Cast Performance bullets

[WT101]

Hey guys, new to the forum, and new to reloading as well. Don't feel that I'm quite experienced enough to cast my own boolits yet, but I would like to start loading some hard cast boolits in my .44 Mag. I recently moved to Mobile, AL, and am looking to get into some hog hunting down here. I was considering building a load around the Cast Performance 275 gr. .44 mag boolit. My concern is whether the projectile may be too hard to obturate and that I may have problems with leading. Does anybody have any experience with this particular boolit, or any of Cast Performance's products?

[454PB]

Welcome to the forum!

I can't give you a specific answer about CP boolits, but I would point out that as long as they are .001" to .002" larger than your bore, they don't have to obturate. I'd suggest you slug the bore and the cylinder throats before ordering ANY commercial cast boolit.

[JIMinPHX]

Welcome aboard,

Hard cast pistol boolits really don't open up much when they hit soft tissue. Large diameter wadcutters really don't need to open up though. They cut a pretty good blood letting channel just the way that they are. If you hit the vitals with a cast .44, that critter is going down.

If the boolits that you are using are on the hard side, then you may notice that heavier powder loads will lead less than the lite ones do. Boolit fit in the barrel is more important than hardness is though (see advice in post above). Please do not construe the above statement to suggest that you should ever go over book published maximum powder charges though. That's on the capitol list of no-nos. Please don't do that.

My best advice is for you to get a good reloading manual & read the whole thing well before loading your first round. Follow the directions carefully & work up your loads slowly, starting from the bottom. Speer & Lee were the two manuals that I started with & they served me well. There are also other good ones out there.

Regards,
Jim

[Bret4207]

Welcome to the forum. First off, except for specialized applications, "hard cast" boolits are nothing more than advertising hype. They commercial guys tend to make them "hard" to minimize shipping damage and because the average Joe off the street is impressed when he can't leave a mark on it with his thumb nail! Lead is completely different than jacketed and harder isn't always better. In a 44 mag straight WW or quenched WW will do just about what ever you need to do. Only when you get into hyper speeds and other specialized applications do you find the higher Bhn alloys becoming necessary. Not that the "harder" alloys don't owrk okay, it's just that that expensive alloy could be better used in other applications. WW will obturate and expand a bit while retaining it's ductile nature.


If you want a sure recipe for disaster use a very hard alloy boolilt that's a little undersize and load it hot. Better get some Chore Boy or steel wool to remove the leading!

Hunt up some wheel weights, find a mould design you like and start casting. It's easy.

[dubber123]

Unless they have changed, the CP boolits are quite hard. I shot alot of them in my .475, and .45 Colt before I started casting. They are generally pretty nicely cast, (but pretty easy to beat for a decent caster).

Expect some of the very hard lube to be flaked off and be laying in the bottom of the box after shipping. They aren't cheap either. Get yourself a mould! Have fun.

[cajun shooter]

Welcome to the forum. I go to Mobile all the time as thats where my dear mother lives. On the west side of the Bay are plenty of good gun stores. One up on Airport carries all the reloading stuff. On the East side there is a gun store and indoor range. And Like Baton Rouge has bumper to bumper traffic!! If you need any help this forum is packed with casters that have thousands of years of knowledge. They have ones that also sell alot of the items that you will need. And a few that can do magic with the lathe. Buy a copy of the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook as it will answer many questions for you now and even later when you become an old hand. Later

[44man]

Bret, not so with Cast Performance boolits. Or Beartooth, etc. I used a lot of them over the years before I made my own molds.
CP boolits are around 17 BHN and work perfect on game along with being very accurate.
However, you will be hard pressed to find them expanding on game. For one thing you don't need them to expand.
They are softer then my water dropped WW boolits at 20-22 BHN.
I have a pile of test boolits here of all kinds shot into soaked phone books and paper, also some shot through 16" of seasoned firewood. The .475 boolits went through 40" of wet paper. .44 boolits made 36".
Not a one has nose damage of any kind, even the mold parting line is still there like they were just cast. Edges on the noses are still sharp.
Wound channels are very large and the boolits run a straight path without turning.
Unless you hit a big bone with air cooled WW boolits, I would not say they expand at all. Even water dropped, half WW and pure lead boolits don't show much distortion unless bone is hit.
With reputable boolit makers, "hard cast" is a lot softer then you think. They DO get dinged a little in shipping but it does no harm.
Unlike the cheaper boolit makers or those like Laser Cast that shoot for crap, you can put your faith in those boolit makers that understand hunting.

[44man]

Dubber, you know I like soft Felix and that it gives me better accuracy then LBT Blue by a small margin. I just went through all the boxes of CP boolits I have left and they all have LBT Blue on them and there isn't any in the bottom of the boxes. Every boolit has full grease grooves. They look good to go to me!

[Bret4207]

44 man, maybe these are different than the ones I've seen. The last ones I saw were nothing great as far as quality and were linotype hard. If they've changed, that's great, but then they aren't really "hardcast" are they? Advertising hype.

Get a mould, cast your own!!!!

[dubber123]

44 man, maybe these are different than the ones I've seen. The last ones I saw were nothing great as far as quality and were linotype hard. If they've changed, that's great, but then they aren't really "hardcast" are they? Advertising hype.

Get a mould, cast your own!!!!

That was always my take too Bret, nothing great. I ALWAYS had quite a bit of the very hard lube missing out of the lube grooves. Maybe they have changed.

Just because it says "LBT series" on the box, doesn't mean that they came from LBT moulds, or that they use LBT lube. I have a handwritten letter from Veral that says otherwise. Good but not great, unless things have changed.

[Bret4207]

As long as shooters find "hardcast" sexy we'll be teaching the noobs the truth!

[44man]

They might have changed. My boolits have been around a long time. I bought them long ago.