I have hunted with my lever guns all of my life. I just started this last weekend casting bullets. I used a RCBS 405gr. gas checked and a Lee 405 plain base to start out with. I used plain wheel weights and sized to .460. Both loads came up extremely accurate. I am now obviously sold that this is a new pursuit. Any suggestions on alloy hardness for elk hunting next year? Also, what mold would be more appropriate? Is a wide metplat really necessary with a 405gr. mold? I am also curious what everyone would suggest getting started with my 30-30 and a .357 Marlin rifles. My Marlin is a 336CB 30-30 and has ballard rifleing. I was thinking about Lyman 311041. I still have no idea on the .357. Thanks for any help. David

David, based on the very strongly held opinions here, you should use either a large meplat or a smaller one, to get more "smacking power" or a better BC, respectively. They should be hard or soft (or both), depending on whether or not you expect to hit a bone on your elk.

Your molds should be Lee, Lyman, RCBS, or something else, of a size and design that works best.

Seriously, though, you might want to peruse the last couple weeks of posts here, where a lot of what you ask has been beaten to death. You'll find a lot of opinions, mostly based on different people's experience, and some based on some people's opinions.

After you look around some, maybe you'll want to narrow your questions down a bit, and provide us with some idea of what you plan to use the boolits for, like hunting large or small game, plinking, target shooting, or just general "fun" shooting.

Hello David and welcome to the casting fraternity. For the 30-30 I like 311041, 311291, and the Loverin designs 311465, 466, 467. It's hard to beat the Keith design for revolvers. In the .357 that would be 358429, 358429HP or 358439, and 358431 HB. The 358311 is a round nose, but generally shoots well. RCBS and Saeco also make Keith bullets and better moulds than the new Lyman's. Beware, this is an addictive hobby, but loads of fun. shooter...

David
I started out casting bullets for the 45-70, back when rapid transit was a Conestoga wagon. Least wise that's what my two daughters tell me.
I've never hunted elk, but that does not mean I'm lacking an opinion. The 45-70 slug leaves the barrel at the diameter that most smaller jacketed bullets hope to get to be,upon impact.
I've used air cooled 400 grainers, 445 grainers, 350 grainers and anytime I like to remind myself why I'm not married I'll fire a few 500 grainers. The shock, awe and pain are just about the same.
It's my guess that a 400 grain 45 caliber bullet is going to, properly placed, give the elk pause to reflect upon his evil ways.
Jim

David. The bullets I have used in the 30-30 are Lyman's #311291, 31141 AKA 311041 and the RCBS #30-180-FN. The two Lymans have run about 178 gr. in wheel weight metal for me. The #311291 has been a decent shooter that I used for years, not only in the 30-30, but .308 Win. and 30-06. It's a good bullet. I have two Lyman 31141 molds and an NEI clone. All three cast good bullets, but I have had little success getting decent groups from any of the three molds. I am at a loss to explain this as most people seem to have great results with that bullet. Guess it's just my guns don't like that bullet. The RCBS mold cast a bullet that is, for all practical purposes, a 190 gr. bullet. That is not as bad a thing as you might expect. There are some old timers who still feel the old .303 Savage was a better killer on game than the 30-30. (.303 Sav. has a .308" bore just like the 30-30. The two rounds are about as alike as two peas in a pod, but are not interchangeable.) That 190 gr. bullet at 1950 FPS is a real killer on game. I've taken about twenty-five deer with cast bullets in the 30-30, mostly with #311291, and a few with the RCBS bullet. I like the RCBS bullet much better for hunting. It works real good in the .308 and 30-06 as well. I'm going to work up a load with it in a recently acquired Browning 1895 lever action. Should be a real fun gun to play with.
As far as the 45-70 choice, I'd vote for the flatter nosed bullet. Wheel weight metal should be just fine. It's already harder than the bullets that were used in the black powder days. Should penetrate just fine.
Paul B.

David welcome to cast shooten. It's nice to hear your first experiences were so successful... does give one the 'bug'.

If your shooting those 405 RCBS's otta 'as' cast ww alloy-- I'd suggest driven with enough authority you have your elk loading. Mind you I haven't had the pleasure of such myself but after reading these cast forums for some yrs now alloys of that hardness appear to give controlled expanison and hang together for deep penetration. And a 45 caliber hole needless to say is considerable with that RCBS meplat adequate for width. Sure a 70-80% meplat width/bore dia would be somewhat superior, but I don't think too many elk live to prove that RCBS lacking given decent shot placement. How fast are you shooten yours?

Suggest posting a new thread asking for 357 input as I'm sure many have been there. Best of Luck!

Hi Dave, I'd like to suggest using the 500gn bullet from the Lee mold, not sure the part#, but it's got a large flat nose. I use straight wheelweights, & shoot them outta Siamese mauser. They are very accurate outa my gun, they'll rattle your teeth & penetrate something awful. So make sure of your backstop , why just last week while shooting into the baskstop berm, I accendentally killed two chinamen in Tokyo

Hello all,

Appreciate all the good info. I just picked a couple of safe loads for trapdoor pressures to find out what gives. I shot my 405gr. Lee with H4198 at about 1400fps and the 405gr. RCBS gas checked with Benchmark at I believe 49gr. Hodgen claimed that the trapdoor loads went up to 50gr. I figured I could plink with 49 and get somewhere around 1600fps. This load shot right at 1833 in 30 degree weather. It had some kick, but I have shot another 405 jacketed at 1970fps, so am used to the kick. I can't believe factory was different from my specs by over 200fps. All I could figure is that maybe they did not use the gas check. Have not used Benchmark before, but found this load gave me sub MOA at 100 yards with my 7X scope setting. Never had anything fall into my lap quite like that. This gun is accurate and given the right load does very well. I guess it just likes cast loads. I saw over on the Mountain Mold websight that they started making a 405gr. with a 75% metplat. Might have to look into that. I ordered a Lyman 311041 .309 and RCBS 158gr. SWC...can't remember the#, but is gas checked. I really liked the RCBS mold. Again, thanks for all the info. I am going to do a test run of the 405 on a bison pretty soon. I will let everyone know how it goes.

I wouldn't sweat the meplat. The standard old time bullets for the .45-70 were round nosed and worked just fine. For that matter, up till the 1970s Lyman was still recommending round nosed bullets for heavy loads in 1886 Winchesters. Dunno if anyone's managed to cause a magazine explosion with them. Seems unlikely to me, as the case rim is much wider than the bullet end of the .45-70 cartridge and the rounds should tend to tip in a tubular magazine. I don't think the tip of a roundnosed bullet's likely to be resting against the primer of the round in front of it. At any rate, a lot of them have been fired in those rifles over 100+ years. I haven't heard of mass carnage of shooters as a result. But the latest manuals say you have to have a flat nose.

Hi David..Welcome to the brotherhood. As you have noticed we are not lacking in opinions. You will find cast bullet shooters to be experienced shooters, who like to blaze their own trails and have strongly held opinions that come from their experience...and I am no exception. Let me have a go at your issues.

1. 45-70 for deer and elk. Your RCBS 405GC cast out of WW will do as good as any bullet. Velocity above 1,500 fps is not need, but do your thing and let recoil be your guide.

2. I prefer Lyman 311291 in the 30-30. Like others I have not had good luck with the flat nose 311041 or it's clones.

3. 357 rifle. I like the old Lyman Thompson GC (358156)158 grain bullet for this use. It feeds well in Marlins and Win. 92 clones. There are many good bullets around for the pistol, but for a rifle, you really need a gas check design and it works just fine in sixguns as well.

Lots of luck..

I would use the softest bullets that will shoot well. I have used a lot of paper patched bullets on hogs. They expand like stepped on bubble gum and do not break up. My bullets are swaged from pure lead wire. I shoot them at 1800 fps. 400 gr of pure leat at 1800 pfs is a very effecient killer of large beasts. Think of it this way. The old buffalo hunters used very soft bullets and black powder. They killed millions of them. My observations indicate that shooting a hard non expanding bullet all the way through a beast does not work as well as big soft bullets that expand to the size of a silver dollar. Millions of buffalo might no be wrong.

For what it's worth -

I got interested in the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition several years ago and studied it. I learned that the corps hunters killed large game, such as elk, with 50+ caliber round lead balls fired from flintlock rifles fed with black powder that had been repeatedly wet and redried. Understanding that the round ball has the poorest ballistic coefficient of bullet shapes, I came to the conclusion that elk can't be that hard to kill.
In the last few years, I've gotten interested in learning more about terminal ballistics. Having never been a hunter, it never seemed important to me until friends started asking me about it. From everything I've read, I've come to understand that the two most important factors are placement and penetration. I was always of the mindset that expansion was very important. I no longer believe that to be true as I've seen numerous reports of VERY large and sometimes dangerous game, such as Capes, "drop shot" with non expanding bullets. I've had friends that hunt tell me of instant deer kills with factory jacketed bullets that did not expand at all simply because of excellent placement. I've seen many posts on various forums about quick, clean kills with hard cast bullets that deformed virtually none at all.
Unjustifiably, I confess, I make a lot of noise about bullet energy. I believe that is the key to penetration. Develop enough energy to get the bullet where you want it and past that point and the bullet will poke a hole in the vital kill zone. I don't hunt, but if I were to, I'd go after my quarry with a large, heavy bullet that would plow a wound channel completely through a carcass.

I don't need any help in making a fool of myself. As is obvious, I'm quite capable of that alone.

Puncher

Re: hunting in the old days.

They wounded a lot of game back then, too, and didn't lose a lot of sleep over it.

But a 45/70 should be heap strong medicine for elk.

scot,
I'm with you on the soft paper-patched boolits. I have taken 3 elk with a 510 grain at 1650 fps and none have traveled over 30 yards. The longest shot was at 125 yards the others were between 30 and 50 yards.
For deer I use a 310 grain at 1940 fps and they only go about 25 yards after the shot.
Never recovered a slug from a deer, but have recovered 2 from the elk, which expanded almost an inch !--JDL

Aladin:

"All the Buff hunters HAD was pure lead.. nothing else was available."

Not strictly true; I have a reprint of John Ratcliffe Chapman's 1848 "Instructions to Young Marksmen", which discusses alloys in use at that time including tin and antimony, so "hard" bullets were well-known before 1850. But no doubt on the frontier, pure lead was all that could be found - or afforded.

Wonder how the HBC will perform in my .303 Savage...; guess I'll find out soon.

Merry Christmas to all.

floodgate

I have killed a pile of deer with revolvers from the .44, .45 to the 45-70 with very hard LBT style boolits. The large meplat and complete penetration leaves a tremendous wound channel on the inside but little meat damage outside. I never have to track one. Then for years I killed deer with muzzle loaders and round balls that dropped them very quickly too. So we have to look at facts.

A soft or very quick expanding bullet going very fast never seems to kill as quickly as the same bullet going slower. These have the nasty habit of coming apart or stopping if driven too fast. Plus the nasty wounds seal faster and bleeding stops quickly. Now a very hard, large flat meplat boolit driven fast leaves much more damage in the animal and cuts very large holes in both sides. Bleeding is profuse and will not stop. Round balls from a muzzle loader are not very fast and do not flatten way out so penetration is good. Internal damage can rival a .300 magnum. Now if you drive this ball at 3000 fps., you might be very disappointed in it's performance.

What it boils down to is to select the proper bullet for the gun you use and the game you hunt whether a .300 mag, handgun or muzzle loader. You would not want to hunt deer with a hard cast in a 6mm or .30 cal., but in a .44 or .45 it is extremely effective if the meplat is large. You can not get a large meplat on a small caliber so it MUST expand. If you get carried away with the expansion issue and use a light varmint bullet at 4000 fps, don't expect a lot of meat. Just the opposite happens when using a very tough 180 gr. bullet in a 30-06 on medium game. It will poke a little hole through and you most likely will lose the animal.

So the question is not how hard or soft the bullet is, but what you are hunting with and are you matching the bullet to the game hunted?

I can give an illustration; Years ago while hunting in PA (small deer) I helped a fellow drag one out. When we got back to his car, I noticed a lot of holes in the deer. He was using a 30-06 with 180 gr. Silvertips. He told me he shot it and it got up and ran. He tracked it in the snow and shot it again with the same results. After about 2 miles and more shots, the sixth shot kept it down. I could cover all six shots with my hand right behind the shoulder.

Then I helped find a deer next door that was shot with a 7mm mag. The hole was big enough to put your head in, but it quit bleeding after 100 yds and went a mile. So you guys have to stop arguing about soft versus hard and just match the boolit to the gun. I forgot to mention that a round nose in the large calibers like the 45-70 are also effective, just make them softer.

"So you guys have to stop arguing about soft versus hard and just match the boolit to the gun"

Methinks the word 'arguing' isn't an accurate decriber of our postings. A good natured back and forth more for recreational purposes I suggest? Everyone's right in a sense IMO.

Rather than match the boolit to the gun, match the bullet to the situation [?] I suggest.

No I don't hunten no more. But that isn't saying I wouldn't if the right situation came around. Yrs back I woulda never considered a cast slug for hunting given the success I had with the better Q orange varieties. But if hunt'n I'd go-- I'd have to get a alloyed load together, likely for the Buff Classic.

Aladin, sorry about my choice of words! Guess I am still tuned to the old shooters site where everyone argued. I admit we have some very classy people here and never see any bad remarks. Also some very, very smart people too. I have to admit that I learn more then I give out. I can only relate what my experience in the field has been after around 320 deer now. (I stopped at 5 this season.Getting old I guess.)One thing I have fallen in love with is hunting with revolvers. I will never carry a rifle again.
Merry Christmas to you.

Hmmm.....either I ain't been doing it right or doing it backwards or the critters I shot didn't act right!

I am a proponent of using the softest bullet possible...meaning pure lead for thin skinned critters. Pure lead will hold together like putty, it just won't hardly come apart..it'll expand, flatten out but will stay together for the most part. I have killed deer with soft round balls and with bullets from my 45-70 and they work very well. I have also shot deer with hard bullets from a 44 magnum pissola and they failed miserably.....they poked .44 holes and contrary to making vicous wounds, they barely bled at all....5 holes in one deer and it still on it's feet isn't anything to brag about. IF the soft lead projectile goes all the way through, it will leave a huge wound as the bullet/ball will double it's original diameter if not more. Big holes leak better than small ones.....remember the Titanic!

Smaller calibers will not tolerate soft bullets made from pure lead at anything beyond sedate velocities..most of us know that....why? Well hell, we've tried it, that's why!

Don't be afraid to try something...experiment and see how it works. take nothing for granted regardless who says it will or will not, work.

I tried pure lead in my 45-70 and now will not consider anything else for a hunting bullet on deer..probably work well on elk too as they are thin skinned critters too. Back moons ago, the 50 Hawken was considered big BAD medicine on everything that crawled, it has nothing on a 45-70.

Hard bullets tend to break apart because they are brittle but they certainly will permit higher speeds...they tend to shatter against bone or just poke through with flesh hits. I don't think I would use a hardened bullet even on a tough critter because of the shattering potential...for these varmints I think a air cooled WW alloy bullet the best...it is harder than a pure Pb bullet but soft enough to expand and still hold together. If pure penetration is a key, hell, be smart and use jacketed bullets. cast bullets do indeed have limitations and some smart folks figured that out a long time ago...we can't re-invent the wheel or expect more from a cast slug than it is capable of giving.

I just think the hoopla over hard cast bullets is a mis-nomer and I was at one time their biggest supporter....until I broke down and used softer bullets on game. It was an eye opener.

Darn Jump you had to come in with the voice of experience behind ya...

My old shooten mentor swore by soft lead too.

Just wanted to add that I have only killed about 200 deer and a truckload of other critters..most with something other than cast bullets. But probably 25 or 30 head have fallen to a cast projectile of some sort. My first cast bullet deer was shot with a 30-30, the bullet was an air cooled WW 150 grainer. the bullet hit just right of the A hole and stopped in the brisket...maybe 30" or 36" of penetration and the bullet looked like a Corelokt ad! I think muzzle velocity was around 1750 and the range about 50 yards.

Jumptrap, my boolits are not extremely hard and never break. I would say they are about a no. 2 alloy or a tad harder. I need the harder lead in my revolvers. If I was to use my 45-70 rifle, I would not hesitate to use pure lead because they can't be driven super fast and would react like the round ball in a muzzle loader. I shot a lot of half pure-half hard boolits and they penetrated much better then jacketed bullets from my revolvers.
Like I said, it depends on the gun, the velocity and the game. No, I am not afraid of soft boolits but they just lead the bore and throats too bad. All the deer I have shot with the large meplat and harder boolit has shown scary damage in the deer. If I was using a smaller nosed boolit, I would make the nose soft.
I don't think there would be anything more deadly then a charge of black powder and a soft boolit of about 20 to 1 in the 45-70. Step up the charge to the max with smokeless in a modern 45-70 and I would not be shooting soft boolits.
You did not say what bullet style you shot the deer with 5 times. And if the first shot did not put a hurt on the deer, how the heck did you get four more shots in it? In my experience, the Keith style bullet has to be soft for deer. It does a better job cutting holes in paper.
As far as getting more penetration from a jacketed bullet in a revolver, doesn't work unless you use a rifle strength one and they do little damage. A bullet like the 240 XTP in the .44 has poor penetration and rarely exits, but internal damage is good from the mushroom. I quit using it because a raking shot might not reach the vitals and a big bone really slows them down. A 300 gr XTP is better but the 320 LBT can't be beat.
All I can tell you is we really agree on things more then you think. One thing I know for a fact is all the hunters around here using high power rifles lose more deer or blow up more deer and have to track more deer then I do with my revolvers (hard lead)or muzzle loaders (pure lead.) Fact is, I never have to track one at all. Of the three I shot with revolvers this year (one with a cap and ball) all were dead in less the 30 feet.
I have to tell you about the cap and ball. I hit the deer in the left shoulder and it shattered the big bone in the right leg in a zillion big chunks. I found the ball against the skin. The deer jumped my fence at the shot and landed in a heap on the other side. Meat damage was pretty bad and I had to make jerky from both shoulders. Very, very deadly.

the 44 mould I was using was that new(er) lyman with that scary looking hollow-point...about the size of a lard bucket. I was shooting straight down from my tree stand with a Colt Anaconda ( a real POS by the way) and the deer walked under the stand. The load I don't recall but think it was around 22 grains 2400. Anyway..I aimed right between his shoulder blades and let fly. The deer never even flinched..huh!!!! I gave it another and it looked around, I gave it three more and it walked about 20 yards away and started acting a bit sick but was also headed for a thicket made in hell. I only had 5 rounds, so the pissola was empty. I then shouldered the 280 ackley and blew it's ass off.

I got down and walked to the deer, rolled it over and there was 5 .44 caliber holes I could cover with the palm of my hand and there was 5 just like them on the bottom side. Oh yes, there was one little bug hole on one side of his ribs and on the other was one about 4 inches across. I think that was the one that killed it..har!

I'm not saying that pure lead is applicable in all situations, but it certainly works in my 45-70. The bullet I use in it, is the RCBS 405, sized 459, over 41.5 grains Re7.

Jumptrap, today was the last day of doe season and I had one tag left. My friend Dave had no luck this season so I took my .44. He moved in his stand and scared off 6 deer. I heard them run off so I sat at my 100 yd bench to wait for Dave. A bunch of does came over my fence and a big one was walking by fast at 30 yds. I shot her in the shoulder with my hard boolit. She went straight up and ran into trees and brush, crashing dead in less then 30 yds. Her heart and lungs were destroyed. Entry and exit holes were small (.44 cal) and meat damage looks very small in one shoulder. That is 4 deer this season with revolvers and 2 with my bow. Never tracked any of them.
I gave the deer to Dave and he has to come tomorrow to learn to butcher. Dab nab it, I just wish he knew how and took it home with him. I hate to butcher!

Hey jumptrap, I thought I would relate the two worst shots I ever tried on deer with a bow. I lost both of them. I shot down on them as they were walking away from me. The arrows went through the back next to the spine and exited in the front of the chest. The deer tripped on the shafts sticking out and there was almost no blood to track. I went a mile on one of them using footprints mostly with a drop of blood here and there. THERE IS NOTHING VITAL BETWEEN THE LUNGS. I would never again try a shot like this with anything, gun or bow. I learned my lesson.
A little lower angle and I could have hit the heart, but too low and there is nothing to hit again. I credit your poor results on the place you hit the deer, not on the boolit or gun.

For Black Powder I use a 405 HB RNFP with 67 Grs of FFg Swiss powder. This duplicates the old military load. and with a 1-40 Tin/Lead bullet will shoot through a buffalo at 150 yds and will still bust through the skull on head shots. For Smokless I use 3031 and a Lee 450 gr. bullet, again 1-40 mix. With the 450 you have to watch yur seating depth in the levers.