'Bout 75, not that it makes a lot of diff.
'Bout 75, not that it makes a lot of diff.
Dan, I never shot a deer. Did a hunt with the GK & his 90 gr 243. He saw a big doe at dusk but didn't take the shot. Probably a good idea as it was top of a 400' ravine like Tim. If we had even found it at the bottom in the dark we couldn't have dragged it to the top. I had a RD in the 30/30, playing backup but didn't get a shot when it crashed through the brush. I used WD #2/pure @ 2000. IMHO the only shot I could take would be to take out the shoulder for a fast stop, with a follow up shot. IMHO, Tim't point is slow & harder doesn't cause as much damage. The RD is. WFN, now I use a FN and was surprised by the expansion in soft board.
Bullet pictured is specifically intended for patch use (no GG), has a 1 caliber radius ogive with a .2" meplate. You're probably right, climbing down a 400' ravine to drag a deer back up ain't something I'd relish either.
I have another bullet laying around somewhere that I dug out of a hog's butt after a quartering frontal shot. Shoulder, ribs, spine and hip were pretty much mush. It looks a lot like the one above after about 3' of penetration. Hog was about 15 yards out trotting toward me. I claim self defense?:roll:
I would have thought such a bullet would initially penetrate a bit before it began to open up, but that's not the case at all. Shot an armadillo with the same load one day, also at about 15 yards. It exploded. Parts is parts as they say.
I'm considering buying the redding die, it's been on my midwayusa wish list for 6 weeks now, but I'm not sure if there would be much benefit going into the 1/3 of the neck that I currently can't size without pushing back the body. If funds permit one day I'll probably try it out.
Good lord!
I want my new .35R to do that. I'm not shooting for meat, I want boolits to have extra dead!
Though I have shot a fair quantity of deer/bear/elk using centerfire rifle and pistols, have taken a fair number using full diameter cast bullets in muzzleloaders. Never once recovered a Maxi-Ball from my 45cal T/C Hawken over 90gr FFg and that one accounted for lots of deer. It would blast straight through them out to 125yds. The same for the 50cal Max-Balls on deer. Recovery distances were always within 100yds for either caliber. Did schmuck a 110# doe (dressed) facing me at 40yds with 110gr FFg and a 430gr Maxi-Ball that did not pass through. The bullet swapped ends, broke the hip backwards and came to rest under the hide on the rump. Dropped her dead :)
The elk within 125yds were pass-through's on the ribcage using 110gr FFg behind 54cal Maxi-Balls or 100gr of FFg behind a 50cal Maxi-Ball. Again, short recovery distances with the shortest being 25yds. It stood there and just bled out.
Cannot imagine that a hard cast bullet will kill much more efficiently than a pure lead boolit unless heavy bone is encountered.
More testament to lead bullet killing power that just came to mind.....
In the middle 70's I owned a T/C Cherokee rifle in 45cal. My accuracy load was a round ball w/patch and 60gr of FFg black under it. Not a stout load by any stretch of the imagination.
Had one doe walk past me at 20yds and slipped a ball directly through her lungs, dead broadside. She dropped as dead as a kippered mackerel after 75yds. The ball broke a rib going in, passed between two ribs on exit and lodged under the hide.
Another doe was shot perfectly straight on at a distance of 40yds. I took her dead center in the brisket and she reeled sideways several steps before falling flat on her side...stone dead.
Had another doe about mid-80's that I shot 2-handed at a distance of 17yds, dead broadside, using a Browning BDA 45ACP (like the Sig P220). I was using a Denver Bullet reload with a 230gr round nose lead bullet. This target load had a MV likely measured as "walking speed". The slug entered on the front leg, breaking it. The slug passed between 2 ribs, went through both lungs, went through the top of the heart, went between 2 ribs on the far side and stopped just under the hide. That deer took off as fast as her 3 good legs would carry her for about 30yds and she went flat on her chin.
Lead will penetrate......
Goodsteel, thank you for the long explanation of the events. I had gotten the impression when I first read the thread, the doe was approximately 40 yards distant. So with, the correction, I want to pose a question to you.
Considering the damage done at 75yrds+\-, how confident would you be in the load as it stands out to 150 or 200 yards?
Do you think it would have the same devastation? Or do you think the drop in velocity would have out it in that magic sweet spot? What range would you suppose would be that magic sweet spot for that load?
I am looking at a hunting load for a 14" .357 Herret. My 'Intent' was to aim for a 200-225gr load at 2Kfps*, but from looking at your results, it makes me curious to work out a load that works at 1800 fps. It also has completely reshaped my thinking for boolit shape and see how a WFN would meet my needs better than a RN.
I want to feel confident that if do my part, the boolit will do its part out to 200 yards.
[*I have load data for Hornady 200gr jacketed spire point and Sierra 200gr jacketed round nose soft point at 2100fps]
I feel confident that at 200 yards, that boolit would have slowed to about 1600 and would have performed much better. In fact, it would have done well out to 300 yards where it would have slowed to 357 Magnum velocities.
BTW, you get a gold star on your post for actually thinking past what has been said here and seeing what I was trying to do in the first place.
It's true, I was trying to make a load that was good to any distance I could see, but unfortunately, projectiles lose their effectiveness very quickly at distance (by that I mean the speed and energy they possess to impart to the deer). The longest shot that I am aver likely to make in a natural, walk up, "holy **** theirs a deer!", situation is 300 yards. That's being extremely generous, but that's what I was thinking at the time. I wanted a boolit that would perform over that entire breadth of area in 358 caliber.
Now, what I expected that I had created was a boolit that would blow a 2" exit hole at 50, and 1/2" channel at 250, but what I got was a 6" grenade blast at 75, so I really don't know what would happen at longer ranges.
However, I think that what this has taught me, is that there is no way to have an "any range" rifle. A responsible hunter will build a load for reasonable shot range, and work within those limits.
For me, I now hunt in thicker parts of the woods with harder boolits. There are more deer, it's more challenging, and less can go wrong.
I am done trying to reinvent the wheel in this matter.
Conventional wisdom is that a boolit made of 50/50+2% WQ driven at 1600-1800. Conventional cast lead boolit shots are made at less than 100 yards. That's how I hunt now, and it's a freakin blast! Much funner and more exciting than trying to lob J thingies over long distances. I once shot a deer through the heart at a measured 300 yards off hand with support. I felt like that was one heck of a shot! Unfortunately, as cool as it sounds to be able to do that, it didn't excite me nearly as much as the shot I made here in this post at 75, or the deer I shot last year at 20.
I'm hardening up my alloy and hunting dad gum it!
Indeed! However, I have not a Lee toughness gauge, only a Lee hardness gauge to measure by, thus my terminology. LOL!
I fully intend to advance myself to copper alloyed boolits, as well as reinsert myself into the paper patching disciplines, and someday, I intend to dabble in swaging.
For the moment, I am educating myself on the cast lead boolit and loving every second. I'm just not done with this yet. I will be pushing cast as fast as I can and seeing what does what, but I will not hunt with high speed boolits anymore. Nope. Not gonna do it.
Tim
Do you have a 2 to 4 lb cross peen hammer and a concrete floor or a vise or an anvil? If YES...you have a Malcolm Tool CO "toughness" gauge. :lol:
Lay the boolit on it's side and hit it like you mean it dead center with the cross peen. If it sails off in two directions you are still too brittle....if you smash the impact area flat and it takes alot of effort to do so.....MMMMM TADAA
BHN means little for toughness/mallability. By changing the alloy recipe one can either make a ceramic boolit or a boolit you swear is solid mallable copper and they can both measure 24-32 BHN.
Don
1. I am a "GIVER SOME MEPLAT AND GIVER THE GAS" kinda feller with these alloys, as it flattens the trajectory and makes surgical hits easier. Has not failed to impress the snot out of me yet on 150-180 lb dressed weight whitetail slaying.
2. That being said I see no reason a slightly more moderate speed and a very shallow HP would not work too, one would just have to sacrifice some speed for that, and if you are going down in speed the more expensive alloy is not needed at that point...a standard WD'ed 50/50 alloy will do all of that........so at this point you can refer back to the meplat point made in part #1.
wait a second.
so what I'm hearing is that mike and myself agree on something?
anyway copper allows the alloy to act more fluid under pressure, it makes the alloy tougher [similar to water dropping] but allows it to flex and de-form under stress.
it's similar to swaging a lead alloy that just contains antimony, you'd think it should be a harder composition [and would be if it were cast] but the antimony acts more like an alloy lubricant when it's squeezed.
in that it allows the lead to slide on itself easier.
oh yeah this thread is getting stuck, it contains too much information to let it slide.
Do not be so surprised... I even agree with Larry once in awhile....would happen more often if he used the right terminology, but some dogs are beyond hope ya know. :lol:
Seeing first hand what one can do with enhanced alloys will open your eyes, and for some it may even open their mind a bit....if the hinges are not too rusty anyway.
squeaker squeak squeekems.