Fantastic Cast Bullet Performance!

[Bayou52]

I thought I would inform of how satisfied I am with the RCBS 170 grain cast mold for 32 Winchester Special.

After molding a batch of these bullets, gas checking them and then powder coating them, I shot them out of my 1947 Winchester 32 Special. Today I shot them at multiple milk jugs filled with water.

I just wanted to share with you the results of that experiment.

Once the 170 grain bullet was powder coated and gas checked, it weighed in at exactly 180 grains.

After recovering the bullet from the fifth milk jug, I was astounded to see that it had a perfect mushroom shape and effect, and that it appeared to retain most of its weight. Upon returning home, I measured the weight of the shot bullet, and the shot bullet weighed in at 177 grains. Only a three grain difference!

Moreover, the diameter increased from .321 inch to .640 inch.

I simply couldn’t be happier with this bullet that was cast from the RCBS mold.

By the way, load that was being used was 33.0 grains of Accurate 4064 with a cartridge overall length of 2.375 inches. This load and configuration generated a muzzle velocity of 2050 ft./s. The lead was wheel weights.

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[Balrog006]

No pictures of this amazing boolit?

[Bayou52]

I’ve been trying to get the pics to post but no luck. Another try:

[dverna]

A perfect mushroom!!!

The next question is "Will it shoot?". For many cast bullet users, and in fact for most hunters, 100 yards or less is the normal shot. "Accuracy" is almost irrelevant. But "accuracy" is something I like to have unless shooting steel gongs at close range.

I can get shots to about 250 yards where I hunt, and for the handful of hunting bullets I use a year, cast bullets have no place in my rifles for "serious work". I invested the cost of a good mold into 500 premium jacketed bullets many years ago and still have 350 bullets left. Most of the bullets used where to dial in a one MOA load. I use 3-6 bullets a year to check zero and one to harvest a deer each deer. Call it 10 bullets a year. For the cost of a mold, I have a lifetime of bullets that will outperform any cast bullet.

You have a winner with that bullet if it meets your accuracy needs!!!

[Balrog006]

Great looking boolit indeed, nice even expansion. Do you know the composition of your WW mix and/or the BHN?

[Bayou52]

Thanks, Guys, for your kind remarks.

I don’t know the wheel weight mix or BHN. I basically used ordinary wheel weights and voila!

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[gwpercle]

Awesome results !
Thanks for postig .
A good hunting mix is 50-50 COWW and soft scrap lead ...
they mushroom nicely and extend your supply of COWW's .
Bhn of 9.5 - 10 or thereabouts .
My lever is a 30-30 and 170 gr. FP gives similar results ...

Keep On Keepin On
Gary

[405grain]

Bayou52; Great results and thanks for posting. I hope that in the future you end up posting some photos of a fat buck that's been harvested with your load.

[Bayou52]

Thanks so much, Guys!

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[Kyle1116]

Great performance! I got similar results to this with my mp 359-640 castings with the small hollow point pins using 20 to 1 alloy at 1000 fps. Makes for a really nice soda can popper.

[35 Rem]

I don't see how you could improve on that! I also have a 32 Special that I bought purely to be a dedicated cast bullet deer rifle. Mine is a Miroku 94 Short Rifle from a limited run in 2018 as far as I can tell. I bought the RCBS 32-170 FN mold also and used it to get my 1st two deer with that rifle. Range of both was about 100 yards and velocity was about 2,170 ft/sec. I got full penetration as is typical but based on the fact that the deer only ran a short distance before dropping, I know I got good expansion. I haven't used that bullet to hunt with since, because I wanted to experiment with a larger meplate and got an Accurate 32-180A. I've killed 4 deer with this bullet that I can recall and honestly can't see any measurable improvement over the RCBS design. Having an alloy that will expand and not break up is at least as important as nose profile.

[Bayou52]

Thanks for your story, 35! I’m very interested in your hunting results with this bullet, so thanks for that.

For myself, I’m strictly a range shooter and don’t hunt at all. So, until shooting these milk jugs, I had absolutely no idea how this bullet would perform in an impact situation!

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[Bigslug]

Did a quick informal crunch of your penetration figures with Fairburn's jug formula. Depending on damage (or not) to the back wall of your fifth jug or denting (or not) of the leading wall of the sixth, you're looking at something like 20"-24" in ballistic gel.

Should be a very effective smiter of deer and pig. How do they group?

[Bayou52]

Thanks for the info, Bigslug. The bullet passed through 4 milk jugs and the front of the fifth. The back of the fifth jug was dented but not penetrated and the bullet was recovered from the fifth jug.

The rifle is a 1947 Winchester Model 94, known as the “flat band” given the forward barrel band is flat rather than convex. The flat band was used only in 1947 and 1948, as I understand, and signifies that these were the first of the post-war commercial production rifles.

A pic of the rifle is attached showing the flat forward barrel band.

Accuracy wise, I’m only an average shooter. Of course, the rifle has no scope so at 100 yards, I’m happy with a 3-4 inch group with open sights. A better shooter, I’m certain, could get better groupings!

Pic:




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[Shiloh]

Wonderful pics. Deer medicine for sure!

Shiloh

[Bayou52]

Thanks, Shiloh!

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[Bigslug]

Thanks for the info, Bigslug. The bullet passed through 4 milk jugs and the front of the fifth. The back of the fifth jug was dented but not penetrated and the bullet was recovered from the fifth jug.

Basically, a two-footer for gel penetration then. Perfectly acceptable for Bambi: The Alternate Ending.

Accuracy wise, I’m only an average shooter. Of course, the rifle has no scope so at 100 yards, I’m happy with a 3-4 inch group with open sights. A better shooter, I’m certain, could get better groupings!

Meh. If that's what you're getting, you're golden. You've got a rifle with about a 150 yard point blank trajectory for an animal with about a 8" kill zone. No, it's not an open country rifle, but it was never intended to be. Sweating Benchrest cloverleaf groups with such a rig will only make you older, faster.

It looks like your middle-hard alloy is getting the job done for the RPM threshold of your rate of twist, so cool. You might shoot a little better going a little harder, which will also decrease your expansion and up the penetration some. For the express purpose of turning milk jugs into fog banks, it looks like you're set!

[Bayou52]

Thanks a bunch for that information, Bigslug! Very interesting, indeed!

Sure is a load of fun creating something that performs!

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[murf205]

The jacketed manufacturers would be jealous of that mushroom. Good work brother. They would have it in their catalogues and websites, but lucky us boolit shooters can make our own without having to finance a box of their products!!!

[Bayou52]

Well said, murf, about us casters not having to finance the manufacturers!

The reason I adopted the “roll your own” philosophy is to be insulated from the ups and downs of the component market. So, we finance the manufacturers and nonetheless we have all been victims of the famine years of the past few decades where supply shortages of many components hit us hard. In short, I decided, like many of our shooter brethren, to accumulate a lifetime supply of the components I use and simply to make the projectiles myself! I know that is a common sentiment amongst our forum members!

Thanks for your kind words, murf!

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