Frustrated and near broken

[Edward]

About 25 years ago, I went deer hunting with our 2nd son, who was 11 at the time. I made a shot on a doe using my Marlin 45-70 and a 455 gr slug with gas-check, this was about 30 yds away at dusk. I fired and she just stood there - so I jacked in another one and fired again. This time, she turned and ran about 50 yards back the way she had previously walked and we lost her in the dark. We were both dumbfounded and I told my son that I must have hit the scope and knocked it out of alignment.

Our host heard the shots and drove out to pick us up; we decided to go ahead and look since 15-20 minutes had elapsed. We found her dead with two clean 45 holes thru her neck - but neither had clipped an artery or hit the vertebrae. There was almost no blood trail. I’m convinced we would have lost her if we had pursued immediately - we were just lucky to have waited so she could lay down and die.

The point to this story is that a lot of people would say a .45 hole causes a lot of damage and should logically bring down any animal but both kinetic energy transfer and shot placement are key to quick kills. You need a balance of power and accuracy to get the job done cleanly.

That's why you shoot behind the shoulder not the neck ,if you had either shot would be DRT or major blood trail
(RAY CHARLES ) could find /Ed

[sharps4590]

I believe you need to get away from the shoulder shot and personally, I like about as heavy a bullet as I can get.

Almost 30 years of hunting with cast bullets, exclusively, from the lightweight this year of 200 grs., 9mm up to 480 grs. in my 45-90. I've never lost an animal and there's been several pick-up beds full of game. The farthest one ran was about a 200 lb. hog that went about 400 yards. It wasn't the bullets fault, I hit him a bit far back with a bullet that was too hard from a 40-82 WCF. The vast majority fell where they stood or went down within a few yards.

When I worked up the load for the 9 X 71, the 35-200, RCBS bullet was the only one I had. I'd prefer 250 but the RCBS bullet works so good I've never bothered to change. I'll take penetration over expansion every day, every time.

[dverna]

With the amount of time I’ve put in I can’t help but to think you’re right. And yes I had become angry with components availability is what lead me down this hole. I too am a guy that likes 1 load for one rifle. Today I pulled out a box of old stock Sierra game king 165 grains and zeroed the 308. To hunt the rest of the season

I use the same bullet. If you need more and you cannot find them send me a PM. It is MOA in both my .308’s. Not trying to get rid of them, but will help you out if you need to put meat on the table.

Good luck!

[Lloyd Smale]

Sloughfoot, your post is refreshing in its honesty.

I went down that road decades ago and learned I was better off using jacketed bullets in the .30 caliber rifles I hunt with. It is not possible to get the accuracy and ballistic performance of jacketed bullets with cast. I want one load whether shooting at 50 yards or 400 yards.

My method has worked for me. I bought 5 boxes of excellent jacketed bullets. I had a MOA load with less than a box of bullets expended. The remaining 400+ bullets will last my lifetime. I use 3-9 bullets to check the scope every year, and 1 bullet per deer...I do not shoot more than two per year as that is plenty of venison for the two of us.

I do not plink with my hunting rifles, so I do not shoot cast in them. I have cheaper and easier ways to get trigger time than shooting .30 cal bottleneck cases.

There is no advantage in shooting cast bullets in a HV centerfire. The few pennies saved per bullet are not worth the wasted powder and primers to find a decent load. And it is near, if not impossible to get a cast bullet to match the accuracy of a jacketed bullet or its ability to deliver adequate expansion from 50-400 yards.

I understand the ego thing of harvesting game with a bullet a person has made. It speaks to self-sufficiency, casting talent, load development, and getting results with "mediocre" resources. That word will upset some...but a .30 cal cast bullet is mediocre in every respect to a Sierra GameKing, Hornady SST, etc etc.

Wasting time is ok if a person enjoys load development. Wasting resources (primers, powder, cases, lead) is ok if a person can afford it. That holds for acquiring different molds and sizing dies to find the "right" one. In the end, most people accept something that is "good enough" when spending $200 for 5 boxes of bullets would give them a better outcome.

Even if I could harvest 50 deer a year, I would not dink around with cast rifle bullets. Saving a Jackson on half a box of .30 caliber bullets would not make sense to me.

i agree and have preached for years that cast bullets for big game start at .35 cal.

[Wilderness]

SF - I took down my first post from this thread when I realised I was working on a false premise - I thought your image was of a solid bullet, not HP.

I have no experience on deer, but have had a lot of success on pigs with hard cast hollow point 170 gn bullets (+GC) in .32 Special and .30-30 at around 2200 fps. My hollows appear to be quite a bit smaller than yours. My (Lyman) hollow pointing pin tapers from 0.114" to 0.078" and goes into the bullet 0.516". The hollow takes about 10 grains out of the bullet and stops before the first grease groove. Alloy is about 10% non-lead, or three parts hardball to one of lino. These bullets at 2200 fps will get through one shoulder and well into the second on a mature boar, but are still good for rib shots.

My guess is that your bullet was either too soft or had too much hollow, was perhaps a fraction light, and probably blew too soon and too much and failed to penetrate. The recipe for more penetration is a harder bullet and less hollow. You want the bullet hard enough and solid enough to get into the second shoulder, and you probably want about two thirds of it (by weight) behind the hollow. With my bullets, the noses eventually break up and go through as a cone of shrapnel, with the rest of the bullet penetrating seemingly for ever.

For another mould, I had a larger diameter and longer hollow pointing pin made up, and ran into trouble. With the same alloy and the same velocity I shot a boar in the shoulder and the bullet did not get past the first shoulder. That bullet was reduced 20 gns by the hollow, to 160 gns as cast. That first shot contributed nothing to the boar's eventual demise. This sounds like your scenario.

If I was starting again it would be with the RCBS 180 gn bullet suitably hollow pointed.

[WinchesterM1]

I’ve killed dozens of deer with a 308 win out of a TC compass(1/12 twist). With a NOE RD clone with the shallow hollow point. I’m using 37.5 grn of Varget loaded kinda long. I’ve had them all drop but one this year ran 10-15yards before she dropped, I don’t know how her heart was gone…


These were all killed with that load this year, Sig Sauer match grade brass, federal good medal match primers over 37.5 grn Varget with a hand weighted to the .01 168grn shallow hollow point using 25/75+3%sn (ww/pb)

It drops them like lightning but I always shoot a bit high on my deer most of the time if I can

[SSGOldfart]

Thank you for writing this! I hope many people read your response.

Good read and fine advice. Sorry about your deer,I think most of us have been there at some point. I've lost two in my lifetime and both have been with cast boolits,but nevertheless it possible with any bullet.just don't give up.

[MostlyLeverGuns]

I have not shot much game with boolits. I hunt with jacketed bullets, even in my 444, 45-70 and 358 Win. If I was shooting light deer under 75 yards I might consider, but finding BOTH velocity and accuracy at game killing ranges in Wyoming is very difficult and wounding critters is not on my hunting list. I run 2200 fps in the 444 and 45-70, 2500 in the 358 and usually faster in 308 or 300 Savage.
To paraphrase Bob Hagel, I want a rifle to work when things go wrong, not just when everything is exactly right. I also like a two holes, in and out. It is too easy to mis-judge a shot angle,miss a tiny twig in the shot line, or have an animal move/turn at the shot to gamble on marginal capabilities of a marginal or lightly loaded cartridge. I like boolits for relaxing recreation, mildly loaded for pleasant practice, low muzzle blast and light recoil. I want immediate death when killing and jacketed bullets are just better for that.

[MT Gianni]

I have had complete penetration with the RCBS 150 and the Ly 311440 (148 gr). I have trouble believing your bullet was too light.

[Wilderness]

I have had complete penetration with the RCBS 150 and the Ly 311440 (148 gr). I have trouble believing your bullet was too light.

Context: Too light for a big hollow point - not enough left when the front has blown off. HP bullet has two mechanisms, throw around some pieces as the nose goes off, and then penetrate with what's left. It's the "what's left" that prompts the comment re possibly too light. If "what's left" is 150 gns it too will perform as you describe. I just weighed a recovered bullet on my desk - 71 gns including the gas check, down from 175. Core issue could be the hollow taking up too much bullet. No data on that yet.

[white eagle]

hp's are only as good as the alloy they are made of
make them to hard the fail make the malleable and they are wonderful

[todd9.3x57]

i have killed 13 - 14 deer and my son has 6 or 7 deer with the 165gr ranch dog(173gr actually/COWW with a little bit of tin) with the 30-40 krag and a charge of h4198 going 1924fps. its all been 1 shot kills and they all DRT.

shoulder or behind the shoulder are a complete pass thru. the furthest shot was done by my son and it was 173 yards using laser range finder. the shortest shot was around 20+/- yards done by me.

50 yard recovery thru a 3/4" piece of plywood and into the dirt. left and right of the pix

[Wilderness]

hp's are only as good as the alloy they are made of
make them to hard the fail make the malleable and they are wonderful

WE: I'm sure there are more ways to skin this cat than one. When I was shooting a .44-40 carbine, the recipe was a big hollow point, soft bullet and BP velocity. Now I am running with 170 gns (175 with GC) .30-30 at 2200 fps the alloy has to be harder both for accuracy and for penetration, and the hollow has to be matched to hardness and velocity. Less velocity or smaller hollow will allow, indeed require, softer alloy.

What I use now started from the basis of the HP mould I have, and the intention to run at full power. Then came hardness. Lino casts 164.5 gns in my mould. Bullets made of it shoot well and penetrate both shoulders of a mature boar, but create inadequate damage on rib shots on smaller pigs. Soft scrap runs 178 - 180 gns. Bullets cast 176 gn lack accuracy and blow up on the ribs. Usefulness and accuracy start at about 172 gns. The lower boundary for adequate expansion is 168 gns. Hence the aim-for weight of 170 gns. This corresponds to about 10% non-lead in the alloy. Bullet weight is my proxy for the non-lead part of the alloy. Lead:tin are in the same ratio as in the source metals - hardball and lino.

I consider my .30-30 cast bullet loads to be as good as, and often better than, jacketed bullets for all but the frontal chest shot on big pigs. They are not quite as accurate, but only by a minute or two. I shoot for pest control, so seldom have the luxury of picking the perfect shot, and most shots are at running pigs at bad angles. Range is seldom more than 100 meters. Bullets must and do handle the angles, including THS.

My hog tally with HP cast bullets is now up around 3,000.

[Good Cheer]

Just my way of doing things...
Make the boolit as soft and as heavy as that (probably 12" twist?) rifle will handle and push it as hard as you can get by with. Don't worry about lead build up because hunting isn't bench shooting. If the boolit that works has a nice streamlined shape* like the older Lyman 7.62x51 designs then hollow point it so the front end falls off when it hits.
The newer 7.62x51 design Lyman #311644 might just be the cat's meow with a shallow hollow point to jettison that pointy nose. It even has a frag groove behind the point like on a Mk. II pineapple to shed the point.



*Any help towards preserving the down range velocity is a plus.

[megasupermagnum]

I'm just going to share what initially comes to mind after I read this a couple of times. I think you missed the shoulder. That's the problem with shoulder shots, it's about a grapefruit sized target. If you miss low and back, you probably get lungs or spine, but any other direction and you get nothing. Especially at 200 yards, good shooter or not, you could miss 2" high, and you just shot through the backstraps. The good news is that this is survivable. If you had hit anywhere on the shoulder, even from a pipsqueak cartridge like a 380 ACP, you would have disabled that deer. If you had hit into the lungs, you would have found something, at least a bed you bumped them from. I think you put two bullets through backstrap or neck meat. My recommendation is shoot for the top of the heart. You can miss 4" in any direction and you still have a dead deer. Your load sounds more than adequate. You have a 160 grain bullet up around 1900-2000 fps, that's right in the territory of a factory 30-30 Winchester round. By your own pictures you have a bullet that is performing fantastically.

[sloughfoot]

I appreciate all the positive reply’s and good solid criticism. I’ll be revisiting a few areas of my load.

[Tripplebeards]

I appreciate all the positive reply’s and good solid criticism. I’ll be revisiting a few areas of my load.

I found my old posts. Might or might not help. First post is to hard of an alloy. I still recovered all the deer the next morning. So I’m guessing you didn’t hit the vitals or CNS on your deer or you would have found them. I’ve shot deer with broad heads that never expanded. Looked like a FMJ or field point hit them. I have a photo of the heart of one with the arrow thst poked through it. Both of those deer went 40 and 45 yards. Shot placement is key.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...my-devastators!!!

Pretty frustrating after you worked up an alloy an load…been there, done that. I have a 16:1 alloy in the boolit but I haven’t been fortunate enough to run into a doe in out anterless only season. I don’t use cast boolits during regular season like posters stated above. I use them for “meat deer testing” …not a buck of a lifetime.

Here is a softer alloy at a much faster velocity with a DRT….


https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...n-HP-group-buy!


I need more deer to step up to the plate so I can get some testing done.

[farmbif]

ive found in life its not how many times you fail at something but what's most important is how many times you get up and try again. over the time ive read about hunting with cast bullet loads the guys that are very successful seem to always say that softer alloys are best for hunting. and the same is said by glen fryxell
in his book that he so unselfishly share with us.

http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Contents.htm

[ilcop22]

The first deer I ever took with a cast boolit was using a Springfield 1903a3 and a Lee C309-180-R. I cast the tip of the boolit in soft lead (just above the ogive) and let it cool slightly while holding the mold closed. I then cast the rest of the boolit in hardcast lead and water cooled. Essentially, I was experimenting with a soft point cast boolit. It dropped a large doe on the run in one shot, causing her to tumbler over after it broke her spine. I'd have to go back and find the powder charge, but it was most likely a decent dose of IMR 4985. Needless to say, it worked for me but YMMV.

[ElCheapo]

Not trying to be a jerk, but I think you missed the shoulder too. I hunted public land in Pennsylvania for years, and I can tell you if you don't put your deer down quickly here someone else will be shooting at it! I took shoulder shots exclusively with my Marlin 94C in 357 magnum using 180 grain WFN GC's at 1750 fps and any deer I hit was down on the spot. Complete penetration, breaking one or both shoulders and ruining heart and lungs put meat on the table every time with no tracking involved. I saw the same thing with my 30-30 using the Lyman 311041 at 2150 fps, and this year I tried the Lyman 311008 PC'd at 2200 fps to shoot a buck in his bed at 75 yards. The small bullet broke both shoulders and exited, taking out one lung in the process. The deer was never able to get to his feet and expired on the spot. Entrance hole in the hide was 3/4 inch, while the exit was 1/2 inch. Holes through shoulders and ribs were around an inch all the way through and meat loss was minimal. Next I'll try my new NOE mold for the Ranch Dog 150 grain 30 cal. The wider meplat on this bullet should be even better, and PCing it lowers the BHN to 10 ensuring the bullets hold together and penetrate. If I can get 2400 fps with good hunting accuracy it should work for anything around here. So for me at least, shoulder shots and large meplat bullets have been extremely effective on whitetail deer.