RN vs. FP

[RU shooter]

In a deer hunting situating (normal size 130-150 lb.deer) with boolit alloys and speed being the same. Will a RN 30 cal bullet expand and or kill just as well as a flat nose bullet like the Lee with a small .150+- flat point ? Just seems that small fp aint gonna do that much extra for it? Speed would be 1850-2000 fps.
What say ye cast shootin deer hunters.

Thanks,Tim

[stubert]

A round nose tends to punch a small hole, flat nose has more shock. Look at a target that is shot by a wadcutter and a roundnose. Same thing happens on game.

[smkummer]

Elmer Kieth wrote about this when shooting his 44 pistol loads. Often the bullet went clean through the animal and even though it might not have known it, the animal was dead. When you cast the bullet hard enough to be accurate at those velocities, it is almost like a FMJ bullet, so a flat point will have a little more shock. At my local range if I go rummage through the bullets in the stop, my cast pistol bullets are almost reusable, the factory jacketed soft points and HPs are not. A jacketed soft point or HP can have mushroom soft lead inside of its thin jacket.

[2Tite]

All other things being equal; velocity, bullet weight, alloy, shot placement, I really don't think the deer knows whether he was run over by a Ford or a Chevrolet.

[largom]

I have been experimenting with expansion of different alloy's and boolits for the past couple of months and am still running several tests.
I have tested 30 Cal., 35 Cal., and 8mm Cal. so far The 30 and 35 Cal. boolits were flat nose and the 8mm is a round nose. I have not tested any spitzer point boolits. The 8mm round nose [Lyman 323470] expanded into a perfect mushroom double the cal. in size as did the 30 & 35 cal. which were flat nose.
The velocity of my loads are between 1800 and 2000 fps. The BHN of my alloy tests between 10.5 & 11.0 on two different testers. I am shooting thru 1 Gal. milk jugs full of water with an old suit case full of rags as a backer. Range is 50 yds.
At this early point I do not see any difference in expansion between flat and round nose. The key is the how hard and tough the alloy is. Too hard and the boolits shed weight. Too soft and the expansion is too severe and penetration is lost.

Hope this helps. Larry

[fredj338]

A round nose solid in any flavor is a poor killer. It was back in BP days & still is today.

[largom]

A round nose solid in any flavor is a poor killer. It was back in BP days & still is today.

I will let you know this coming deer season. Seems to me that early BP boolits were ROUND balls.

Larry

[runfiverun]

no...

[Bret4207]

My experience says the FN kills better, that is it seems to transfer more energy to the animal and creates a larger wound channel. A RN works if you have enough speed and weight to carry it into the animal and to push the boolit while it expands. To me, in a 30 caliber that means at least 170 ish grains and 1700+ fps at impact time. But it won't ALWAYS expand the same. You hit a 220 lbs big bodied buck on a frontal quartering shot and you have to penetrate a lot more muscle and bone than if you pop a 120 lbs spike horn in the ribs. Expansion will differ and there's a chance the RN will sail though. The deer will still die given good shot placement, but you won't get that DRT (dead right there) you do with a jacketed bullet.

On the other hand if you hit a deer with a FP you already have a metplat to do some damage. Read up on Veral Smiths concept of how a boolit works and why a FP always does more damage than a RN. I think it's a pretty safe bet that given 2 180 grain 30 cal boolits striking the target at 1750 fps, both of the same alloy, the one with the RN will do less damage than the FN. Up the cal to 35 and it's more of the same. With the smaller 6.5 and 7 mm's a FP is essential to my way of thinking. Small game is different of course.

If you want to use the RN and don't want to HP or use a soft alloy at high speed then may I suggest you aim to break the shoulders. They drop right there and often the shock to the spine seems to kill them, but a coup de grace can finish it quick. With a RN you shouldn't lose much meat if the alloy is WW or harder.

Of course you can use a RN and the deer or bear will be dead on it's feet. If you can track or use a dog then he's yours. OTH if you're in a swampy or very populated area you may not recover your animal at all.

[44man]

I don't think a flat nose on a 30 caliber boolit is large enough to do anything except help start expansion. The boolit must be softer with small calibers but be heavy enough for penetration.
The difference between a FP 30 and a RN is so small I can't see why effect would not be the same.
Then all of you forget about the pressure wave a flat meplat generates in a deer if shot too fast. All it does is force a large secondary wound channel and moves tissue out of the way. That channel then collapses with little damage left behind. Only if the wave reaches large blood vessels or the CN system does it work, it does little to lungs. Slower, up to about 1400 fps kills better with them or you need to slow the boolit in the animal. A nice mushroom does that very well.
If I was shooting a small caliber, I would use a pure lead nose, hard rear end and a heavy weight.

[Bret4207]

The difference between a FP 30 and a RN is so small I can't see why effect would not be the same.
.

Depends on the metplat. Look at the Lyman 311440 and tell me that isn't different than the 311291.

[largom]

As I stated in my other post, my tests so far are very LIMITED and therefore not conclusive. First, I do not have many different RN boolits cast up. Second, I am running out of water jugs.

One observation I did make was that a RN boolit had a tendency to veer off to one side as it started to mushroom where the FN boolits usually held a straighter path.

If I had to make a choice between RN or FN I would take the flat nose. Also, you can create a flat nose on a RN boolit by running the boolit nose first into your sizer and applying a little extra pressure. I have some hollow points cast but they need to age a little more before testing.

Larry