Hard nose boolits, ever thought of that?

[Hubertus]

Beeing a newbie on the board might allow me to get away with a stupid question like that. Did you ever think about a hard nose boolit contrary to a hollow point or soft nose one?
Most probably it was already discussed somewhere and I just missed it.
Ok here it goes: I don’t know it from experience but I am reading a lot about expansion problems with harder alloys and not effective impact on game with spitzer types. This is not a rating, again I try to learn and discuss ideas here.
Casting hollow points and their usage for hunting is discussed in several threads; as well there is a very good thread on casting soft nose boolits with a conventional mold.
It is just a thought experiment and I am looking to discuss this topic theoretically, since I anyway don’t have the means to try this, unfortunately. Let’s assume we take a well known caliber like 45-70 or any other big bore, it doesn’t matter. You are casting boolits that are neither spitzer nor flat point, you use something like the money nose, so rather a small radius round nose or something similar to a semi wadcutter with a small round nose. Now taking a medium main boolit alloy let’s say about 14 BHN for the main part and a harder alloy about 18 to 20 BHN for the tip.
You cast a small round ball resembling the radius of the nose, separately. During your main casting you take this finished round ball and drop it into the mold, it will align in center through the resemblance of the nose form and rest at the tip of the boolit. Afterwards you pour your main alloy. I am aware when no heat is applied furthermore there will be no bonding between the two parts.

Will there be a big difference with and without the bonding? Chances are the ball just falls off? You see, where my question goes. Could it be that this little ball in comparison to the rest of the boolit ( for instance .458” compared to .225” with the money nose) be able to aid expansion and still leave a massive enough shank to shoot through.

Maybe one could take a fairly hard alloy like 20 BHN and stick a 30 BHN tip to it and still have expansion? The usage of boolits with a better BC and still get expansion would work too?

I hope that I expressed the idea fair enough to get some discussion and ideas going on.
Just ignore, if it is too stupid a question.

Hubertus

[44man]

Well, soft boolits in most any form from round nose to a flat point shoot just fine and kill game as well as anything made, of course the larger the caliber the better. They need a gentile start like black powder and velocity is limited.
Now what you are forgetting is the base and drive bands of a boolit are what is important and the faster you shoot, the harder these must be. That is the part that engages the rifling, too soft and a boolit can skid too far into the rifling and open gas channels. But then even if shot slow with a very fast powder they can also skid so even when I use Unique or 231 in my revolvers, I make the boolits even harder then I do for hunting with slower powders.
The ideal in the case you suggest is to have a hard base and soft nose so the nose can slow the boolit in the animal as it expands, yet a heavy, sturdy base will provide penetration and keep it moving. By having a boolit come apart you lose penetration.
Now take a hard, large caliber flat nose boolit. It kills anything it hits until you get close to 1400 fps, then it starts to fail so you need to soften the boolit or nose to gain expansion and a hollow point then can become very important. There is no need for a hollow point with a caliber from .44 up as long as velocity is kept in a certain range. In fact if things are wrong like a hollow point boolit too brittle or too soft, penetration can be lost.
Anyway, you are forgetting that the nose is what does the work in an animal.

[jdgabbard]

Why go through the complications of creating a soft nose or a hard nose when you have HPs and flat noses? A large metlap is devistating to a critter as long as it is kept in its velocity window. For example look at the Ranch Dog designs. My TL358-190-RD has a 72% metlap. That is more then enough to whop the critters that reside in my neck of the woods. If you were to HP that it would surely expand nicely. So when you have simpler solutions there isn't really a great need to go through the hassles.

I understand what you are saying. In effect creating a lead "balistic tip" much like the over the counter hunting ammo you see at walmart. But you what you're trying to do is re-invent the wheel when it really only needs to be cleaned and polished.

I'm sure if you give the other methods a try you'll be pleased with them, without having to take the intense time of trying to pour good boolits with two different alloys. It is time intensive, and I've not seen any real conclusive evidence to support it as a better method over HPs or big flats.

[44man]

I give him credit for thinking but he is in Germany and most likely can not hunt anything. I don't know what his conditions are but lack of experience is what most have to live with overseas unless you are super rich.
Maybe he can tell us more.

[Bret4207]

If you try and put the ball of harder alloy in a mould that's up to casting temp it's going to melt, at least partially, before you can get the softer alloy in behind it.

I'm not sure what you're looking for or what a "money nose" is, but a flat nose of appropriate diameter for the caliber will kill just fine given adequate speed and penetration.

[HORNET]

I seem to recall an old magazine article promoting the use of a steel BB dropped into the cavity before casting for this purpose. That would have been quite a while back. I think Winchester uses basically the same concept in some small caliber pistol bullets ( I'm thinking their 35 grain .25 auto and also .32 auto) with a soft core and very thin jacket.
FWIW, some of the old muzzle-loading match rifles used a 2 piece boolit with a hard nose and very soft lead body. The hard nose resisted deformation during loading and the soft body allowed the boolit to slug-up during firing. They were usually swaged together.

[Leftoverdj]

Yeah, I've read of the steel BBs being used, too. They were supposed to work like the old Bronze Point bullets to increase expansion by being forced back into the lead. You could float a few on top of your alloy to get them up to temperature and drop them into the mould with tweezers or forceps.

[stubshaft]

Yeah, I've read of the steel BBs being used, too. They were supposed to work like the old Bronze Point bullets to increase expansion by being forced back into the lead. You could float a few on top of your alloy to get them up to temperature and drop them into the mould with tweezers or forceps.


You typed the words right out of my mouth:kidding: ( I was thinking of ball bearings)

[Hubertus]

Thank you all for reading and taking the time to answer.

Well, it was just a thought that crossed my mind, I didn't think I was the first one with the idea and just wanted to know whether somebody has tried it.

Hunting in Germany is quite restricted in terms of firearms regulations. It is not too bad though. We have quite long seasons and depending on the region the game of several different sorts. There is no such thing as public land and tags, we do have a strict hunting block system. It can get expensive to rent a block. Fortunately I am lucky I was invited by sombody that has one, so overall it is not too bad. Well excluding the required 1 year hunterscourse, the working hours you have to bring, the theoretical and shooting tests and the tag on your forehad "gunowner". But besides that it is quite nice :mrgreen:

Most of the Hunters use J-words and some sort of rifle, I read about a view using muzzle loaders (it is not common at all), bow and handgun is not allowed, handgun only for coup de grace. There are strong regulations in terms of energy/power, everyting above roe is 6,5 mm and above with about 1500 ft-lbs @ 100m.

Now here I come want to use my Roller with lead boolits for hunting - huhh very uncommon. :Fire:


Hubertus