I'm thinking I'd like to drop a sow with something really hard and fast, preferable heavy, too. I understand if it's really hard, then you can go alot faster without friction problems. How hard is hard enough, so that fast is not too fast?
I'd like to avoid the jacket, if you know what I mean. Call me cheap. But then again, I don't want stuff just spewing out the end of my tube.
What I want is .358" Keith ~310 grains, capable of doing ~2500fps. I suppose it will end up acting like a FMJ or other non-expanding solid.
Would BHN 17-19 do it, or do I need to go harder?
Very new to casting, and no experience whatsoever driving mag speeds.
Thanks for your help, you filthy-minded freaks!

{added:}
Any guestimates as to how long this sucker would end up?

[ 10-01-2003, 10:39: Message edited by: Bwana-be ]

Thats fast and heavy for a 357 revolver

My head hurts.
I just spent the last hour and half reading through the archives, and half of those at shooters!
I should mention I'm using a case that holds 119gr of water, and a barrel that's 26" long.
This is no revolver.
It's not "meant" for shooting CB, but I thought I'd like to try to find a really heavy bullet, for experiment and for kicks - pun intended.
I see there's a 270g mold, and I thought someone mentioned a 300g or so.
My barrel is a 1-in-12. I'd be interested in hearing thoughts on how heavy/long a bullet I could meaningfully attempt. One reason for the Keith was for the stubbiness, but I see that with cast you need to be sure you have plenty of bearing surface to get a seal. With a 300g or heavier, there would be around .96" of bearing surface, which seems like a lot. Not sure how this changes when using gas check.
Is it that true that for high velocities, more grease grooves are better?
300g .358" Keith at 2500 fps, that a good bear load?
Surely this isn't unchartered territory. How hard should it be to keep from exploding on impact (elk-class game) at around 2000-2150 fps?
And has anyone experimented with cast bullets using rebated boattails? This might improve accuracy by mitigating the turbulence caused by the "fins" at the base as it leaves the bbl.

I'll let you guys sleep a few hours before I bug you again.
Paul, you still have that 358009 or whatever it was for sale?

Well sir....

I see no particular problem with your desire for 310 at around 2500 in a case the size you're using (but didn't identify).

My .416 Rigby Ruger #1 will happily drive a 365-grain RCBS gas-checked bullet to over 2600 fps, WITHOUT leading, but of course there's a price to be paid by the shooter!

If you intend to fire your bullet into a critter, then your concern should be with how the bullet behaves after impact. It will indeed act much like a "solid", but the biggest factor wil be in making it hang together on striking bone, meaning that it should NOT shatter, also meaning it cannot be too brittle. Straight wheelweights in water-dropped form should be about right.

I think you will be disappointed by the lack of so-called "knockdown" this load will possess. A solid's purpose in life is penetration and ONLY penetration, and they don't do a great deal of internal damage to animals.

I was forced to use some .404 Jeffery steel solids on Woods Bison one year (400 @ 2200), and the animals did not react AT ALL to the impacts, even though I could clearly hear the big THUMPS as the bullets struck. If I had hit some big bones perhaps the reaction would have been different, but....

Just so's you know, pard.

Regards from BruceB (aka Bren Mk1)

Man, you got a researchy application, allright! For the first trial, I'd fill the case to the bottom of the neck (leaving 10 grains of air space in half of the test rounds, and no air space using a plastic filler in the other half) with WC860, using a 320 grainer boolit or thereabouts. You have a round that is a 50BMG cut in half, just about exactly. Use a Winchester Magnum primer as the only primer because of its force in getting the boolit moving to provide some air space for the flame to develop more quickly. Should give you 2700 fps. ... felix

Now, what's the succes rate of soft nosed hard cast bullets?
I know they're a lot of trouble, but do the work?
Is the mushroom likely to stay with the base, or just fall off at the cleavage?
(Case is Jeffery)

How do hollow points (like the #457122 in 45-70) perform when cast in water-dropped WW metal? Any expansion, or do they act like solids, too. I know that HPs of regular WW tend to shatter back to the base of the HP cavity, not making a "mushroom." I read years ago that the heat-treated stuff is not only harder, but more malleable, but I haven't gotten around to doing any testing.

Ricochet, it's better to say: the harder it is the more brittle it is; the tougher it is the more malleable it is. Copper is harder than lead, for example, but it is almost as malleable. Go a little further with the same thought, and then you will be playing with gold. Add the copper to gold at a 10 percent by weight ratio, you have a KrugerRand. Antimony is very brittle, tin not so brittle. So adding antimony to lead you will get a brittle boolit. Add some tin, you soften it up quite a bit, but still much harder than lead by itself. Add a small amount of copper, and then you will have a harder and tougher boolit at the same time. Keep in mind that the hardness number tells nothing about the boolit's shear strength, nor its mushrooming capability. ... felix

Felix, what I'm dimly remembering is the first mention I ever saw of heat-treating lead-antimony alloys, in the American Rifleman circa 1970. The author claimed that normally lead-antimony alloys were brittle even though they were relatively soft because of the large crystals of antimony surrounded by the lead matrix. The heat-treated alloy was supposed to initially have the antimony in a solid solution that, over a period of a week or so, crystallized out in very small crystals that effectively made the alloy much harder but didn't cause the fracture planes of the normal annealed alloy. There were pictures with the article of normally annealed hollow point bullets broken off at the base of the cavity with plain cylindrical base pieces left, and of heat-treated ones that had expanded into nice mushrooms. This was very different from what you got when making the alloy harder by adding antimony and tin. That's why I'm asking if anyone's seen this in their own experience.

[ 10-02-2003, 07:59: Message edited by: NotRicochet ]

Cast soft nose bullets work fine, at least at reasonable velocities. Too slow and even pure lead won't expand much. Too fast and the hard base may shatter if it hits bone. I don't know what the upper velocity limit is but would definitely stay below 2000 fps.

If the hard base is poured hot it will weld to the soft nose. It is possible for the bond to fail if not poured hot enough.

Ricochet, now that would be worth a try. But where to find a clean alloy? The antimonyman, Bill Furgeson, would have such an alloy, or can make one. Have any idea of what the antimony content should be to duplicate that circa 1970 story? How pure should the lead and antimony be for a good duplication? I've always added tin to the mix, just to cover the antimony if nothing else. Prevents leading at normal velocities when the antimony is known to be excessive, like when playing with lead babbit. ... felix

Felix, I don't have the article on hand and my memory's unreliable that far back, but I believe he was talking about plain wheel weight alloy (which of course is rather variable.) But I definitely recall him mentioning that plain wheel weight alloy could be heat treated to be harder than Lyman #2, and I believe that is what the rest of the above applied to as well.

Modern wheelweights come out BHN 11-13 air cooled, 20-22 when dropped from a hot mold into a bucket of water, and 28+ when heat treated in an oven.

I believe air cooled lino is in the 22 range.

Paper patching does help get around some of the leading issues. I grabbed some 385 gr pure lead bullets from a maker selling them to BP shooters to use in muzzle loaders with sabots. I paper patched the whole bunch and loaded a few for my 45-70. I haven't worked the loads up, but initial testing at moderate velocities in dry phonebooks has the bullets flowing into whatever gives the least (they went pretty straight into the books, but seemed to yaw away from the binding, mushrooming impressively) resistance but staying together. I want to go ahead and build up my loads to see what I can do at longer distances, as these are boattail spirepoints, just hollow enough at the tip to call them hollowpoint. Pigs may require something a little harder.

[ 10-04-2003, 11:43: Message edited by: 45LCshooter ]

In a recent Handloaders, Ross Seyfried covered the 'softnose' cast bullet pretty well(two pots of alloys and a measured homemade dipper for the nose) and has had several articles on paper patching. The secret to expansion while having the bullet remain in a single piece seems to be the used of pure lead. It remains together by natural cohesion. When alloyed it begins to break apart. The downside is with the expansion, you begin to lose projectile length which acts as a rudder to maintain a predictable path after contact. That pretty much covers the paper patch. With the cast softnose, having maybe the first 1/4 to 1/3 soft and the remainder hard should allow initial expansion but allowing penetration even if the nose is wiped completely off. In effect you have a hard full wadcutter continuing on a relatively straight course. All very much like the Nosler Partition. No terribly specialized equipment either way so why no try both?