So when it's all said and done do cast bullets travel through like a military FMJ or do those large metplats flatten out to larger than the original claiber dimater at all to create a larger wound channel ??

depends on what there cast from what velocity your shooting the at and what your shootin into. My buddy and I did a penetration test with two inches of oak board followed by 45 inches of wet news paper and even the bullets cast from 5050 wheelweight and lynotype showed substaintail expansion. That is a very extreem test though. Id like to tell you what they look like after going through a deers sholder but Ive never recovered one!

Soft bullets driven at reasonable velocities mushroom wonderfully. Driven at high velocities the splatter.

Hard bullets may tend to fragment at the nose or simply not deform at all - depending on what it hits.

As with any projectile the key to penetration is velocity.

Lloyd speaks the truth.

I'll go one step further. What is a jacketed bullet...but lead surrounded all or partially by a jacket. Do they expand? Depends on same variables.

I used to shoot a hollow point cast bullet from .45ACP that came out the backside of jackrabbits looking like a silver dollar. I would call that expansion!

You can do it all with cast.

A cast SWC 1n .44 or .45 starts out as big in diameter as a 7mm rifle bullet would get after it expanded. The meplat tears rather than penciling through. On pigs, you would certainly be better off with a SWC than most of the jacketed bullets because you can count on it breaking big bone without breaking up. Deer is a tossup. I know folks who swear by cast SWC and folks who want the greater expansion of a JHP.

But your worries about a large caliber cast bullets being as poor a killer as military FMJ are groundless. The work just fine whether they expand or not.

I think you are on the right track for the .45-70. Lee makes a 405 grain HP mould that is wildly popular among .45-70 shooters. Worked well for me when I was shooting a .45-70 although I never killed anything with it.

You ought to do just fine if you can locate a source of good quality cast bullets. I have been less than happy with commercial cast bullets which is why I do my own. Were I in your shoes, I would ask around and find a serious caster to do a few hundred bullets. You are not likely to find high quality cast bullets on the shelf of your local gunstore, but you ought to be able to find a small custom operation that knows what they are doing or a serious amateur not averse to making a few bucks.

You being in Australia is what mskes this hard. In the states, I could steer you to some reliable custom caster or even send you a sampler of stuff to try.

FMJ stuff just makes a small caliber hole. What you shoot, is what you get.

To get the idea of how a flat nose cast bullet performs, drop a flat rock into a pond of water. Observe the displaced cone of water around the rock, and the fact that the water expands enough that the back of the rock doesn't get wet until it is well under the surface of the water. A big flat nose has the same kind of action, and it works well!

Thanks Gentlemen,

I think the time has come to give these cast bullets a go !!