Pure lead for slow bullets?

[lebrew]

I worked up or down a load for a buddy with a 45-70, He wants it as a backup for hog hunting but he doesnt like the loudness, recoil and expense of the ammo. i asked him to save me some brass and if he bought the dies and bullets, powder and primers, I would reload them at no cost. I wanted to do a little experiment with reduced velocity bullets so I used a 405 grain lee die, cast pure lead and used alox as a lube, With a bit of Trail Boss I got them to 900 fps, no leading and consistant point of impact. They flatten out quite nicely. Point is , why do we use hard lead in slow applications? Im thinking softer stuff would expand reliably from handgun velocities in a flat point design where no HP would even come close to, and still have the mass needed for penetration. Anyone else think softer heavier bullet is better?
lebrew

[Harter66]

Truth of it , most of my pistol loads are soft (range scrape mostly,but I sort mine so its cores or cast),I shoot 357,9mm,45Colts/ACP,even run the same boolits in the carbine as the 6" 357.

I'm shooting a 1-20 in my sks ,paper patched,just above super sonic.

[troy_mclure]

you want some hardness to break bones and help with penetration. a too soft boolit will expand too shallowly and use up its energy too soon, robbing penetration.

[hansumtoad]

Ditto, Troy's answer. 20:1 traveling at 1500 or so won't let you down.

[nanuk]

I dunno....

if a pure RB will penetrate through a shoulder, and lodge on the other side, or complete penetration (which from what I read is very common) I would think a heavy conical should do well at reduced speed. it may expand, but not that great, and should still break bone.

but then again, in my neighbourhood, WW is Cheap to Free, Scrap is sometimes cheap IF you can find it local, and Pure Lead from a retailer is near $5.00 delivered.

[leftiye]

It's a no-brainer that you're right. So long as pure can be shot accurately (not deform etc, and lose accuracy while in the barrel), and hold together it is superior to harder alloys. As mentioned, in some instances harder is needed to avoid big time deformation that negates penetration. Tin and copper in your lead will both make it harder, and tougher. As was said 20 to 1 (5%) up to 10% - the maximum amount of tin that will truely alloy into lead, can be used. Add 2% copper to your 10% tin alloy, and the BHN will be about 18. This boolit will probly work well at 2400 fps or thereabouts. Both for mushrooming, and for handling the hotter load.

[44man]

I love pure for hunting.
But the revolver has strict limitations with hardness because of boolit destruction before it even leaves the brass, then at the cone and rifling start.
Smokeless powder! Load with BP and you can go much softer.
What is missing here is the effect of fast powders on soft lead.
In the 45-70 rifle, even with BP, there are boolit designs that slump so bad they are useless.
Anyway, what works in a rifle can not be shot in a revolver.
Not counting a cap and ball that does just fine with pure balls.

[jlchucker]

The rifled muskets of the Civil War period were not especially known for high velocity with their pure lead mini balls, but it seems like they had no problem breaking or shattering bone when they hit. At some pretty decent ranges, too.

[BABore]

I love pure for hunting.
But the revolver has strict limitations with hardness because of boolit destruction before it even leaves the brass, then at the cone and rifling start.
Smokeless powder! Load with BP and you can go much softer.
What is missing here is the effect of fast powders on soft lead.
In the 45-70 rifle, even with BP, there are boolit designs that slump so bad they are useless.
Anyway, what works in a rifle can not be shot in a revolver.
Not counting a cap and ball that does just fine with pure balls.

Horse Pucky!

YOU can't shoot soft alloys with fast powders in YOUR revolvers. Don't tar the rest of us with your faults. Myself and others shoot pure lead and fast powders on a weekly basis with great accuracy and no leading.

To the OP, if it works, go for it. My only concern would be how a pure lead boolit will react on the gristle plate of a hog. That stuff is hard on boolits. You have the weight going for you though. I might stiffen the Pb up with just a bit of lead myself.

[Larry Gibson]

Did 44man say that? I must have missed something? I thought he said 'I love pure for hunting."

Oh well, pure lead (or close to it as I like to put just a tudge of tin in it, 1-40 or less, to make it cast a bit better) makes for fine cast bullets at lower velocities with PB'd bullets of upwards of 1400 fps or so with some GC designs. Some bullet designs will, in the 45-70 as mentioned, "slump" very badly giving poor accuracy if pushed too hard with a fast burning powder. Many designs work very well though especially at 300 - 400 fps cat's sneeze levels or upwards of 800 - 1100 fps for loads like the OP worked up.

I'm partial to a very soft cast Rapine 460250 over 8 gr Bullseye in my 45-70s for 1050 fps and excellent accuracy. Soft lead bullets as such have been used in the 45-70 at such velocities for over 128 years. I guess PITA has been issuing body armor to hostiles, horses, deer, antelope, elk, bears, buffalo, etc because a hundred years ago the boys in blue had no problems killing any of those with soft lead bullets in 45-55 loads, or muzzle loaders for that matter or the other CF cartridges of the day. The boys in Africa had no problems with "penetration" using lead balls and bullets on large game, even dangerous game. Maybe the lead we have today just isn't the same.............

I've been using softer alloys in my revolvers and CF rifles with solid and HP cast bullets for over 40 years to kill a variety of game including hogs. A soft lead expanding bullet will give a whole lot more "penetration" than some apparently think. So will a correct HP of correct alloy that expands efficiently causing a lot more internal wound damage than any WFN hard cast bullet does. That increased terminal effectiveness translates into quicker kills. Soft lead expanding bullets have been killing for over 500 years. WFN hard cast have been around for 30 years or so. I've killed game with both and quite frankly I prefer a soft cast WFN, a regular FN or even a RN with a correct HP for additional terminal effectiveness through expansion inside the game animal. I don't need 4'+ of penetration to shoot through 14-16" of deer nor through the "gristle" of a pig. But then I don't do Texas heart shots. I suppose if some do they really "need" that penetration.

To answer the OP's question; don't know why many use hard alloys in the slow applications. I'm sure the answers would be many and varied. The most common responses to that question I've heard from those using harder alloys in low velocity applications are because that alloy is what they have or because, they lack the experience and knowledge to do otherwise, or because some "expert" behind a gun store counter or on an internet site told them to. Soft lead works very well in slow velocity applications. Actually much better than harder alloys most often. Sounds to me like you got a good load for your friend that will meet his requirements, well done.

Larry Gibson

[troy_mclure]

The rifled muskets of the Civil War period were not especially known for high velocity with their pure lead mini balls, but it seems like they had no problem breaking or shattering bone when they hit. At some pretty decent ranges, too.

well a .69" lead ball will do plenty of damage even if you just throw it! lol

[44man]

Yes, you read me right, I love soft lead and use 20 to 1 or 30 to 1 in my 45-70 rifle. The boolit I refer to is the Lee 459-500-3R that BPCR shooters have discovered the nose slumps off center. The best seems to be the RN gov't boolit.
I would not worry about a pure ball shot at any animal, just go bigger for bigger animals.
But unlike a few. I can not get accuracy from a revolver with soft lead. I could be OK at 10 to 20 yards I guess if I wanted my .44 and up to be pulled down to the cap and ball!
The cap and ball is a great deer killer but accuracy goes out the window right fast so it is a short range gun. I refuse to turn my big bores into 20 yard guns.

[geargnasher]

The nice thing, perhaps the ONLY nice thing, about Trail Boss is it is about as close to BP as any smokeless powder can be as far as burn rate. It all goes off at once, with an instant detonation, spiking pressures almost immediately. This is good for making soft projectiles conform to the bore and obturate quickly, which reduces blowby and leading compared to slower powders, but it does murder to boolit shape sometimes. If things are balanced right, and the boolit has a short round or round/flat nose, and velocities are kept sane, it makes sense that soft lead could be shot accurately and have a devastating effect downrange. 40 million dead buffalo don't lie.

A paper-patch might be the bee's knees for the .45/70 and TB powder with soft lead.

Along this line, Onandaga has done some fine work with the Lee R.E.A.L minie, the 500 S&W Magnum Handi rifle, and IIRC very soft alloy. His secret is getting the velocity right, and using ballistic filler to protect the soft projectile so it would seal, not deform the base, and exit the muzzle squarely.

Gear

[geargnasher]

BABore, I don't have much experience here, but I'll jump in anyway with what I have experienced. I can shoot acww-ish alloys in my revolvers very well, but I can't get close to the groups Jim puts up at 100 yards. The best I can do consistently is 4" for twelve shots at 100 with 16:1, and maybe 2-1/2 to3" with WDWW, seems I always get one flier per cylinder that makes the groups that big with the softer stuff. I tried oven-heat-treating some 50-50 ww/pure .44 Keith boolits, got about 21 bhn, and the one time I shot them I got several 2" groups at 100. Haven't done much work with it, but I've sure seen a difference the hardness/toughness makes in revolver accuracy.

Gear

[Thumbcocker]

I thought velocity on Civil war era rifle muskest was around 1200 fps.

[leftiye]

I have mukest sometimes in the mornings. Cain't never blow it out that fast though.

[troy_mclure]

ill bet you can get some .45 inline sabots and cast a heavy .35 pure lead boolit for it..

[nanuk]

I might stiffen the Pb up with just a bit of lead myself.

I am still very new to this casting thing again.. so can you explain who you 'Stiffen' the Pb with just a bit of lead?

[Piedmont]

The boys in Africa had no problems with "penetration" using lead balls and bullets on large game, even dangerous game. Maybe the lead we have today just isn't the same............. Gibson

Oh yes, they did. This is why Samuel Baker went to Baby, which was sort of a small artillery piece. He couldn't get penetration on elephants and the like with his little ten gauges. They would fail on elephants and rhinos.

It was the switch to smokeless and jacketed solids that allowed the "little" nitro express rounds to take over in Africa and India.

[44man]

Oh yes, they did. This is why Samuel Baker went to Baby, which was sort of a small artillery piece. He couldn't get penetration on elephants and the like with his little ten gauges. They would fail on elephants and rhinos.

It was the switch to smokeless and jacketed solids that allowed the "little" nitro express rounds to take over in Africa and India.

That's true, they kind of flatten out on large animals and it is hard to drive a silver dollar very deep!
However I can't for the life of me find an elephant in WV unless I go to Wall Mart.