Hollow point struggles

[Barry54]

Making progress. Quick update for all y’all. I loaded some 230 grains j-word pull downs I bought from RMR and tested with the same charge weight of N310 and tried out the new Caldwell chronograph. I was surprised to see velocity in the upper 600 range.

So changed gears and switched to 3N38 powder and worked up to nine grains using the harder alloy HPs I cast. I got a ten shot average of 948.8 FPS.

Selected five boolets I was gifted and ran them through my Lee sizer. Dabbed on some more LLA with my fingertips and letting them dry.

Fixing to go fill up a Rubbermaid trash can with water near a rose bush I want to burn and hope to kill. Plan to test these five by shooting down into the trash can filled with water. Will update y’all after while.

[Barry54]

Results

Fired and recovered five from certified 20:1 alloy. They are all well expanded and close in diameter. 0.825” on the smallest up to 0.920” on the most expanded one.

Since I had such great results with the higher velocity, I decided to see how the ones I cast would perform going 250 FPS faster than my previous test. They did expand but not as well. Widest was 0.775” and least was 0.630” plus my alloy acts more brittle. One of the five lost about 1/3 of the mushroomed portion.

I will work on uploading photos here in a bit. I tried uploading photos from my phone a few days ago, and the site does not like the format or whatever the computer speak is.

[Barry54]

[Super Sneaky Steve]

Glad it's working out for you. No need for any alloy. Pure lead with a powder coat works fine.

[megasupermagnum]

I'm glad they are working. Looks a lot like one I pulled out of a raccoon. The split one is because I managed to hit the edge of a shovel perfectly. Not on purpose, but cool anyway. That 20:1 is a great alloy. I would use it in most everything if it wasn't 3x the cost of scrap range bullets. Soft, but super tough, and shoots good. I will admit there's nothing wrong with going even softer, I just have 20:1 in my pot.

[Bigslug]

Barry54, sorry I discovered this thread late, but you may find my work here helpful: https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...ed+range+scrap

The Cliff's Notes version is that it's a nerdy breakdown of some of the common metals we scrounge. The final determination on jacketed bullet cores is that they are a very low antimony content mix (0.3% on the sample I had XRF-scanned) and it hardness tested around 9BHN - or around 30-1 lead/tin equivalent. This would make it a good base for hollowpoints, but you'll want to stay away from water-quenching anything with antimony if your intent is expansion at low speed. My standard receptacle for air cooling has been the cardboard lid off a printer paper reams box lined with a ratty old bath towel.

Your bullet is very similar to the LBT 230 LFN (a touch longer with an added crimp groove) of which I'm a big fan. If you run it as a solid at GI hardball speed (830fps) of a non-expanding alloy, you can expect it to run in the nine milk jug range for water penetration with dynamic rupturing of the first three before it settles down into a simple hole punch. 230 grain jacketed duty loads that usually go about 14" in FBI Jell-O are typically 3-juggers. I'd be ecstatic to get a cast HP into a 4th, but an expanded .45 in that weight range is a big parachute, and I'd expect to see occasional bouncing off the back wall of jug#2 / entry wall of jug#3.

[pjh421]

Wow! That’s really nice work! Both of you.