Hardness for hunting rounds in a rifle?

[mac266]

I've been casting for a decade, but all of my experience is with pistol boolits. I'm just now beginning to expand my operation into rifles. In fact, I just bought (and am still waiting for) a mould for my .270 from a guy in this very forum!

In any event, I always thought it was necessary to have much harder lead for rifle boolits than for pistols. With pistols I'm just using wheel weight lead, but got online to order some linotype from Midway USA to make my first batch of rifle boolits. BUT, the item description clearly said it was "too hard for hunting" because it would "shatter upon bone contact."

That doesn't sound right to me. I will be developing my .270 load for hunting deer and antelope. What do you guys think? Is linotype actually too hard for hunting or can I get away with wheel weight lead? Another alloy?

[Pilgrim]

Linotype is reportedly likely to shatter when hitting anything hard, including bone. It is also too expensive by itself to use for boolits. You don't need anywhere near as much tin and antimony for good rifle boolits as is included in linotype, or any of the other type metals as far as that goes. The hardness you need depends upon a bunch of variables. Boolit fit being one of the most important. You don't indicate what velocity range (s) you are interested in and that also has a great deal to do with the hardness needed. If velocities greater than ~ 1400 fps are desired, you are most certainly going to need a gas checked boolit. Don't get sucked into the BHN × 1420 to indicate the hardness needed. It doesn't always work as intended. For example, my .358 Win. Is using a BHN boolit of about 14 - 15, weighing 213 gr as loaded. I get 2430 fps (instrument velocity) with this boolit and that requires pressures at or very near the 50,000 psi range, and that is WAY beyond what the formula would indicate is achievable with that boolit. There is a ton of information available in the stickies. Your question indicates to me that you haven't gotten up to speed on the info available on this site. Please, research and read A BUNCH of them before you spend more money than is needed, or get results that disappoint you. It isn't that hard to get excellent results as long as you follow a few rules and those are all spelled out in the stickies. FWIW...Pilgrim

[grouch]

Linotype will shatter on game at high velocities. My 30 40 Krag using Lee 150gr flat nose at 2200-2300fps would shatter explosively on snowshoe rabbits. At lower velocities, it's more like full metal jacket bullets.
I've only had decent expansion using lead-tin alloys like 18:1 or 20:1. Wheel weight alloy was too hard. If you can achieve the higher velocities it might work(many here claim success with it), but I've never put in the time to do it.
Grouch

[Larry Gibson]

Check out several of the alloys described in the Hunting forum. Those will be just as effective in the .270. Linotype will indeed shatter on bone, have had it do so. There is more to "hardness" with cast bullets than just BHN. BHN is only half of the story; the other half is malleability of the alloy. You can have 2 alloys with the same BHN; one that is brittle and will shatter and the other that is malleable and will expand. You want the latter.

Larry Gibson

[303Guy]

Have a look in "Lead and lead alloy's". You might some answers there too.

[Digital Dan]

Pilgrim, the formula you referred to ( BHN × 1420 ) isn't intended to tell you what hardness you need or what velocity you can achieve. It tells you what the pressure threshold for obturation is for a given hardness. Bullet obturation is not a speed or pressure limit.

[Pilgrim]

Digital Dan - Yup. You said it better than I.

[ButterNutZ]

35 remington at 2050fps I use 50/50 COWW/SOWW. Works great on deer inside 150 yards. Bullet turns in to a very nice mushroom. Also use same allow in 45-70 right around 1700fps.
Here is a picture of a 45-70 slug

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s70/JeePing03/IMG_1290.jpg (http://s149.photobucket.com/user/JeePing03/media/IMG_1290.jpg.html)URL]

[DeadWoodDan]

ButterNutz sure like the looks of that there boolit, wish i could have found my first boolit kill, but it exited that poor rabbit.

[cbrick]

mac266,

Yikes!

Lino from Midway at $26.49.

Lino from Roto Metals, a sponsor of this forum at $16.45.

Next, NO you do not need lino for rifle boolits. I shoot all of my rifles with air cooled clip-on WW +2% tin (under 2000 fps). Good accuracy and no leading.

The difference between cast in handguns and cast in rifles is that in handguns you need to make the boolit fit the handgun properly. In rifles you need to make the boolit fit the rifle properly. There is no need what so ever to shoot diamonds. Too hard can and will cause it's own problems.

As Larry said, two distinctly different alloys can have exactly the same BHN, one of them hard & brittle and the other malleable. With a 270 caliber in a hunting boolit you WANT malleable.

Rick