rifles from velocities of 900 to 2300 fps so I've a fair idea of what to look for in HP performance in game.

Larry Gibson

BTW; I believe it is a myth that a properly HP'd heavy cast bullet such as the .44 Devastator won't give sufficient "penetration" on larger game. I've shot several elk and pigs with HP'd 260 gr 429244s and did not find penetration to be "wanting" as the shots were all through & through except one injured elk. I purposely shot it about halfway down the neck so the bullet would traverse through the rest of the lower neck and int ot the chest cavity. The HP'd 429244 (at 1450 fps out of a 8 3/8" M29) did just that and was lost in the paunch. That is a lot of penetration BTW. The elk was DRT. My experience with HP'd cast bullets of soft malleable alloy was similar with the .357 and .41 Magnums along with the .32 H&R, the .45 ACP/AR and the .45 Colt in handguns and rifles. I've also shot enough deer, elk, pigs and a bear with cast bullet HPs out of several CF rifles from .30 cal to .45 cal to know that a properly cast HP'd bullet is very deadly and gives all the penetration required, even on the big stuff.

[runfiverun]

my take on it.
leave it alone, soften the ww alloy a little,
and don't push it too fast. 1200 would be plenty.
i'd be allright at 1,000 fps.

[lead chucker]

Yup would leave that one alone especially if you need it for protection from fury critters.

[stubshaft]

Load it at 45LC levels and shoot it out of a 454?

[Larry Gibson]

Load it at 45LC levels and shoot it out of a 454?

I could see loading a lighter weight bullet to .45 Colt levels for practice/plinking (I do that with my .357, .41, .44 and .45 Colts) but to do that with such a bullet seems a waste to me, just my opinion. To me that bullet would be for top end performance.

Larry Gibson

[stubshaft]

I agree Larry, 900 - 100fps is not top end performance.

[Big Boomer]

I shoot a nearly identical boolit in my .45 Colts (Ruger Bisleys 5 & 6 shooters) except that mine are gas checked. It is an LBT WLN (wide long nose) that weighs 330 grains. I drop them as cast from the mold of WW plus some tin into a bucket of water. The boolits are hard enough to penetrate clear through any critter I've taken on but soft enough beneath the outer hard shell to begin to mushroom if they contact anything hard like bone. Velocity in the 5-shooter is 1400 fps. About 1250, perhaps a little more in the 6-shooters.

While a boolit like mine or the one pictured can be loaded down for the gun, the target or the shooter, it should be very effective with most any alloy includiung the very hardest. In any event, it will punch a very big hole. 'Tuck (as in Kentuck)

[runfiverun]

i'd push it past 45 colt.
but velocity isn't everything and too much speed does not help, especially if cast hard.
i'm still going with the 10-1200 fps.
let the flat nose do it's job of sucking air in the hole, pushing things around inside, and making a hole going out.
if a gas check is available i'd go with it.

[Fenring]

I would not HP that bullet for the game you mention. As it is, it won't deflect off an animal but rather how far will it go into the animal?

Here are some boolits i have recovered from pigs of various sizes up to about 80kg. The three on the left are the Lyman Devastator HP @ 275gr from clip on WW's air cooled and launched @ 1650fps. Impact speed would still have been quite high on these as ranges were short - 50m or less. As you can see, the nose cone has peeled right back and come off, leaving the base under the skin on the opposite side. These were not BIG pigs.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/Fenring/Shooting/Goodooga%202010/P1050767.jpg

The boolit on the far right is the Lee flat nose @315gr from the same alloy and launched @1500fps. Again, range was short and impact speed would have been high. That was in the opposite shoulder, gristle layer of a boar around 50kg. Retained weight was near 100%.

These were all fired from a Ruger 96/44.

For big animals like you mention I would forget the HP. Air cooled clip on WW's would be a good starting point if you want expansion and launch them as fast as you can - IMO. More speed = bigger snowplough effect / shockwave from the flat nose.

[missionary5155]

Geetings
Whenever I start thinking about modern revolver velocities and whether a boolit of certain weight will do the job I try and find a comparitive BP cartrige rifle loading from 120+ years ago that was similar in caliber & weight & FPS.
For example a 1876 45-60 with a 320 grain HP made of 40-1 with 55 grains of 2F was used to hunt every critter there was. Maybe not real far off (200 yards+) but at 100 yards it would do the ticket with well placed shots. Now that boolit was only chugging along at 1200 fps yet was known as a good round to hunt big critters with. So it seems as critters still have not discovered kevlar a .460 320 grain HP traveling at 1200 fps today should still do the work needed if properly applied on target.
For the 41 mag or Supermag I look at what the 40-65 or 40-85 was noted to do on critters with the weight boolit I want to hunt with.
For the 45 colt (modern revolver) that can get compared to the 45-60 or 45-70 BP.
Anytime you beat the old BP velocity with a boolit of the same caliber & weight in a revolver then you are really cooking with gas.
Mike in Peru

[Michael J. Spangler]

i don't know a lot about casting. i'm very new to this.
i have done a little bit of reading on terminal ballistics though.

the beauty of these large caliber handgun rounds (as previously stated they are close to old BP rifle rounds in performance) is that they are just that: large

if someone could use a 300 win mag with a 200ish grain bullets that hopefully opened up to .45 caliber and worked its way through one of these animals without exploding under such high velocities they would be tickled pink. in order to do so they would have to load it a little slow and pick a bullet that would open up right but retain it's weight to do that job. or they're taking 300 yard shots that equal a lower impact velocity anyway

velocity diminished, mass does not (other than fragmentation)

you're starting with a lower velocity round (mass is more important here) that also starts off at the .45 caliber, without the worry of fragmentation, and explosive effect that could be seen with a lightly constructed bullet in a .30 caliber cartridge.

you have the big wound channel, the deep penetration, and no fragmentation right off the bat. it's probably not an issue to worry about the hollow point too much.

over penetration is seen as an issue by some though.
time for devils advocate.
if your gun can produce 2000lbs of energy, would you rather have the animal bleeding from an entrance and exit wound with a lot of the energy remaining in the bullet as it travels down range long past the animal?
or would you have a hollow point open up, cause some serious damage and dump all of it's 2000lb of energy in to the animal and turn it's insides into cherry slushy?

either way you'e going to kill if the shot placement is right. all of the advice here is sound. pick something that shoots accurately and consistently from your gun, place your shot right and you should be fine.

i would rather be able to hit a moose in the eye with a .223 than shoot it in the leg with a 1.00 caliber wall gun

[white eagle]

agreed
load your hunting loads for accuracy and stop worrying about terminal effects
if you have a wonderful lead mushroom that resides in the terra firma that will do
you no favors when your intended quarry either walks away or starts to munch on your attributes