Hi All,
I've been lurking for some time while working on a new project and have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge and advice from this forum. Glad to be finally officially join the party. My project is this: I recently got off a deer lease because they're ridiculously expensive in Texas and I've got two kiddos that nobody told me weren't free. The good news is we live on five acres, have great neighbors, and quite a few deer. We typically eat six deer a year, so I want to continue filling the freezer. I started researching for this project last winter after shooting a buddy's suppressed .308. Great gun but not a caliber/projectile suited for deer at subsonic velocity. I settled on a CVA Hunter 44 mag, single shot, 1:20 twist, barrel will be cut down to 16". I've been working on load development and have found off the shelf ammo to be lacking. The only jacketed bullets that will suitably expand at 1000 fps are self defense rounds in the 200gr range and, while these will be moderately efficient on a small central Tx whitetail, broadside, behind the shoulder, it leaves a lot to be desired for obvious reasons. The 300gr jacketed HP's do not expand sufficiently, if at all, at this velocity. I understand that a hard cast boolit with a wide meplat will penetrate completely, but I'd like a bigger wound channel (without sacrificing an exit hole) to increase the chances of the deer dying on my property or as close as possible. I.E., a boolit that expands to .70 has an increased surface area of over 400% when compared to a non expanding boolit with a .30 meplat. I bought some 275 gr HP's from Matt's Bullet's (Matt is awesome BTW) cast at 20:1 and have no doubt they'll work. But I'd like to know I can punch through a hog too. So I'm looking for suggestions for heavy weight boolit molds (350ish grains) that I can purchase and have modified to HP if not offered by the manufacturer. Also any input on boolit design, etc. And what am I missing? All my calculations say that the gun will stabilize the heavy boolit easily. OAL of cartridge with the 275 gr maxed out to the lands (I'm not shooting them this way, only to measure) is .785 with a gas check, so I should have plenty of room. Bullets will be powder coated for suppressor use (my wife paints custom Yeti cups so I've already got the set up.) Below are links to a few molds I'm looking at. Will one design serve better for HP's? If you've made it this far thanks for reading and sorry for the long post.
http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_...=43-350R-D.png
http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_...=43-340C-D.png
http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_...=43-340S-D.png
Brady