45 Colt, MP 454640 Penta HP Field Report

[Bigslug]

Provided that load groups, shoots clean, and you don't have any difficulties casting the bullet, I'm seeing NOTHING there that needs to change. My last deer dropped in his tracks and his heart was slightly more blown up. . .but that was with a 130 grain Barnes out of a .308 that struck at around 2600 fps. My more common experience is that they take about ten seconds for the brain to get the memo that no more blood is forthcoming. Really, what you have is about as good as it gets - and with no meat damage. Well done!

I segregate my range scrap by jacketed, shotgun slugs, and other people's cast for sake of consistency - - the jacketed cores are therefore starting a little softer than your 11 BHN, and my pistol alloy has recently become 20 pounds of that to 4 ounces of tin when the pot gets switched on - sometimes adding more if the fillout isn't good. Functionally, though, I think our metal is in about the same place. If you're getting good fillout with straight range scrap, I'd say you hit on a lucky mix, and my only caution would be not to count on that with random scroungings.

[Tripplebeards]

There’s no given caliber imo to guaranteeing a deer is going to drop and its track no matter how soft or hard, the alloy is, or how fast, or slow, the bullet is driven. BUT hydrostatic shock is also a big factor imo. Most of the cast boolit guys will never load to shoot at hydrostatic velocities. I can tell you in my experience I’ve noticed a huge difference in terminal performance once I get to the 2100 fps mark with cast HPs. To me it’s just like shooting a coyote with a hard, non expanding, full metal jacket versus an energy dumping ballistic tip or Vmax at the same speed. There’s a BIG difference in how that animal is going to react when you get a soft fragmenting bullet to dump all its energy vs a hard non expanding bullet. I’ve shot deer with a super hard non expanding cast boolit with a big side metplate and also with a super soft cat boolit in a hollow point and can tell you there is a night and day difference on deer. In the end a well placed shot will kill a deer EVERY time. I just like “upping the odds” of watching deer drop at the shot so I use super soft HPs. I don’t give a zip about “eating up to the hole” lol. I get six extra tags automatically with my purchased deer tags each year and purchase unlimited tags across the counter. I also couple 100 yards off three side of my property and can’t afford to watch a deer run after the shot loosing it to the neighboring property.

[ChristopherO]

This is the through and through hole left by a WFN 45 caliber boolit cast from soft range scrap. It was 420 grains and left the barrel at 1,600fps, striking the big doe with a quartering to shot. The scapula was hit upon entry, so, yes, there as bone to expand the projectile even more than it would have with rib hits only. Yet, as you can see, the hole shows much larger than a mere .458". And even with such a hard impact her run was approximately 60 yards. They won't always slump over. I don't expect it. The spoor was well defined and easy to follow.



Personally, I'll take the softer slug over the hard cast. I've not had an issue of an expanding boolit or bullet veer off into parts unknown while traversing through a game animal.