First post introduction and advice sought

Hi All,

I've been lurking for some time while working on a new project and have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge and advice from this forum. Glad to be finally officially join the party. My project is this: I recently got off a deer lease because they're ridiculously expensive in Texas and I've got two kiddos that nobody told me weren't free. The good news is we live on five acres, have great neighbors, and quite a few deer. We typically eat six deer a year, so I want to continue filling the freezer. I started researching for this project last winter after shooting a buddy's suppressed .308. Great gun but not a caliber/projectile suited for deer at subsonic velocity. I settled on a CVA Hunter 44 mag, single shot, 1:20 twist, barrel will be cut down to 16". I've been working on load development and have found off the shelf ammo to be lacking. The only jacketed bullets that will suitably expand at 1000 fps are self defense rounds in the 200gr range and, while these will be moderately efficient on a small central Tx whitetail, broadside, behind the shoulder, it leaves a lot to be desired for obvious reasons. The 300gr jacketed HP's do not expand sufficiently, if at all, at this velocity. I understand that a hard cast boolit with a wide meplat will penetrate completely, but I'd like a bigger wound channel (without sacrificing an exit hole) to increase the chances of the deer dying on my property or as close as possible. I.E., a boolit that expands to .70 has an increased surface area of over 400% when compared to a non expanding boolit with a .30 meplat. I bought some 275 gr HP's from Matt's Bullet's (Matt is awesome BTW) cast at 20:1 and have no doubt they'll work. But I'd like to know I can punch through a hog too. So I'm looking for suggestions for heavy weight boolit molds (350ish grains) that I can purchase and have modified to HP if not offered by the manufacturer. Also any input on boolit design, etc. And what am I missing? All my calculations say that the gun will stabilize the heavy boolit easily. OAL of cartridge with the 275 gr maxed out to the lands (I'm not shooting them this way, only to measure) is .785 with a gas check, so I should have plenty of room. Bullets will be powder coated for suppressor use (my wife paints custom Yeti cups so I've already got the set up.) Below are links to a few molds I'm looking at. Will one design serve better for HP's? If you've made it this far thanks for reading and sorry for the long post.

http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_...=43-350R-D.png
http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_...=43-340C-D.png
http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_...=43-340S-D.png

Brady

So if you want them to die on the spot you could do a head or neck shot .

Jack

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Originally Posted by Jack Stanley

So if you want them to die on the spot you could do a head or neck shot .

Jack

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Yes sir and likely will in many instances. But my logic is that if I'm limited to 1000 fps to be subsonic I may as well shoot the heaviest boolit I can in case it's needed. And based on my experience and research thus far I expect this to be around a 2-3 MOA gun. Our local whitetails' brain is only about 3" across.

Neck or shoulder to break them down so they won't leave. Heart & lung shot deer are dead but they sometimes don't know it for a distance.
Welcome to the forum!

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I'd guess you don't want the projectile to continue cruising on for a long ways and risk hitting something people care about. In your shoes, I would look for the biggest meplat, heaviest weight design and hollowpoint it. I would probably cast with something like 10:1 to try to keep it soft, but strong. I'd probably try a high shoulder shot to keep them from continuing on even if it meant you had to deliver the coup de grace after knocking them down.

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Originally Posted by Texas by God

Neck or shoulder to break them down so they won't leave. Heart & lung shot deer are dead but they sometimes don't know it for a distance.
Welcome to the forum!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

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Completely agree on the shot placement and thanks for the welcome.

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Originally Posted by brewer12345

I'd guess you don't want the projectile to continue cruising on for a long ways and risk hitting something people care about. In your shoes, I would look for the biggest meplat, heaviest weight design and hollowpoint it. I would probably cast with something like 10:1 to try to keep it soft, but strong. I'd probably try a high shoulder shot to keep them from continuing on even if it meant you had to deliver the coup de grace after knocking them down.

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I should have mentioned that pass-thru's are not a safety issue with the direction I will be shooting. With regard to the boolit advice, that's exactly the conclusion I came to. But I've never cast and have limited knowledge of cast boolits, especially with regard to design. For instance, at a certain velocity and bullet hardness, both of which are determined in this case, does one design offer more than another. I.E. thicker vs thinner walls around the hollow point cavity. Longer nose vs shorter. Etc...

If you don't care about pass throughs, I would probably just go with a big, big bullet with a big, big meplat and cast it real soft. White tails aren't that hard to kill and a 300+ grainer with a 70% meplat and a super soft alloy (pure lead plus a few percent tin) should dump a huge amount of energy into the deer, probably show some expansion, plow right through whatever bones it encountered, and make a big entry hole and an even bigger exit.

Hey Bluerock2000
Our deer in central Florida aren't big either. The feral pigs however can get quite large. In my 44 slug inventory is a Lee and a Lyman 300gr mould. The Lyman mould is what I prefer and use. My alloy is clip on wheel weights with 40% pure lead and 5% tin added. I cast this alloy hot and it yields a lightly frosted 318gr projectile. Depending on how many and what pig bones are encountered, recovered slugs are generally 100% weight retained. Using Hercules 2400, my load runs around 1100 fps from either Ruger old model super Blackhawk and close to 1250fps from a Marlin 336. It will stop a charging sow, but not always kill, with a center of mass hit from any direction. This load does the same on any hapless deer of opportunity, with very few recovered slugs for evaluation. At a hundred yards or more out, the sight drop is significant. Not our load or slug of choice for any dedicated deer hunting and experience has shown the big slug even less desirable when hollowpointed for either animal. It makes a horrible mess of deer and is less effective on big hogs. Good skill to you.
Roy

The last one I shot with a 245 grain hollow point went through over twenty inches of a Michigan white tail . Starting velocity was almost thirteen hundred from a six inch barrel , like the fellas say , they aren't hard to kill . We do have to hit them right though .

Jack

I had Veral Smith of LBTmolds.com make me up a .432-370-LFN. You could have something like that hollow pointed.

Why not a shotgun slug? Lots of grains, major meplat, and could easily be made subsonic.

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Originally Posted by gunarea

Hey Bluerock2000
Our deer in central Florida aren't big either. The feral pigs however can get quite large. In my 44 slug inventory is a Lee and a Lyman 300gr mould. The Lyman mould is what I prefer and use. My alloy is clip on wheel weights with 40% pure lead and 5% tin added. I cast this alloy hot and it yields a lightly frosted 318gr projectile. Depending on how many and what pig bones are encountered, recovered slugs are generally 100% weight retained. Using Hercules 2400, my load runs around 1100 fps from either Ruger old model super Blackhawk and close to 1250fps from a Marlin 336. It will stop a charging sow, but not always kill, with a center of mass hit from any direction. This load does the same on any hapless deer of opportunity, with very few recovered slugs for evaluation. At a hundred yards or more out, the sight drop is significant. Not our load or slug of choice for any dedicated deer hunting and experience has shown the big slug even less desirable when hollowpointed for either animal. It makes a horrible mess of deer and is less effective on big hogs. Good skill to you.
Roy

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This is very good info. Thank you very much. And I understand that asking for a subsonic bullet that expands readily on deer but passes through and still serves as a hog boolit is dang near impossible. But this gives me confidence that I'm on the right path. Thanks again.

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Originally Posted by Jack Stanley

The last one I shot with a 245 grain hollow point went through over twenty inches of a Michigan white tail . Starting velocity was almost thirteen hundred from a six inch barrel , like the fellas say , they aren't hard to kill . We do have to hit them right though .

Jack

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what was the hardness and velocity of this boolit?

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Originally Posted by tja6435

I had Veral Smith of LBTmolds.com make me up a .432-370-LFN. You could have something like that hollow pointed.

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Any chance if you know what hardness it's cast at and whether or not they'll hollowpoint it? After all of my searching I've failed to find exactly the boolit I want for purchase and have almost decided to learn to cast my own. Big, heavy, soft, HP.

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Originally Posted by Drew P

Why not a shotgun slug? Lots of grains, major meplat, and could easily be made subsonic.

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That's actually the first thing I researched to do. I've got a bad *** slug gun, but the suppressor market is almost non-existent. The few shot-gun silencers out there aren't built for slugs. From there I went to a 45-70, but ran into the same thing. Big bore rifle silencer technology isn't quite there yet. I'm putting a .45 ACP can on this gun, but the longer barrel reduces the pressure enough at subsonic velocities to work.

Attachment 213898

What do y'all think of this boolit if I had it hollow pointed? Cast it soft and shoot it through a suppressor at 1000fps. I'm thinking it might be heavier than advertised at my alloy...375ish? I could even eliminate the lube grooves to make it heavier since I'm coating them. Lot of bearing surface for that heavy boolit so it should stabilize at heavier weights in a 1:20 barrel. That's not my design, so I'd have the front band at .43.

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Originally Posted by gunarea

Hey Bluerock2000
Our deer in central Florida aren't big either. The feral pigs however can get quite large. In my 44 slug inventory is a Lee and a Lyman 300gr mould. The Lyman mould is what I prefer and use. My alloy is clip on wheel weights with 40% pure lead and 5% tin added. I cast this alloy hot and it yields a lightly frosted 318gr projectile. Depending on how many and what pig bones are encountered, recovered slugs are generally 100% weight retained. Using Hercules 2400, my load runs around 1100 fps from either Ruger old model super Blackhawk and close to 1250fps from a Marlin 336. It will stop a charging sow, but not always kill, with a center of mass hit from any direction. This load does the same on any hapless deer of opportunity, with very few recovered slugs for evaluation. At a hundred yards or more out, the sight drop is significant. Not our load or slug of choice for any dedicated deer hunting and experience has shown the big slug even less desirable when hollowpointed for either animal. It makes a horrible mess of deer and is less effective on big hogs. Good skill to you.
Roy

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I'm very curious about this. For instance, what does a pure lead solid .44 slug do at 1000 fps in gelatin? Surface area increases by 10%? Or 50%?

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Originally Posted by Bluerock2000

Any chance if you know what hardness it's cast at and whether or not they'll hollowpoint it? After all of my searching I've failed to find exactly the boolit I want for purchase and have almost decided to learn to cast my own. Big, heavy, soft, HP.

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You need to talk to Eric at Hollowpointmolds.com. He will hollow point almost anything. If that's what you want, talk to him to make sure he will work on it, buy the mold, and send it to him. I don't know about Veral but most of the makers on this board will send their mold directly to Eric to be hollowpointed.

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Originally Posted by Wayne Smith

You need to talk to Eric at Hollowpointmolds.com. He will hollow point almost anything. If that's what you want, talk to him to make sure he will work on it, buy the mold, and send it to him. I don't know about Veral but most of the makers on this board will send their mold directly to Eric to be hollowpointed.

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Thanks Wayne. I actually contacted him two days ago with proposed designs.

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Originally Posted by Bluerock2000

Any chance if you know what hardness it's cast at and whether or not they'll hollowpoint it? After all of my searching I've failed to find exactly the boolit I want for purchase and have almost decided to learn to cast my own. Big, heavy, soft, HP.

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It's a custom mold I had cut to my spec's by LBT. Veral (of LBT) doesn't do any hollowpointing. It can be cast whatever hardness you'd like once you have the mold in your hand. I usually shoot for 10-12 bhn on the big heavies. I can look to see if I have any cast up. They'd all be sized to .431 and lubed with LBT Blue. I'd offer to cast up some fresh ones but it'll probably be the better part of a year before I'll be set up for casting again. Check out lbtmolds.com, I would offer that Veral's LFN (long flat nose) are better suited for 100+ yard shots where his WFN is for within 90 yards or so. Now I think of it, I do have a .430-280-WFN from LBT as well, I can dig and see if I have any of those cast up as well if you'd like.