Hard drive soft nose

[bandmiller2]

I was reading over on Paco Kelley's site about casting hard then setting the slugs in water to the top of the drive bands and using a torch to soften the nose. I want to give credit where its due. Is this a good procedure for hunting boolets or is there a better way. Frank C.

[runfiverun]

it works pretty well except the lead just returns to it's original hardness after a week or so.
what you want to do is water drop the softened alloy to increase the hardness, then soften the nose.
this then gives you the water manipulated base and the soft alloy's bhn on the de-tempered nose.
it takes a bit of practice to see what you are looking for when you do this.

you can also use a dipper to put in a soft nose and let it set-up for a second then add a harder base.
then re-melt the whole thing in the mold and let it re-set back up, this give you a two part boolit that is actually melded together as one.
it may get a frosty appearance but this hurts nothing.

[Messy bear]

i have used the dipper method to make them with very good success in 45 colt and 454. recovered bullets expanded nicely and held together with a either pure nose or 1-20 alloy. a bit tricky to pour though. heat is your friend.

[dbosman]

From my reading of posts from hunters, a bigger diameter gun will help more. ;)
A lot of folks here will tell you hard boolits aren't necessarily good boolits.
Before doing extra work, do you have examples of your shot projectiles?
They might be expanding more than you think
or more than you need,
or just fine.

[MT Gianni]

Air cooled ww are easily pushed to 2200-2300fps. i am not sure of the needed hard base, it depends on bore size, IMO.

[sixshot]

Softnose cast slugs are wonderful if made correctly, I can tell you that 2 moose & one bison hate them, plus a couple of deer. I get the mould hot & then casting quickly add my small of amount of pure lead & quickly top it off with WW alloy & then water quench, the nose stays pure lead & we've had complete penetration on every animal with great wound channels, my bull moose took 4-5 itty bitty steps & fell on his nose, moose usually just walk a short distance from solid hits. If you are shooting slower speeds the water quench isn't necessary unless the accuracy falls off, & it usually won't.

Dick

[youngda9]

Decent sized meplat and not to hard of an alloy(WDWW) works just fine at rifle velocities. No extra futzing around needed to make or test the boolits on live animals(I hate to see suffering shot up animals in the woods). It's proven and it works regardless. The rest has more variables.

[Larry Gibson]

I also prefer to just cast soft. For rifles of .30+ I use COWWs + 2%tin and then mix 50/50 with pure lead. I let the bullets AC 7-10 days before doing anything to them. I get 2 - 2.5 moa out of most cartridges at 2000 - 2200+ fps. I do clean the barrel every 7 - 8 or so shots to maintain best accuracy. If not then the groups open to 3.5 - 4+ moa as the barrel fouls a bit. Keeping the barrel clean is fine with me as not that many shots are taken hunting. I also slightly HP the .30 - .35 cals to 1/8 - 3/16" deep with the 1/8" Forster HP tool if the mould is not a HP to begin with. If an HP mould I modify the stem to give a similar HP. Most of the cast bullets I use have a retained velocity of around 1500 fps at 200 yards so accuracy and expansion are reliable to that distance which is my own self imposed max range with such cast bullet loads. Since 90+ % of all big game are shot within that distance I do not feel under gunned with cast bullets. If hunting where longer range shots can be expected (no, you can always "hunt" closer, especially on public land) I use jacketed bullets at full potential for the cartridge, usually an '06.

Larry Gibson

[jhalcott]

Depending on how PRETTY you like your bullets, the Reheating to melt the joint line is not necessary! Also a LOONG shot may not be as accurate IF the joint is nasty looking. The beauty of "soft" nose cast is they shoot the same as "regular" cast bullets from the same mold!

[Brett Ross]

I used Bruce Bs method for my M95 styer to take a deer this last winter.