I am fooling around with ballistic calculators in an effort to see if what I have in mind is even feasible. I am thinking about trying to put together a cast load for elk for 30-06. Its pretty clear to me that a 175 or 180 grain cast boolit cruising fast enough to expand (say, 1400 FPS at impact) would mean a dead elk without a lot of fuss assuming a good hit. The challenge is that where I am going for elk usually means shots between 200 and 300 yards. This year I am hunting with jacketed, but it should would be nice to use my own production.
When I plug reasonable estimates for weight, ballistic coefficient, etc. and set the zero to the appropriate distance to make bullet drop between 200 and 300 yards small enough for the shooting I would do, it looks like I need to get about 2400 FPS to get a flat enough trajectory and sufficient down range energy (and another hundred or two of muzzle FPS is even better). Is it possible or wise to do this with a gas checked cast boolit? It appears that pressures would not be an issue, just a question of whether the boolit and lube would be up to the pressures of that kind of speed.