Digging through the lead trap...

[newton]

Digging through the lead trap the other day, the front of it is completely demolished so I needed to empty it and put new front on. I'll post more pictures later.

But something caught my eye.

http://i1057.photobucket.com/albums/t395/nathanhooper1/17AFE421-4393-4804-BB05-4A254FCDEC31-6158-00000A08C2E7DDAA_zpsca178a23.jpg

http://i1057.photobucket.com/albums/t395/nathanhooper1/F70AD8AA-5783-4CD6-9A25-1DEDD7CF7A5E-6158-00000A08B700F80B_zps92f66f00.jpg

I saw the brown bottom and realized that I had used these wads only on a couple different boolits. One is some boolits sent to me by a fellow member, and the others were the Lee 500 grain 50-70 boolit.

I weighed it to determine and sure enough it was the ones sent to me. 584 grains was what the boolit weighed. I believe that it started off at 588 or so. I am not sure if I ever wrote it down. However, I know that the only load I shot behind these was 70 grains of pyro RS.

It is amazing, I found other boolits I will post, but the way this boolit expanded is very nice. I remember shooting them and thinking - "this would hurt something if it got hit by it". It produced a very loud whack when I was shooting them. I highly doubt that this boolit got over 1250 fps. I cant wait to find the Lee boolits I shot. They were also only shot with 70 grains behind them.

All I know is that these were some accurate boolits. Makes me want to go out and shoot some more.

[StrawHat]

Nice expansion, nearly double the original diameter. Any idea why the wad stuck to the base?

[newton]

Nice expansion, nearly double the original diameter. Any idea why the wad ctuck to the base?

Yea, I would call it extreme expansion for such a slow moving object. I took a picture of it and a .50 cal ball recovered from a deer. I know its not the same as the boolit and the sand trap. I believe the load used for the round ball was 60 grains.

I also wondered about the wad. In fact, it is what caught my eye and made me start looking at the boolit harder. I have shot metal patched bullets in a sabot that expanded kind of like this, but not as much and they were moving a lot faster.

My best guess is that I lubed these with straight LLA only. Although it was dry at the time, the base of the boolit was slightly concave and maybe the powder charge melted the LLA and then formed a suction, which inturn dried as soon as it left the barrel and stayed intact the whole way. It came off while I was washing the dirt/sand off. It was stuck good.

http://i1057.photobucket.com/albums/t395/nathanhooper1/FAD00114-0D9B-4FF2-8F10-B932011CF3FF-6158-00000A5EBCB2C3AD_zps6ab46f5b.jpg

[koehlerrk]

Pure lead doesn't need much veocity to expand when it hits something...

[StrawHat]

I shoot a Trapdoor in 50-70 and have found it to be very accurate. Many shooters find the 50-70 to be an easier cartridge to get accuracy from than smaller calibers.

[Mike.44]

Ah, expansion!!! That is a beautiful sight.......kinda brings a tear to my eye.

[TheGrimReaper]

Ah, expansion!!! That is a beautiful sight.......kinda brings a tear to my eye.
Same here!!! I get more excited seeing pics of expanded boolits than anything.

[Omnivore]

Expansion depends as much on the target it hits as on anything else. What did it hit? That recovered round ball looks almost perfectly intact, which has been my experience in recovering hunting balls also. In other words, even pure lead at these velocities probably won't expand significantly in tissue.

[newton]

Yea, I'm going to do some more testing. But man that boolit still weighed 580+ grains, it would have gone lengthwise through several deer.