shooting backwards boolits!

[superior]

A client of mine just dropped off 20 pounds of 40sw brass and about 400 j-word bullets for me here at work. He doesn't shoot pistol anymore and is involved only in shotgun shooting. I only shoot cast in my Glock but I was thinking of loading some of the j-words backwards. These bullets have an exposed lead base that would look awesome poking out of a case. I know they probably wont shoot worth a darn but at close range I sure wouldn't wanna be hit by one. I'm sure they will come out of the barrel tumbling. Anyone have any experience shooting bullets backwards? How did it work?

[NSP64]

I used to load the Hornady HBWC bullets hollow base forward. They shot good out to 50 Yrds turn inside out when it hit something.


Hey try it you never know.

[missionary5155]

Good evening
Before I bought my first 41 Colt mold I was using Lyman #358428 "Bumped up" in my vice to fill 41 colt chamber. These I loaded nose first into a 38 Special case wrapped in masking tape to 41 Colt chamber size. They shot rather well base first and cut a nice round hole in paper.
Ideal 358432 160 gr WC can also be loaded backwards. Again cuts a very nice hole.
Mike God Bless you

[hiram]

The last time I used APP, I did a major barrel cleaning by shooting two flat base bullets backwards with some 700X.. It was 44-40. It worked well. Very little final cleaning after that.

[trickyasafox]

I bet that'll really be heck on case capacity. 40sw is already kinda high pressure- i'm sure it can be done safely, but I wouldn't know where to start.

[superior]

I think it allows more room in the case since the round nose allows space which would normally occupied by the flat base kinda like a boat tail.

[trickyasafox]

Maybe, but I suspect pressure could be the limiting factor here.

[kamikaze1a]

I've also loaded LHBWC backwards to shoot fish, Tunas and Marlin. They expanded to over an inch and usually did not penetrate through and through. Beyond a few yads they would keyhole but then again, keyholing might be a good thing against two legged fish...

[mroliver77]

I think it allows more room in the case since the round nose allows space which would normally occupied by the flat base kinda like a boat tail.

Well maybe, possibly.
It depends on where the bullet hits the throat as the base will be full diameter and quite possibly very little can project out of the case. Then most all of the bullet will be inside the case.
Jay

[Larry Gibson]

superior

Most semi-autos have very little freebore to the throat. Thus as mentioned the bullets would be seated deep eating up case volume. My guess is you might also have a feeding problem with them as the bullet might stick out 1/6th or so from the case mouth before contacting the leade. If you decide to try I suggest the starting loads of Bullseye or 231 and work up carefully after that. I have shot numerous bullets backwards out of handgunds for S&Gs but that was with revolvers where the bullet could be seated out into the cylinder throat. I did get some fairly effective groups to 25 yards. I did this mostly in a M1917 S&W .45 ACP/AR using some old military 230 gr FMJs that had a deep dish cavity in the base. I shot on injured deer with it in the heart/lung and she dropped like the hammer of Thor hit her between the eyes. Velocity was right at 1050 fps and the exit wound was very large. Unfortuneately the bullet was not found. Unlike HBWCs seated backwards the center of gravity will be forward with your .40 cal bullets and keyholing may or may not be a problem out to 50 yards or so. If you give it a try let us know the results.

I've also been shooting FMJBTs out of 5.56 and 7.62 backwards for years with surprising results. I've been testing some for pressure. I'm not done with the tests so I'll not put out any data.

Larry Gibson

[Tokarev]

This is what I shoot in one of my antiques, a Forehand and Wadsworth British Bulldog:

http://www.vintageelectronics.ca/guns/bulldog/handloads.jpg

This is a 41 calibre bullet upside down in a 44 magnum case.

[superior]

That load would ruin someones day right now !

[Tokarev]

That load would ruin someones day right now !

It's very light at the moment. I only developed this cartridge and tried it with 3.4gr of Unique once I bought the gun. Unfortunately, she misfired more than fired and is with a gunsmith now, who is going to look at timing, lockup and the point of impact (strikes way off center of primer).

Yet it was a very accurate and recolless load! At 10 yards they slugs punched accurate round holes in the paper, with light POP and virtually no recoil. The recovered bullets from the berm had strong rifling on them. Considering that I had to jerk the trigger 2-3 times to get any shots fired, I hit a dinner plate.

When I'll get the gun back fixed, I will switch to 44 spcl case in order to seat the bullets a bit further from the forcing cone.

The gun was for sale advertised as 442 Webley calibre, and I could not believe my luck when slugged the bore and measured the chambers: handloading would require no modifications to the 41 cal bullets and 44 cal cases and could be done with Lee 90330 mold and 44 cal dies.

[kir_kenix]

I routinely load the 113 gr lee .30 backwards in several .30 caliber rifles (might as well hit them rabbits with a hammer moving 1000 fps), and hollow based wc's backwards in my .38's. Might be more difficult to load the .40 to where it will both feed from the magazine, and find a safe load with the reduced case capacity. If you get her shooting well, let us know as its an interesting project.

For what its worth, the hornady hbwc seems to stay stable out to 50 paces or so...beyond that who knows.

[kodiak1]

This very thing was tested in Handloader one or two issues ago backwards, tips cut on a 45, Bullets with a trough cut in 1 side and they all shot very very well. Way better than the author thought that they wood.

Ken.

[rbuck351]

I have shot 200gr swc out of 45auto loaded backward just to see how it would work. I was shooting 50ft indoor NRA style and they worked very well punching nice clean very rouind holes in paper. Accuracy seemed to be as good as loaded normal at 50ft. I think I was using 3.5 grs of bullseye, but its been 30yrs.

[tarbe]

I used to shoot the Lyman 45468 backwards.

I read an article as a youngster titled "Backward Bullets Blast Better" or something like that. Bought a mold and went at it.

Being a hollow-base, it becomes a cup-point when you invert them!

Lots of fun at short range.

[NoDakJak]

During the late seventies coyote pelts were bringing decent money if they weren't too shot up. I used to seat the Sierra, 85 grain HPBT backwards in a 243. Turned it into a truncated cone, FMJ. I started out with a standard charge of 4831 and it worked fairly well unless you hit a large bone and then secondary fragments could still ruin a pelt. Neil