pure lead expansion

[camerl2009]

ok so im hunting with my MH and using a pure lead bullet its round nose
no hp how much will this expand

[lwknight]

You can expect the base to drive through the nose and turn inside out to about double the original diameter. If you recover the boolit , weigh it to see how much weight you retained. If its under 90% I would add about 2% tin to control expansion and toughen up the boolit for weight retension.

[pdawg_shooter]

I tried pure with paper patch in a 45-70 at 1800fps. Awesome hunting load.

[idahoron]

Well I think there is too many variables to correctly answer this question. A lot of people call lead pipe “pure” some guys call dental lead “pure”. The fact is they all have some alloy.
I have done some testing with “pure” lead with a Cabine Tree tester. I used Virgin pure lead from Rotometal. The dial indicator read .010 to .022 on the tester. The range for 5 bhn is .015 to .035 so as you can see there is some room for hardness in the definition of “pure”. I started to shoot the lead in the .010 to .022 range. I just was not getting that great of groups. I added a little lead shot and bumped the hardness to .032 to .035 on the dial. I saw immediate improvement in my groups it was amazing. So since these shot so well I decided to hunt with them.
Now my 50 cal Hornady Great Plains bullets had a hardness of 5 BHN and a dial reading of 024 to .029 They turn inside out and mushroom. I have found several inside animals. They worked ok but I always felt that they were not SUPER bullets.
With my Paper Patched 500 S&W bullets in my 50 cal muzzleloader like I said I bumped the hardness to .032 to .035 still 5 BHN but a harder 5 BHN. These bullets plow through. I have shot two animals a buddy of mine has shot two animals and my son shot one. All of the animals but one were broad side shots and all were full penetration and no bullets recovered. The last animal was a large mule deer buck. This buck was quartering to the shooter. The bullet hit the point of the shoulder at 117 yards and the bullet exited out the hindquarter, FULL length penetration plus bone penetration.
So with that said I can’t give you an answer because I don’t know how pure your lead is. With a round nose I would not expect the bullet to mushroom as much as a flat point with a large meplat. Ron

[camerl2009]

the stuff i got is bell lead it looks like a tube and thay are nice and soft
and i clean the pellet trap out and make it into ingots its nice and soft
.22 stuff i clean of the .22 trap is a bit harder then the ^

but im hunting the biggest game in noth americe bison
i need good penetration and slow expansion so i think im going
with maybe a 30-1 or 20-1 alloy time to get some tin now where im i going
to find that here i gess the 50/50 tin/lead solder

[Rangefinder]

Holy hell, camerl... For the love of all that is sacred, please use some punctuation. I thought I was drunk while trying to read your post! ;)

50/50 solder works, or you could go hit a few secondhand stores to look for pewter. If it's genuine pewter, it will be about 95% tin. Look through this section (lead and alloys). Somewhere around pg. 4 will be a great thread. Or, just use the search function. $1 for a pewter mug that weighs 12 ounces is a much better deal than $15 for a pound of solder.

[idahoron]

the stuff i got is bell lead it looks like a tube and thay are nice and soft
and i clean the pellet trap out and make it into ingots its nice and soft
.22 stuff i clean of the .22 trap is a bit harder then the ^

but im hunting the biggest game in noth americe bison
i need good penetration and slow expansion so i think im going
with maybe a 30-1 or 20-1 alloy time to get some tin now where im i going
to find that here i gess the 50/50 tin/lead solder

Like I posted even with real soft lead there are different hardness and those differences can and do make a difference at least is the shooting I saw. I think you’re on the right track with the 30-1 or 20-1 alloy. Both would work well. If you need someone to test your alloy you can send me a sample. Ron

[JJC]

I'll take some samples too, I'm going to the range next week :kidding: