Wheel weights and deer/elk?

[pharmpoke]

I need opinions on the best bullet alloy to cast for hunting mule deer/elk. I shoot a super blackhawk hunter in 44mag. Have ordered RCBS 250gr SWC (not gas checked)and .431 sizer having slugged the barrel at .430. I anticipate 1200-1400fps velocity. I have wheel weights, some pure lead, and some linotype to work with. Give me your best recommendation for a cast hunting bullet. My original thought is to water quench the wheel weights and they should be just the ticket. Is water quenching necessary? Any with real life experience with cast bullets and big game hunting? Thanks

[MT Gianni]

Hit them in the lungs with ww and make real sure there is nothing behind them unless you have more tags. No need to quench or waste lino.

[waksupi]

I used air cooled WW's for quite a few years on deer and antelope. Worked fine. And in rifles, I have used ww's, air and quenched, and pure lead, depending on the application. All worked well. Just put them where they are supposed to go, in a heavy weight, and the critter will die. You have that covered. If anything heavier than a 250 was ever needed in a .44, Uncle Elmer would have been using them.
As Gianni says, make sure nothing is behind the animal you shoot. Expect full penetration and a good wound channel with the boolit you have selected.

[WHITETAIL]

Air cooled WW are all you will need for your 44.:Fire:

[Boerrancher]

You will be fine with AC WW. After you play with that alloy for a bit, you may even decide to soften it up some by adding some pure. I love a 50/50 blend of WW and pure for hunting. Out of a 44 mag, if your cylinder throats are all good and you have the proper sized boolit for the bore, 1400 fps should be no issue with a 50/50 blend. For now stick with the AC WW and you won't be wrong.

Best wishes from the Boer Ranch,

Joe

[chaos]

I use Water dropped wheel weights sized to .430 out of all my Blackhawks. Only reason I water drop them is that it's easier to me to just drop them out into a bucket of water and dont have to worry about them rolling around or banging together on a towel.

I use a kieth mould as well as a SWC. Both kill hogs as dead as can be. I did take a Whitetail buck this year with that kieth bullet( first deer I have shot in about 10 years) . Bullets weigh 255 and 253 respectively. I cant see why anyone would want a heavier bullet. Last hogs I took were under a feeder. The kieth bullet penetrated through the first hogs head, through the rump of another hog behind him and dented the hell out of my feeder leg.

[Blammer]

based on my one deer I've take with a 44 mag and my 250gr plain base, Air Cooled WW's traveling at 1350 fps.

that is all you'd need. :)

complete diagonal penetration of the deer from left shoulder to right ham. :)

[Thumbcocker]

The above posts have it covered. I would just add that you can't expect a big critter to drop in it's tracks unless you hit brain or spine. Even with a killing hit they will run a little way before they drop. Often there is no blood for 20 yards or more so be sure to follow up every shor and keep an eye on the critter for as long as you can to get a good bearing on it's direction and last location.

Good luck making meat.

[stubert]

I shot a big deer this year with a Lyman 429421 bullet cast from #2 alloy. I hit him high in the front shoulder at the neck. The bullet came out his throat under the lower jaw. ( he was walking away at 20 yds. I was aiming for a neck shot) I had almost 14" of penetration in a striaght line. I did not recover the bullet. very little meat lost, less than 2 lbs. I would not hesitate to use #2 alloy on anything, after seeing how it performed for me.

[Lloyd Smale]

wws will work fine but they will work there best at about 1100-1200 fps 1400 is pushing it a bit for a plain based bullet cast out of ww. I use alot of 5050 ww/lyno for my big guns for hunting bullets. Its probably an overkill though. Id think that if you mixed 3/4 ww to 1/4 lino you would have a alloy that would hold up to that velocity and reisist deforming on heavy bone and it would cast real nice to boot. That alloy would be very simular to the #2 that stubert mentioned which is another ideal alloy

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
I have shot 3 mule deer w/ my 44 using the Lyman 250gr, Kieth w/ gas check, 1 shot through lungs using WW. Worked just fine, all shots were at 70-100yds.:Fire:

[hydraulic]

Killing deer with a bullet going 1400 fps? I know for a fact that you can't kill a deer with anything less than a 300 Magnum at 3500 fps. All the gun rags tell me so.

[acsteve]

I agree with Hydraulic. As I recall the Trapdoor loads just bounced off of the plains buffalo during the 1800's. We are lucky we now have magnums to take deer. I have only a few lucky kills with muzzleloaders at 1500ft/sec with pure lead lyman plains boolits.

[Bret4207]

Just remember PLACEMENT IS KING! A gut shot is a gut shot no matter what you use. Too many folks these days expect the gun to make up for their lousy marksmanship. Happily, there aren't many of that breed around this place!

[44man]

Lloyd, I shoot a 378 gr PB WFN out of my 45-70 revolver over 1600 fps and it is deadly accurate. I water drop WW's. No leading either. Working loads took me near 1800 fps but as with all of my other bullets, boolits, groups open past about 1630 fps. They also open if loaded slower so I am stuck at the most accurate, 200 yd pop can accurate! :razz:
Now the bad thing! Deer go three times farther and have less internal damage then from the .44 so I NEED a soft nose that expands.
Anything shot with a WW boolit like this at 1100 to 1300, like the .44 and .45 piles them up FAST.
My suggestion is to never look for more velocity thinking the WLN or WFN will kill better because it has more penetration. NOT SO! My 45-70 has shot through 16" trees but deer have gone 200 yd's with a double lung hit and there are still lungs when I gut them.
Once over about 1400 fps I would start to soften the nose to stop the pressure wave pushed ahead of the flat nose as it goes through an animal. Now the hard boolit might just work in a very large animal where it has time to slow so the boolit does it's work but deer are too small. No matter what the nose is like, boolits at high velocity just zip through.
I love a hard flat nose in the .44, .45 and .475 so I figured they would work better out of the 45-70. After 5 deer and a lost one shot behind the shoulder I finally learned how mistaken I was. I then made the nose larger on a boolit, an 80% meplat, and it also fails, darn things act like a pointed full metal jacket.
This is the reason I love HEAVY boolits in the .44, I can get superior accuracy at a lower velocity so that the boolit does more work in the deer yet has super penetration.
To go to lighter and lighter hard boolits for more velocity can REDUCE the killing power. That's why I say to never read about muzzle energy, it doesn't kill. You are better off shooting the lighter boolit SLOWER.
Remember, I am not talking about jacketed bullets! :bigsmyl2:

[FN in MT]

I don't think that one needs more than 1100 to 1200 fps MAX for deer or elk. UNLESS your shooting at farther than 50-75 yds, then added velocity helps to flatten trajectory a bit.

Personally I like the 270 to 300 gr Keith's or LBT's in the .44 mag. And 280 to 325 gr in the .45 Colt/Casull. But I only drive them to 1100 fps or so. They still shoot through an ELK!

For deer I've used even less with good results. From the .41 mag with 220 Keiths at 1100 to my old M-24 .44 Spcl with Keiths over 7.5 of Unique for all of 950 fps. The .44 Spcl's still shoot through a deer! For antelope, western muleys and whitetails under 75 yds it seems most anything with a SWC slug , through the lungs...does the job.

As mentioned previously PLACEMENT is the deal. I think far too many hunters obsess over the minutiae of bullets, velocity, etc when they should be practicing their shooting.

FN in MT

[pharmpoke]

Thanks crew- I agree placement is everything. I'm probably nearing 100 big game animals taken over the years (antelope/deer/elk/moose), so have seen what happens with various hits on critters (wish I could say they were all in the boiler room), but none yet with a home cast bullet in a handgun. I've read of linotype being too brittle for shoulder hits, and pure lead causing barrel leading problems at 44mag velocities, so wanted to confirm my choice was OK. Sounds like the air cooled WW are just the ticket and casting my own should give me plenty to practice with. Keep the advice coming