hollow point for my 4570

[canuck4570]

I have a saeco traditional mould 500 gr RN. The load is 23 gr of 4759 IMR. on the chrono it register at 1220 FPS.. aloy is W.W. I will be hunting moose and deer...comments please... by the was the rifle is a ruger no 1 and the front ramp was modified (longer) to be able to mount my burris scout scope....just great no loading port obstructed......thank you in advanced Michel.... so do I need hollow point.... I am asking because I it kicks and I am thinking of reducing the load to 1100 FPS.

[fourarmed]

Hi, and welcome to the board. I'm no expert on moose, but you might even be better off without HP for penetration, and at that velocity, I don't think you would see much difference on deer one way or the other.

[44man]

I agree, I would not use a hollow point. With a roundnose you might want to keep it softer with maybe a 20 to 1, lead, tin mix. A hard cast boolit with a large flat meplat would work great too.
Don't worry about the kick when hunting. If it is accurate, leave the load alone.

[Junior1942]

Why not switch to a pure lead alloy? It doesn't lead in my rifles and pistols below ~1200 fps. Gives great expansion, too.

[44man]

You got it Junior! I suggested a little tin to make casting easier. Much better then a hollow point WW boolit that might come apart.

[nighthunter]

I agree with 44man. Go for a large meplat bullet and the moose will be yours as long as you do your part. I have a mountain mold that throws a 440 grain gas check bullet with a 75% meplat and deer die where they stand if my aim is true. Not a whole lot of shot up meat but the shock must be tremendous. I'm only shooting them at about 1500 fps from my Ruger #1 and accuracy is very good.
nighthunter

[Bass Ackward]

I have a saeco traditional mould 500 gr RN. The load is 23 gr of 4759 IMR. on the chrono it register at 1220 FPS.. aloy is W.W. I will be hunting moose and deer...comments please... by the was the rifle is a ruger no 1 and the front ramp was modified (longer) to be able to mount my burris scout scope....just great no loading port obstructed......thank you in advanced Michel.... so do I need hollow point.... I am asking because I it kicks and I am thinking of reducing the load to 1100 FPS.


Michel,

I read here where the other guys are telling you to go soft. JDL shot an Elk broadside with a 500 grainer and soft mix that never exited. And I think his velocity was a little higher than that.

So you might soften it for deer, but I would leave it alone and use the WW for moose if it were me.

[44man]

Bass you have a good point there. I am a little concerned about the round nose. But if I think about it, many animals have bit the dust with round balls. I would prefer the large meplat boolit even for deer although the round nose should work because it is big. I never shot a moose so I just have to think of boolit performance. It might be a good idea to have a small soft nose on a hard shank.

[BruceB]

In an on-going search for a GOOD cast hunting bullet for my .416 Rigby, to be used this autumn, I've been doing some testing and a lot of reading. A lot of the reading involves the .45-70, because until I found out a few days ago that I can cast good two-alloy .416" softnoses, the .45-70 was a strong candidate for my October elk trip.

I have the Lyman 457122 335-grain hollowpoint mould known as the "Gould" design. It's been widely used for over 100 years, but just this week I found several gents on the Shiloh Rifle Forums saying that it is too fragile in their personal experience, breaking up with minimal penetration on deer (one guy says it only gave him 4" penetration on his buck, which killed the critter but mostly only by good fortune). Another gent chimed in with a good thought, saying that if the bullet as-cast with the present design is too fragile, then just shortening the HP pin should work well in reducing the amount of expansion. I expect he's right,because the "issue" pin is very long, giving a hollowpoint about half the length of the bullet. Better a too-shallow HP than a too-deep one which allows the bullet to come apart. I wonder if the HP pin supplied by Lyman is longer these days than it once was? The Gould bullet has a pretty decent reputation as a deer-killer.

After my success with casting the softnose .416s, I'd be inclined to go that route rather than hollowpointing, even in the .45-70. I'll know for sure once I do a comparative test in wetpack between straight WW bullets and those with the softnoses. My tests will include both air-cooled and water-dropped WW as well as the 'new' softpoints from the BruceB Foundry and Pizza House. My 365-grain Rigbys shot fairly well in PURE LEAD at 2000 fps, and I don't really know if the bullets slumped at that speed or not. I also don't know if a pure-lead nose will slump, either. The 100-yard group with PL wasn't all that bad, but clearly not as good as the "control" group fired with WW bullets.

If you really intend to stay with 1200 fps, pure lead should be fine and not likely to slump or otherwise deform. I'd be inclined to boost that speed though, maybe to 1400 or so. The extra power may be useful, although the trajectory will still be about like that of a softball. The real advantage of the extra speed would be the increased possibility of bullet expansion. It would be a simple job to rig some sort of jig or die to allow accurate cutting of a flat on your roundnoses, and I would definitely do that for Trapdoor speeds.

Since I'm gonna get into the mess of working with the .416 in wetpack, I'll try a few different .45-70 loads as well, and post here about what I find. The "fragile" Gould reports particularly intrigue me.

[waksupi]

Over the years, I only recall shooting one deer with a round nose .45-70. It was a 500 gr. bullet, shot from an original 1886 Winchester. The deer was about fourty yards when shot through the lungs. It went about 150 yards before it went down. I don't consider that all so good. So I do like a flat meplate, as the killing effect does seem to be better. I have shot quite a few deer over the years with round balls, but I do believe the increased expansion comes into play, as the victims would generally go down in pretty short order. I don't recall ever following a well hit deer over maybe twenty yards with a round ball. Most went down in thier tracks.

[Bass Ackward]

Bruce,

You have really sunk your teeth into this testing, let's see what you come up with.

I have a hard time with the 4" penetration comment on deer. Even if that bullet broke up, one piece should have weighed at least 100 grains. And I know I can shoot through deer with 40 grains from a 22LR in several locations. But I did cut down my stem on all hollow points for that reason. If you fill even an indentation on the nose with wax, you speed expansion tremendously. So why the need for a cavern?

The only other comment I will make is one you probably know. Wet pack testing is convienient for high volume testing. But it is misleading too. That is because expansion in the medium is constant. Often providing more expansion than may be experienced. Game does not produce constant expansion.

That is why once in a while I used real bone in the wet pack along with water filled jugs. This way you not only get a .... more realistic look at expansion, but can guage shock a little bit as well. This is useful for seeing what happens to shock farther out. Unlike wetpak, you can establish a maximum range for a load / bullet too. To me, maximum range testing was more important because up close where velocity and bullet placement hide a lot of faults from bullet design to metalurgy. Once you see and understand different alloys, minimum range testing is pretty much able to be guessed at.

[45 2.1]

If you cast the gould bullet with an alloy with too high an antimony content, it will blow as reported. If you want to use the gould. use a lead tin alloy!

[KCSO]

I have used the Gould with good effect on deer size game with FFG and at about 1400 FPS. I cast mine with 1 20 alloy and have yet to have one come apart. I think that a too hard alloy might be the problem with fragenting bullets. I don't use the 400 and up bullets on game smaller than Buffalo as in the lighter game they show little expansion and simply punch a caliber size hole through. I don't think that hollow pointing a bigger bullet, especially at 1100 fps will do much for expansion, I would want to shoot a lot of wet pack with this one to make sure. I made a hollowpointer for the 500 bullet, but it was for an exploding bullet, a duplicate of the Sharps bullet of the 1870's. Tis took a 22 blank in the end of the bullet.

[canuck4570]

thank you for all these replys... they are helpful... yesterday at tha range I took a 5 gallon plastic pale filed it whith wet sand put it on its side the sand facing the shootind position ... 100 yards away.... shot the round nose at 1220 fps... chrono...no hollow point and to my surprise it mushroom to .970 shot 2 more and the same average uper .900 and almost no lost in weight.... they would same x bullet from barnes....I intend to go but this time with hollow point to see the difference.... penetration was almous to the buttom of the pale... and I could past my arme in the openind it did for the lenght of the pale.... I am shure it is to good to be true... the sand could be the reason why it expand that way....the opening for my arm was about 4 inches across.... if any of you know someone who make a mould between 500 and 425 whith a big maplat I would like to know.... thank again Michel.... PS please excuse my writing since english is my second toung....

[44man]

Waksupi, I tried my old army cap and ball on a large doe last year. I used a round ball and 41 grs. of Swiss FFFG. I broke both of her shoulders and the ball went all the way through. She made 10 feet with the jump from her back legs and piled up. I have taken about 120 deer with muzzle loaders and round balls and none had to be tracked, all either going right down or falling before getting out of sight. I have always found the muzzle loader much more effective then small caliber modern high power rifles. Just can't shoot as far. When you go to the modern rifle in the larger calibers, or the old calibers like the 45-70, then they become as effective.
I have found my large bore revolvers to be as effective as the muzzle loader when using a flat meplat. I have not had to track a deer with them. I have never recovered a cast boolit from one.
A flat meplat in the 45-70 will kill faster, penetrate farther and run a straighter path through an animal then the round nose will. The wound channel will also destroy the lungs.
I have never killed a large animal like a moose but have over 350 deer kills, about 200 of these with archery equipment. I am starting to lose count in my old age!

[44man]

Canuck, I find Lee makes the 457-450 F and the C457-500 FN, RCBS has the 45-500-FN and Rapine makes the .457510 and the .460510 if you need a larger diameter. Both have flat noses.

[canuck4570]

thank you 44 man..... the problem with these moulds is the bore ridind nose take for example my saeca 540 gr... the bore rindind nose bullet come out of the mould at .452 .... I dont kow about lee but they must be the same.... a few weeks ago I ordered a paul jones mould but my mistake was I took it to heavy ( 575 gr.) and it has a big meplat... but the 1 in 20 twist of my ruger 4570 did not able me to group this bullet better than 4 inches at 100 yards.. know I have a saeco 500 gr RN traditional bullet and the bore ridind section come out at .446 so it goes in the chamber easely without have to push it in like the 540.... but a lot of you seem to favor a maplat for hunting...Michel.....

[Char-Gar]

Hollow point cast bullets are not for use on big game. Deer are not big game, moose are big game.

[44man]

Might be a good idea to add some pure lead to WW's and experiment with jugs of water to find an alloy that will give a little expansion with the round nose. Maybe air cooled WW's will work fine. I think the boolit will work for you if you play with it. Line up a whole bunch of gallon jugs so you can catch the boolit. Look for some expansion with a lot of penetration. Besides, it's fun!

[BruceB]

My intent in wet-pack testing is really to find out what my .416 cast softnoses will do on impact.

I already have a good handle on Linotype and pure-lead results from earlier tests (and field experience) from years ago. The wet-pack doesn't reflect actual performance on game, of course, but it DOES offer a direct comparison of the alloys and bullets involved.

Since I intend to get into the subject with the .416, I may as well do some .45-70 work as well.

That 4"-penetration figure with the Gould bullet caused me to wonder as well. The bullet's reputation on deer is far better than that. A brittle alloy may well be to blame, IF the report is accurate (it was on the Internet, after all, and we know how distorted things can get on the 'net).

It may be a while before I can get the tests underway, as I first have to assemble enough paper and then find time to do the testing.

[Buckshot]

..............Possibly the best lead boolit ever is a soft paper patched one. I don't have a bunch of personal info to back that statement up, other then one instance and having read about it otherwise. Shot a bore pig broadside with a Lee 405 paper patched pure lead boolit. Cleaned his clock but good. The slug exited and may still be going for all I know. MV was 1600 fps from my MAS36 converison.

Usng my MkIV 577-450 Martini-Henry, my favorite plinking load is 38.0grs of IMR3031 and dacron under the Lee 405 pached with 20lb paper to .472". MV is about 1250 fps or a bit less. I once recovered a round from the berm that hadn't been destroyed by rocks and it looked like a Faberge' Easter egg. The whole boolit had just smoothly peeled back evenly all around itself. Looked about golf ball sized with a quater sized hole in it. Looking through the hole you could see the base of the boolit!

One of the guys at the range is pretty well off financially and has hunted in Africa almost yearly for as long as I've known him. The past probably 8 years or more has been with a White Systems inline muzzle loader. White Systems has sabots which use an NEI 45 cal 500gr boolit intended for paper patching. He casts these from straight linotype.

They're intended strickly for penetration and busting bones to anchor the animal so it doesn't run off. So far from all the animals he's shot he hasn't recovered a slug yet.

Two different type boolits for different reasons and game types.

I shot a deer in Montross, CO with my 03A1 Springfield several years ago. It was the Ly 311284 cast of WW type alloy. I had told myself (I felt they were too hard) that I'd only take a good broadside chest shot. As it turned out I shot a buck in the neck while he was facing me at about 60 yards.

He went down like a sack of bricks. The boolit entered above mid-chest and severed the wind pipe and hit the spine. The slug left a few shards of peeled off lead and exited out the left side of the neck just above the shoulder. There was no meat damage excpet right there where the boolit hit the vetebre. Had the slug NOT hit the spine, I doubt the outcome would have been as suddenly dramatic.

...............Buckshot

[Larry Gibson]

Buckshot

I tend to agree with you on the soft lead boolit. Patched bullets work quite well for hunting but they can be restricted to a certain velocity level accuracy wise. The softer lead will obdurate and set back so accuracy depends a lot on the original bullet design. Most boolits made for patching are cylindrical with a small nose; pointed, flat or semi-spitzer. These work well with little setback. The problem when using a normal cast bullet is the nose must be supported and even then the boolit will set back into the lube grooves on firing. However, they are still quite usable. A friend had a sporterized SMLE MKIV in .303. It had a very nice clean bore but shot poorly with jacketed bullets because it slugged out at .314. I cast up some 311041HPs out of plain lead. Of course they were around .309 from the mold. He PP’d them (I don’t recall lb or type of the paper) and loaded some test loads with H4985 (may have been IMR but I think it was H) and found accuracy was not good over 1500 fps. We then cast some out of a 1-16 tin – lead alloy that I use for my TD 500 gr boolits. He was able to load them to right at 2000 fps with accuracy of not more than 3 MOA with the issue aperture rear sight. He shot a very nice large 4 point (that’s 8 point to you easterners) blacktail deer in the foothills outside Dallas, Oregon with that load. As I recall it was around a 50-60 yard shot and the buck was standing broadside. He shot it low through both shoulders which took out the heart. The buck dropped at the shot. The boolit was recovered just under the offside hide. He showed me the boolit. It had expanded (pretty much as you described the Lee 405) to about the size of a quarter. There were a few nicks and creases where it had smashed through bone and the Hornady GC was still firmly seated to the base of the boolit.

I have gotten pretty much the same results casting the 311041HP out of magnum shot (lead plus 3-5% antimony with no tin) and dropping the boolit out of the mould into cold water. I seat the Hornady GC and lube them with Javelina in a .310” sizer. This hardens them enough that I can push them to 2000 fps out of my 30-30, .308 or 30-06 with good hunting accuracy of 3 MOA. The boolits expand in deer instead of shatter or punch right through. Though expansion is not as good as with the PP’d 1-16 alloy bullet it is still good. I also have found some of the boolit will crack and slough off during expansion.

In my 45-70 Siamese Mauser I am looking at trying the Lee 405HB cast of 1-16 alloy and sized down to .452”, then PP’d back to .460”. I can push it to 2,000 fps with no problem in the bolt gun. It will be overkill for deer but should do fine on elk. I may try the same thing only with pure lead and at 1400 fps for use in my H&R Officers Mdl trapdoor. THAT should be deadly on deer for sure. However, if the group buy on the Lee 400 gr HP with GC comes through it may all be a moot point. I know I can get 1400 fps with good accuracy out of a 1-16 alloy in the Officers model so that boolit should work extremely well there. I should be able to push the 400 gr GC’d boolit cast of magnum shot to 1900-2000 fps also in the bolt gun. It will be interesting to see how fast I can push it with a 1-16 alloy in the bolt gun too. If so then I don’t see much advantage to the additional work of PPing.

Or it all could be the Sun is getting to me and I’m really starting to hallucinate over here!

Larry Gibson

[JDL]

canuck4570,
As Bass has mentioned, I have taken 3 elk with a .45-70 using a pure lead 510 grain paper patched boolit at a velocity of 1650 fps. 2 were between 40 and 60 yards away, broadside and I have both boolits, as neither penetrated the hide on the off-side ribs. They only took a few steps before going down and there was a huge blood trail with only the one hole.

The 3rd one was about 125 yards and I shot a little high, breaking the spine and putting him down in his tracks. This boolit wasn't recovered as it didn't have to penetrate as far, or maybe because the velocity wasn't as high.

I noticed in your post that the recoil was becoming bothersome and you was considering lowering your velocity. Here's what I did when I discovered the same thing. I bought a RCBS 45-300-FN which, with it's nice flat nose, weighs 322 grains in my W/W alloy and found an accurate load that travels at 1850 fps.

In expansion/penetration tests, I have found this load penetrates slightly deeper, expands about the same (around 1"), and produces less recoil. Hey, what more could you ask for :-). This will be the load I use for elk and will probably be utilized for deer also, although a lighter 306 grain paper patched works very well indeed on deer.

I found that Lyman 457193 (W/W)@ 1455 fps penetrates 19% deeper than the RCBS 45-300 FN and expands to .875", but then again, the recoil is greater. Guess I'm just getting to be a wuss in my old age :-). -JDL

[drinks]

Larry;
I have the Lee 457-405-F, I turn a rabbet on the base and put on a gas check.
I use ww's + 1% Tin and 1 oz of chilled shot per 7-8 lbs of alloy, with aircooled and plenty of lube, I have gotten 1500fps , BHN 11-12, with water dropped, BHN 18-19, 2000 fps is easy , is a bit rough on the shoulder, no leading with either way.
Get 2 + " at 100yds, about as good as I can do, not the gun.
Don