Cast Partition Bullet

[Good Cheer]

About thirty plus years ago there was a letter in the American Rifleman from a hunter that positioned a small strip of aluminum foil between the blocks to make an unbonded mid section in his 38-55 bullets to assure acceptable hunting performance.
That's the only time I recall ever seeing the technique mentioned.
Any yall ever seen it done?

[jabo52521]

No. But thanks for the idea. Will try it this evening. Keep you posted.

[Djones]

I have read of members here doing it. I have no personal experience with the said method.

[Wolfer]

I haven't tried it but there was a write up in handloader a few years ago. If I recall it was by
John Haviland.

He was just splitting the nose with the foil. Him and his son had pretty good luck with them.

[jabo52521]

Finished casting some 310 gr Lee in 44 cal with the aluminum strip. Look good will shoot them later in the week. Picture to follow.124464

[leadman]

I tried casting some of these about 10 years ago and gave it up. The foil would sometimes break when pouring. Never did load and shoot any though.
I did cast some "softpoint" boolits like Bruce B. and did test these for accuracy and expansion. Accuracy was the same a one alloy boolits, expansion was good with most of the softpoint shearing off.

[GooseGestapo]

I've tried it. I was rather tedious and due to time it takes to position the strips, my molds got cold and cast poor boolits.
I now just use an automatic punch to index the nose and drill hollow points on the boolits I intend to hunt with.
It's a good idea, but didn't work out for me in the "details"....

[jwhite]

I took a nice eight point buck using a 348 Winchester with a tin foil split nose this fall it worked like a champ. The boolit is a 220gr LBT, I have used the same bullet soft pointed as well and the split nose had a more violent expansion. 124586124587

[jwhite]

I found it is far quicker to make the split nose boolit than the softpointed style, the success rate for good bullets was better with the tinfoil as well

[trapper9260]

Dose any one have a link or how to do for those of us like to try it/

[white eagle]

cut strips the width you want them
cut a bit longer than you blocks so you don't burn fingers
place in mold close and pour alloy
that's the way I would do it

[Geppetto]

So do you end up Beagling the mold basically with the foil strip and increase the diameter of the bullet slightly?

[white eagle]

sounds like it would for sure
Geppetto I am from Madison

[Geppetto]

White Eagle,

Always good to see Wisconsonites on the forum.

I also figure it should bump up the diameter a bit. I may try this with a lee 458-405-RF that is a bit skinny for my Marlin MG barrel. Don't really need expansion, but a better boolit fit would be nice.

[MT Gianni]

There was an letter in the American Hunter in 67, IIRC Sept. They still published letters from people with data then. He used check tear off blanks, I interpreted this as the part left behind from a commercial checkbook. Said he got the same accuracy but too make sure that no one was standing in front of the bbl of as much as 10 feet to either side as they occasionally came apart when exiting the bbl. I declined to try this and feel a good meplate on a 7mm bullet to be a reliable deer killer. They do not act as a partition but an explosive HP with the nose coming apart and going different directions and the base continuing hopefully without curving.

[Firebricker]

I think if you were trying to get partition performance Bruce Bs soft point method would be as close as you could get. Not saying the foil will not work but it is dividing the boolit nose opposite of a partition and just does not seem like it would be 100% reliable. FB

[white eagle]

better option is a hp

[44man]

No need for anything in the .44 with the 310 gr. I don't want a boolit that can come apart. A soft nose works best. Just half the nose length is all too.

[jhalcott]

You CAN use thin aluminum foil OR plain old paper strips. The paper is about .003 thick, Aluminum foil is a bit thinner. I cut strips to the width I wanted to split the nose of the bullet. Using welders gloves, I'd position the strip across the open mold. Carefully close the mold and pour in the alloy. After dropping the bullets the excess foil/paper can be trimmed with a sharp knife. Since I lubrisize my bullets, any extra diameter is taken care of then.
I normally only split to above the first driving band. Care must be taken to get the split even or one side may be a bit heavier causing steering problems! I have used some rather soft alloys to make these. I was Teflon taping them instead of lubrisizing and decided to gas check and lubsize a few to see the results. I shot a big doe on a crop raider permit. She was about 75 yards when shot. ONE entrance wound and 3 exits! Apparently the nose broke off and the "wings" went thru the deer as well as the base! I have tried this "split" bullet in .30, 44, and 45 caliber guns. Bruce B's method works as well as split bullets. BUT< I am lazy and just drop in the soft nose alloy , then fill the mold with the harder base alloy with out the remelt that Bruce does. MY boolits may not be as PRETTY as his, but they work quite well for this old guy!

[MT Chambers]

How do those bullets chamber with all that tin foil on them?

[MT Gianni]

How do those bullets chamber with all that tin foil on them?
The foil is laid across the mold then the allow poured. The nose comes out even as the foil is trimmed even to the nose of the bullet.

[jabo52521]

How do those bullets chamber with all that tin foil on them?
Bullets chambered fine in the SBH and RH. No shearing. Fired them through a 2 by 4.

[StrawHat]

I played with this idea decades ago, maybe after reading about them in AR all though they seemed to get a lot of press about that time. For me, the results were not as good as I had hoped. I liked the Partition Bullet from Nosler and found that a soft nose cast bullet did a better job of emulating it. A bit harder to cast? Maybe, but with a small bore, the results were worth it. In calibers above 37, a good meplat is all you need.

[GoodOlBoy]

I know I am shooting into the wind here, but has anybody ever tried this with LEAD foil (nowadays hard to come by) instead of aluminum foil? I am assuming one of our enterprising folks would have a way to make lead foil, and basically all you would be doing (assuming it didn't just melt when hot lead was poured in on it) is leaving a soft lead divider in the nose of your alloy bullet.

Another idea I had was to have a separate mold to cast lead nose "cores" that you would then insert into the mold and pour on top of.... Again might work, might not. Just dawned on me you might even be able to cut lead wire (not hard to get a mold for from jewelry molds) and then cut the "core" with snips.

Just a thought.

GoodOlBoy

[jhalcott]

Lead "foil" is a LOT thicker than paper, usually .004 to ?. We used some in the steel mill as Safety seals on steam turbines and other areas. Aluminum foil can be found That is under .001" thick. It's used in special works. I found that a measured amount of soft alloy in the nose, then a harder alloy for the base worked very well in many instances. I decided to use it on some "pointy" molds . The flat nose designs work quite well as cast. The pointy ones NEEDED some help at long range. That is 200 yards and longer, IF the accuracy was there. The soft nose would collapse and then the bullet acts like a Flat nose! Bullets like the 185 grain 311334 and 200 grain 301620 are examples. Loaded to over 2400FPS they are great for 200 yard deer. The 311467 with a soft head/#2 body is another, but doesn't have the high weight of the others.

[Geezer in NH]

better option is a hp

Bingo

[Lloyd Smale]

yup I have to agree. With this method casting is slow and part of the nose is going to break off so your loosing bullet mass that helps penetration. Hp casting is defineately faster. especially with a 4 cav hp mold but your still loosing retained weight. If a two part soft nosed bullet is casted properly it expands as well as a hp and retains more weight. Now that is using the train of thought that you even need expansion. I find it helpful in the .358 sized rifle and handgun bullets and smaller but anything larger like a 41 or larger really doesn't need expansion to kill well.
No need for anything in the .44 with the 310 gr. I don't want a boolit that can come apart. A soft nose works best. Just half the nose length is all too.

[Three44s]

A soft nose poured boolit would be superior and more to the true form of a partition.

The foil technique would cause a boolit that once fractured would not drive straight ahead but be much more likely to veer off path.

The most reliable of all is a good big metplat .......... works everytime, everywhere.

Happy New Year!

Three 44s

[Bignutt]

I've never cast hp or soft noses before but reading up on this makes me wonder, could you put a piece of soft lead wire in place of the pins for the hp mold and cast around that? Like I said never used a hollow point mold so maybe it's not possible, seems like it might work?

[NavyVet1959]

Well, as long as you're thinking outside the box, how about filling your mold with steel BBs and then pouring the lead on top of it? Would it fragment something like a Glazer when it hit something?

Or maybe just result in a light-for-volume bullet...

[Geezer in NH]

Trying to fix what is not broke IMHO. Theorists at best

[StrawHat]

Might be theory but a soft point boolit is pretty good theory. I have gotten away from them but when I shot a small bore for hunting, it was a good boolit. Now, it is easier to shoot something starting with .4 and let the meplat handle the situation.

[NavyVet1959]

Trying to fix what is not broke IMHO. Theorists at best

There are people who get into this hobby solely for the purpose of duplicating previously published load data and shooting them. There are others who like to experiment.

I have tried .50BMG and 20mm powders in a handgun. You can probably guess what group I am in. ;)