Not quite cast... four recovered bullets from this year

[PWS]

Thanks to primarily to the inspiration of CaneMan's die making and Aneat's press making threads in the swaging forum, I've been dabbling in home swaged bullets. These are .223 range scrap jackets with a 185gr cast core for a final weight of 265grains fired in a .35Whelen at 2500fps. No trouble to get sub 2moa and put about 400 downrange this summer out to as far as 600 yards so figured why not take them hunting?

First two bullets have cores made from soww so they're pretty soft. Both were recovered from 25yard follow up shots from the offside of a decent brown bear (800lbs?), one shot high across the hips in the fat, the other through the guts (little slow in the swing!) First shot on the bear with a .375Ruger was good but it whirled and ran so I ripped off a few more. Ended up putting an insurance shot in the neck at PBR but didn't dig out that slug. From the reaction, it looked like it made it through the vertebra but doubt it went any further.

Third bullet has a coww core so it's harder. It went through the scapula of a blacktail, down through the spine and recovered under the hide on the offside. Deer was about 125 yards steeply below, broadside, and was dumped on the shot. Bit of bone stuck in the lead.

Fourth is same as third except it hit another blacktail at 200yards the top left front of the abdomen, traveled down through the backstrap, pelvis and was recovered under the skin at the rear of the ham. Deer was again below me but almost face on quartering left. Impact was slightly high and right of aimpoint - it was a bit windy and I probably should have held a little lower.

I shot a third blacktail across the chest at 125yards with the same bullets as three and four, broke the onside humorous, fragged the lungs and grooved the heart to exit the offside triceps. 4" hole on the exit with evidence of core fragmentation but didn't recover the bullet. Deer stumbled about 50 yards downhill and was dead by the time I got to it.

[PWS]

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[PWS]

Recovered weights are all within 180-190 grains. I'm liking the softer cored bullets better and plan on messing with core bonding. At Whelen speeds, they should work even better. Bullet strength is plenty to overpower our little deer but they could stand to be a little more robust for the bigger fuzzywuzzies around here.

[Huntsman]

Wow, pretty neat. I like seeing pics of recovered bullets.

[BT Sniper]

Nicely done! More pics if you have any! Would love to see the animals too. Even a pic of the bullet next to the recovered specimen to get a before and after look, or even the loaded round!

In my opinion you got very good results. I made some 265 grain .375 bullets from 223rem brass shot from a 375H&H a couple years back, wanted to try them out on elk but didn't get the opportunity. I used an even harder alloy core (don't recommend it!) and did shoot them into wet newspaper. From what I have experienced the harder alloy lead core will "break" off during expansion rather then "flow" and hold together like that of the softer core. My recovered weights where around 120 grains at 2675 fps.

Pics of the 265 grain .375 bullet made from scrap 223 brass, probably a bit of a fragile bullet for elk (or maybe not!), when shot in wet newspaper it retained 120 grains but it penetrated nearly 3 feet!
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BTSniper/3b236d7d-d336-4e87-8315-2c7a657b3af6_zpsc8ada39d.jpg (http://s636.photobucket.com/user/BTSniper/media/3b236d7d-d336-4e87-8315-2c7a657b3af6_zpsc8ada39d.jpg.html)


265 grains @ 100 yrds @ 2675 FPS
Good enough to stop an elk. Accurate enough out to 300 yrds.
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/BTSniper/ddd51741-6592-4b12-ba14-be8fcb214538_zpsbe2d5162.jpg (http://s636.photobucket.com/user/BTSniper/media/ddd51741-6592-4b12-ba14-be8fcb214538_zpsbe2d5162.jpg.html)


Great job on the successful hunting year. Always love to hear about success hunters have with bullets they made themselves.

Good hunting and swage on!

Brian

[BT Sniper]

Found your pics of the 35 cal bullets. Nice job! Look very similar to the one I made. You might experiment with a canalure groove to lock the core in place but looking at your recovered bullets pics I'm not sure you need one.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?271036-Random-thoughts-and-observations-while-home-shop-die-making/page2

Grab the photo from the above thread and post it here.

BT

[44man]

I do not recover any at all. Need a metal detector on the moon. I just do not like to find boolits.

[elk hunter]

Brown Bear with a home made jacketed bullet, Bravo! Not sure I would have tried that one.

I've had pressure problems using the 223 based 375 bullets so I haven't tried them on game. I did shoot a spike elk a few years ago with my 416 Rigby using a home swaged bullet made from a 30-30 case. One shot, head on, just off center of the chest. That was the worst bloodshot mess I've ever seen but, it did kill the elk. Didn't recover the bullet it had to be somewhere in the guts.

Taking game with home made bullets is challenging and interesting, keep up the good work.

[Smoke4320]

Looks like you are really one to something .. congrads on the bear as well

[runfiverun]

I recovered a home swaged bullet from a deer this year too.
the nephew was using the wifes 30-06 and one of my 152gr soft points, he got a good shot on 2 does and I recovered one of the bullets.
it hit high shoulder and traversed the spine and off side shoulder punching through about 7-8" of solid bone before stopping under the skin on the off side.
the second shot was a solid neck-spine shot that dropped the deer so fast that the three of us watching never seen it drop.
the M/V was a scoch over 2650 fps and at 50yds that bullet just disappeared in there somewhere and wasn't gonna look that hard for it.
I wish I could get a slightly thicker jacket but it is what it is so i'll work on the core and nose some to get a little better penetration.

[PWS]

I wouldn't recommend poking a bear with unproven projectiles but I was on backup and the guy with the tag was toting a .375Ruger and 300gr Hornady DGX factory loads. He's a competitive trap shooter and also shoots an incredible number of pheasants every year. Had no trouble hitting a stationary bear at close range but his angle was wrong for a quick follow up shot.

I was surprised just how well the bullets held up and doubly surprised that the cores and jackets remained together. Both soft and hard cores made some pretty good diameter permanent cavities, around 2", for most of the penetration. I would say that despite the destructiveness, they're overmatched for deer and nothing more needs to be done (other than don't aim for the shoulder if you want to eat any of it!) but would be VERY careful about plinking a bruin. A shot in the lungs should be devastating but a bear's shoulder is a bit more robust than a deer's and they're certainly not good enough up the rump on a follow up.

I'm annealing the cases in a LEE pot, stack the fresh trimmed jackets in the pot, cover with aluminum foil, turn to "10" and leave for an hour. They're plenty soft to draw to .356" afterwards. Core seat bumps them to .357" and PF up to .358" so they get a little work hardened. My PF die isn't the smoothest so the noses are a bit speckled from extra lube and from where the jacket material crumples upon itself. Perhaps a post swage annealing would promote less jacket fragmenting?

For the bonded cores, I was going to try super clean cores and jackets, a very light smear of soldering flux and running the seated cores through the LEE pot just long and hot enough to melt the core. Not sure what that'll do but would guess (and hope) the core will bond and the whole bullet will be more malleable. Might mean even more initial destruction but hopefully more weight retention and a bit more penetration. Might also try heating the finished bullets. Lots of options to play with...

I've run up to 320 grains so that's another option to try, especially since they top out at 2275fps.

Anyway, while there's certainly room for improving these projectiles, they worked a lot better than expected particularly in the holding together aspect.

Trajectory ain't worth a hoot but that's a whole 'nuther issue...

[runfiverun]

annealing softens the jacket.
when I make varmint bullets I set the completed round in a hole and anneal the nose with the torch then make sure the tip has an exposed portion of lead there.
this usually means I have to tap a piece of #5 shot in there to make sure it's full, the lead and softer jacket insure that the bullet upsets quickly and we get some spectacular blow-ups on p-dogs and ground squirrels.

for the big game I anneal only to draw the case and then leave it for the rest of the processes.
a too soft jacket can cause point form trouble, and of course adds to the expansion.
I need to drop my core weight about 3 grains so the core is just a hair below the jackets tip then add the canellure to help lock things together better.

you need to be wary of some fluxes they can promote rust in your forming dies, and the lube thing leaving creases and such tells me you need to use a little less or thin down your lube.
you might also want to add a cleaning step to your process [I like the stainless pins to get everything sparkling before core seating then again after point forming]
I clean the lube off first then run through the tumbler.
I also de-grease my cores and let them oxidize.