Were any animals harmed in this testing?
Were any animals harmed in this testing?
At least one was......by me.
I thought I posted this result in this thread, must have been elsewhere on the site. A while back I posted herein of not yet having a chance to test the BruceB Cast Soft Points on game of any size. That limitation came to an end a few months ago while homeward northbound along U.S. 395 at Cuddeback Road. It is good practice to have a firearm or 2 along for the ride while hauling a-- through the desert, and on this occasion I had the Win 94 in 30-30 WCF behind the truck seat, mag filled with Lyman #311041s with enough fuel to prompt about 1800 FPS. The bullets were cast as BBSPs.
A coyote loped across the highway eastbound about 100 yards ahead of me, and I slowed to turn behind him. The song dogs hereabouts get hunted HARD, and I suspected he would be Gonzo Morretti by the time I completed the turn at Cuddeback. Not so--he was half-cantering along the south roadway edge, casual as a cool breeze. I was out of the truck and had the rifle in an instant, levered a round in and drew a bead on the still-oblivious fur unit. I cranked the round off, and the critter was down like a hammer hit him. Paced off at 115 yards, entry was at the back end of the left ribcage and exit was at the point of the right shoulder. Exit and wound channel was about 1-1/4" to 1-1/2" diameter, just chipping the shoulder bone. One exemplar has limited meaning, but this performance was certainly acceptable and bodes well for use on game like muleys, whitetails, or elk with larger/heavier bullets at similar speeds. On the local muleys and blacktails of 125#-150#, the 30-30 load would do the job to 150 yards, I would say.
I think because we cast our own we shoot more ,and because we shoot more we are more accurate and have better hunting skills! We tune our loads to a particular gun and make them more accurate !
^^ Agreed !! I'm not sure I'm saving money...just shooting more and getting better. That's what it's all about.
goodsteel, I'm new here, and I've enjoyed your thread.
I killed my first elk in 1950 with a Thompson 358156 in a .38 Special case with 13.5 grains of 2400. The pistol was a .357 Mag. Model 27 S&W. The velocity was 1,350 fps. The mix was 50-50 lead-wheel weights with 2% tin. The range was 60 yards with the elk quartering away from me. Dropped him immediately. The boolit lodged under the skin on the off side. The nose of the bullet was blunted and intact. In pistols, for hunting, I switched to a .44 Special, Keith 429421 250 grain loaded to 1,200 fps in .44 Mag. pistols.
Over the past 65 years I have cast many thousands of bullets, all with the same mix. I have never had leading in any of my firearms. Like many here I cast and load for many calibers and have killed big game with all of them.
I do not have a 35 Winchester, but I have the 35 Whelen, 35 Brown-Whelen and the 35 Whelen Improved. I prefer the standard 35 Whelen. I have always used the 358318 250 grain GC boolit with the mix stated above and loaded at 2,100 fps. It performs superbly on elk, moose, bear, antelope and deer. The bullet penetrates, usually clear through the animal.
I also shoot the 375449 bullet in my .375 H&H at 2,100 fps. It performs just like the 35 Whelen.
Cast boolits, the shooter's friend.
Doc Burgess
Sam Adams, you rabble rouser, I just came for the fried chicken.
:grin: Hi goodsteel.Great thread.Thanks for taking the time to post.From listening to my Grand Father talk of his early days in the US(he came here far enough back from Germany,that his first job here was riding horse back and chasing Indians with the US Cavalry).The stories he told of some of the fights he was involved in held true to the effectiveness of cast boolits.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo
Thanks Goodsteel, interesting reading here.
I recently bought an AR500 8" steel target gong. Made a fairly decent folding stand for it.
Took it out to the range a while back, popped at it with 9mm pistol, .22lr pistol and rifle, then proceeded to try to hit it with my Mosin at 50m.
I was shooting reduced loads, MUCH reduced, 30 grains of IMR 4895 behind a .312185 2r boolit from a lee mold.
I hit that gong once, and left a big dimple. It didn't go through, but it left a finger tip sized dimple on the front, and it shows a bulge on the back. It shrugged everything else off, but that 185 grain pure lead boolit, not WW, dimpled that steel.
The round in question did have some 3 weeks after casting, sizing + Gas Check, lubed, resized to rest and gain hardness.
My lead was from a lead water pipe. (Dang thing broke just outside my foundation after only some 70 years, cost me 8k to fix)
It does seem to run a bit harder than pure lead, dunno maybe its just so old its stiff.
I have no chrony so no real idea how fast that round was going, except I'd venture a guess that it was well below 1700fps.
In my load data is shows 48 grains of IMR 4895 gets about 2800 fps.
I'd guesstimate the speed in the 14-1500 fps range. And it WANGED that steel plate like nobody's business!
Full metal copper condom's are a fad, mostly started by the Military. Remember those FMJ's are designed to not expand, not kill, but wound.
If you kill one guy he's dead, body lays there till graves/registration gets around to picking him up. But if you wound a guy it takes up to 4 people out of the fight to pick him up, carry him away and care for him.
Thats ok for the military, but hardly in line with what most of us want.
We want dead things, dead people or critters. We don't want them wounded, we don't want them surviving to sue us, we want them DRT. And the same for critters.
Yeah, lead is good enough for me, and will be for the forseeable future.
Without antimony (Sb) pure lead will never age harden no matter how long you wait. Sb is required for age hardening or quenching/oven heat treating to gain any hardness. Pure lead will be the same hardness/strength once it cools off as it will be 100 years from now.
Rick
When you custom fit a boolit and load to a fire arm the results are much better than factory bought anything! And it just feels better.
Some fun at a group shoot (no I wasn't there), gong @ ~75 using 300WM, 225 & 308ME (GC PC 165gr cast, Cu added, ~ 2200 fps). Non-penetrated are probably the cast, still a pretty good bump, from both sides.
Attachment 117092
SIL said they hit it every time but several were shooting so no good groups. I think he's happy with the load and is now a believer in cast for hunting.
this was a real good article. my thanks to goodsteel!!!:):):)
although i a novice at boolit casting, well i sort of don't cast anything, and i'm a real novice at shooting the deer with cast(more than i can count with j words). this year i'm going to use cast boolits for everything. from the 30-40 krag to 444 marlin to the 45-70(carolina cast and moyers cast). i had a stroke so it will take me around three years or so to start casting. but anyway...thank you for showing me what not to do!!! this little piece of info is stuck in my mind.
good luck and keep them coming!!!
I was surprised how potent lead boolits are ,had an offcut peice of steel 1\3 of an inch thick ,put it on some chain so it would swing.22 just lead splatter 180gr 357mag put a good dent in it ,160 gr in my 308 went straight through it nice neat hole.
Lead boolits are like cling peaches, they're just plain good.
Attachment 198732
My friend (he suffers from magnumitis) asked me if I was going to use my cast bullets for hunting, implying that they wouldn't work. My answer was "all those buffalo fell to cast bullets way back when" He's a pretty smart guy but that question just made me shake my head.
I second that. This will help me build a good coyote load. This thread taught me that I can run softer alloy at high velocities. I Didn't know a cast boolit could be so destructive being a newbie. It's a great educational thread for new comers like myself that you can make a cast boolit destructive and not just a hole poker.
I don't know why these bullets were so destructive but I strongly suspect what we are seeing is the result of the bullet fracturing. Fast expanding bullets, regardless of the mechanisms involved, always come at the expense of penetration. I had a similar experience hunting hogs with a .30-30 using cast bullets. The alloy was plain wheel weight metal. Somewhere around 2000 fps or a little more, the bullets fractured or blew up, if you please. They produced dramatic kills if the bullet made it into the chest cavity but what a mess. I eat what I shoot & don't like bullets that turn good meat into jelly. I prefer my .45-70 or my muzzle loaders. They kill very effectively & as one guy said, "you can eat right up to the bullet hole".