I've a 10" Thompson Center Contender barrel in 300 WHisper that I bought several years ago. I've never been happy with how it shoots. A few days ago I was staring down the barrel and realized it seemed to have a very, very long chamber so I dropped in a bullet and then a case and measured the length of the two and got my over-all length. I've been shooting 125 gr Ballistic Tips so I didn't have the bullet length to even worry about OAL. Turns out I was way, way short of the rifling.

So I tried out 180 grain Lee bullets cast in wheel wieghts with 12 gr of Blue Dot jammed into the rifling. The accuracy was VASTLY improved.

Finally the question. I taped two targets to an eight inch cedar fence post. All eight bullets whizzed through the posts with no appearant expansion! Do I dare shoot at deer with 18o gr wheel wieght bullets? Got any clues or input? Should I throw in some lead to soften the bullets? Is this normal? Would my load go through a railroad tie? I'll worry about hunting loads next but the BD load was really promising.

A friend of mine shoots 150 gr Ballistic Tips through a 15" 300 wh. barrel at 1100fps with very little blast. He says the deer flap their tails and keep grazing eventually just collapsing when their hearts stop. I do not want to hunt like that! I want my bullets to expand like a normal person would. Comments?

You may want to post your question on cast bullet at this board also:

http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com

I don't think you will see much expansion out of that bullet at the velocities you can drive it with the 300X221.

It would likely penetrate full length though!

I told the farm owner that I could attempt a Texas Triple- shoot a buck (Texas Heart Shot) following a buck following a doe.

I've used that Lee 180gr cast bullet on a deer two seasons ago. It will kill deer! But no expansion at all! They just drill a hole strait through, and did good damage to the lungs.
My load was a 30-40 Krag @ 1800FPS.

Take the WW bullets, prior to lubing, heat treat them at 450 for 1 hour and quench in water.

After 24-48 hours, when they have reached their max. hardness, which will be in the 30-35BHN range. Put them back in the oven at 250 degrees for 45 minutes and quench in water.

This will bring the hardness down to around 20-22 BHN, which should expand without fragmenting at 1800-2000fps velocitites.

The best thing I can tell you to do is to get "Jacketed Performance with Cast Bullets" by Veral Smith. Some don't like him, I have no problems with him and find his casting infomation very valuable.

I use his heat treating methods for WW's all the time and have had no problems with field results using cast bullets.

There are also methods, that I can't give you now, since my book is at home, that instruct you how you can get expansion of those WW bullets even if you are pushing the bullets at 1000-1200 fps.

It's all in the way you heat treat the bullets, and with no leading of the barrel, if you follow the instructions.

Good Luck and good hunting,

HL

A fellow shooter at our range was a big shooter of that bullet out of his SMLEs. He wasn't much into hunting, but his father-in-law bugged him until he went. He shot one with that bullet at 185 yards (SCOPED SMLE), thought he missed, shot again. Either hole in the lungs would have be fatal even at that distance. Starting velocity was about as stated above ~1800fps.
Do you have any feel what the velocity is with that load?

A non expanding bullet is a poor choice for hunitng. You would not shoot AP would you? Get some FN or RN bullets designed for the 30-30 and see how they shoot.

Lots of folks have used hard cast bullets to kill deer. Some have used 22 Rim fires. If you get down to it you could kill a deer with a pointy stick or big rock. You have to draw the line on what is will make reliable humane kills. Hard cast a bullet is not going to get it done.

If you really must use a home cast bullet try softer alloys and see if you get some expansion. A 20:1 alloy might work if you do not try to shoot it too fast. You might get 1500 fps before leading becomes and issue. That will expand like crazy and shoot flat enough. A flat nose bullet design will help some too. The 31141 is a dandy bullet. SOme of the Lovern designs might be good with your long throat.

A couple of thoughts. The 300 whisper has a very fast twist barrel, but apparently the T/C version isn't as fast as the SSK's. That said, fast twist barrels are difficult to get any speed out of with lead bullets before the lands start tearing up the bullet, so you either have to use a very hard alloy, or keep the velocities down. Both of those options are counter to what you want to do for hunting.

I'd suggest trying some of the 110 gr sp bullets. In my .308 which has relatively generous chamber dimensions, I get much better accurcy with the 110's than with the 125 gr balistic tips, and those are mild ~2000 fps blue dot loads.

If you want to hunt with cast loads in a 10" contender, I'd suggest trying a 357 maximum or larger bore barrel, ie 41 mag, 44 mag 45 colt. The smaller bores, ie 30 cal and under, really need a soft and light for caliber jacketed bullet to do their thing.

You say your friend is shooting 150's at 1100 fps. why not try out a softer, much softer bullet? WW ain't gonna expand at that velocity, unlikely that anything harder than 10 BHN would, 8 would be better, and it's no big trick to drive pure lead that fast, and that would offer the best choice, if the pressure to get there don't trip you up.

But that 300 Whisper just ain't got the oomph to drive a bullet that will work the way we want when shooten deer. A larger case would go far to resolving the problem.

My problem, it appears, is the jump to the lands shooting the 125 gr bullet. I can get 2,000 to 2100 fps with the light bullet but accuracy has been poor. It's too late to worry about it anyway as the season here starts in three days, Nov12. I have a 357 Max I may use.

I primarily hunt with one of my rifles. Probably again with my .376 Steyr. I use a 235 gr .375 Speer bullet at 2300-2400 fps. I am a believer in the big bullet going slow theory (I grew up shooting slugs). I shot a buck last year jumping a fence. THe bullet flung him sideways, threw him to the ground and he didn't twitch. The meat was perfect right up to the hole. None of the magnum hipervelocity macho witchcraft for me!

I'd like to shoot cast in the rifle but haven't gotten around to making a .375 sizing die yet.

If I am not mistaken, your bulet has a round nose. You would be better off using a flat nosed bullet in a softer alloy. If you want to stick with a heavier bullet in the 180 gr. rane, I would suggest the RCBS #30-180-FN. Make your alloy a 50/50 mix of Wheel weights and pure lead. Size the bullet to .310" and that should do the trick.
FWIW, shooting at a chunk of wood will not give you any decent information. First off, the wood will restrict expansion. It just doesn't give like meat. At one time, the big ammo cpmpanies would state how trhere 30 caliber 180 gr. bullet would penetrate 24 .75" pine boards set one inch apart, or some such distance. I guess that was a great idea if one wanted to kill pine boards.
I suggest getting a bunch of old newspapers, enough to make a stack about 18" high. Tie them up loosely in 6" bundles and give them one hell of a good soaking. You really want them soggy. You should be able to place four rounds into that stack of bundles. What I would do is shoot two rounds at the maximum range you are comfortable with, then two more rounds at literally point blank range, say 12" from the bundles. This way, you will have a good idea as to how those bullet will expand at your max range and at up close and personal.

I did a similar test years back comparing factory jacketed 30-30 bullets with my own cast bullets of similar weight. The bullet at the time was the Lyman #311291 cast of pure wheel weights. Expnsion and weight retention was exactly the same for both bullet types.

Before I forget, the RCBS bullet I recommended weighs out at 190 gr. in wheel weight metal. A 50/50 wheel weight/lead alloy might be a bit closer to 200-210 gr.

Paul B.

I've killed several elk, a buffalo, a truck load or two of deer, and a fair amount of antelope with hard cast bullets. Shoot them where they are supposed to be shot, and they won't go 25 yards. Just use a good heavy flat nosed bullet.

My young daughter has used my 308 Scout and a cast bullet load to kill her first 4 deer. All were one shot kills. The bullet is a Lyman/Ideal 311291 which is a gas-checked roundnose hollowpoint cast from a 7/1 wheelweight/lead alloy. I load it over 22 grs. of Alliant 2400 and the velocity is 1853 fps. I've yet to recover one of these bullets. The first one she used on a deer definitely expanded evident by the bloody spot on the inside of the skin where the bullet stopped. Subsequent kills have offered no evidence of expansion however. None of the deer acted like deer that had been shot with a hi-power rifle as they allran a little ways. If I were concerned about a cast bullets ability, I'd shoot them in the shoulder.In my experience this is pretty much as foolproof shot.

Thoughts on .30 cal and Cast Bullets
As has been pointed out, the problem is the case more than the bullet. The .300 Whisper is designed to throw heavy bullets at moderate speeds to knock down silhouettes. For this, it does a fantastic job. It was not intended for hunting deer sized game, although with jacketed bullets it might be barely adequate, the chamber/throat is cut for big long bullets and accuracy will be, as you found, mediocre at best. 14" barrels will give you a little more velocity, but they still won't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Its parent case, the wildcat .30/.223, does have the powder capacity to do what you want to do, and can be cut with a throat appropriate for 125gr bullets, so rechambering might be a viable option for you. In factory chamberings, either .30 Herrett or .30-30 is the way to go in a 10" Contender for hunting deer sized game.
Bullet-wise, Lee's 150FNGC is a better choice with those larger cases, though you could use your 180RNGC with a softer alloy. Expansion of .30 cal bullets is a problem at handgun velocities. Many casters heat treat their bullets after sizing in the oven to soften them, but dumping them in water when they're hot hardens them, despite myths to the contrary - air cooling them will give you the softer result. One poster at the CB forum (I recognize at least two other members that have responded in this thread, too) mentioned above used a torch to soften just the noses of water dropped wheel weight bullets, resulting with performance like a low velocity "partition". The bases of the bullets were sitting in water up to the top of the crimp grooves during the operation and he had IIRC a rate of about 50% usable bullets surviving the process. This has the advantage of keeping the driving bands hard so that they don't strip in the rifling enabling a few hundred fps more than you could get with the softer bullet without excessive leading.
Even with minimal expansion, proper shot placement at a reasonable range will still put meat in the freezer, but with a medium bore like the .30, it is nicer to have a little expansion and decent wound channel to insure a quicker kill and easier tracking. Flat nosed bullets seem to be better performers in this regard.
The best Contender barrel in .30 cal to use with light bullets is the .30 carbine, but it is strictly a small game proposition. Expansion is still problematic within its velocity range, and Lee's 113gr FNGC "soupcans" perform about the best of the designs I've experimented with.
Last but not least, an easy to make and use testing medium for expansion is a row of three or four water-filled milk jugs. Leave the caps off when you're shooting at them or they will explode, and bring a roll of packing tape to patch the holes. The bullets can usually be recovered in the second jug and the performance in the water is similar enough to ballistic gelatin to give meaningful results without the mess and hassle.

I have mentioned this before on a different thread. Ross Seyfried wrote an article a couple years back in Rifle magazine about casting rifle bullets with a pure lead nose and alloy body. The results (photos) were pretty amazing, with perfect mushrooms, and he claimed the bullets hit like Thor's hammer.

He used a .25 ACP case to pour the nose portion of a single cavity mould, if memory serves, then poured the remainder with an alloy. It would be somewhat time consuming, but you aren't talking about casting several hundred bullets...

I remember that article and put the idea on my "some day I'd like to try it" list. It surfaced again when there was mention of someone on the CB forum trying it last November. I do not remember that it was tried on game, but do remember that it was fired without the excessive leading that a soft bullet would have caused. I believe it was in the .45-70, but was paying more attention to the experiment with regard to the leading issue than to the caliber.
You'd need two melting pots, and I'd imagine they'd have to be run fairly hot. I do like the idea of the dipper made from the small .25ACP case - that is a neat way to prevent overfilling with the pure lead and a larger bottom pour pot might help you top it off quickly with lino or other hard alloy before it cooled off.
Speculation on my part, but I would assume (maybe incorrectly) that if the initial pour of pure lead was allowed to harden much before the mold was topped off with the harder alloy that there would be a weaker bond between the two layers that might cause them to separate under the stress of impact with the body of an animal. A hotter pour would presumably form a thin interface zone between the two layers where they would mix and crystalize at the same time. I think it's worth an experiment or two.
I do not believe that it would ever make the Whisper into a deer hunting cartridge - 1100fps is just not enough to insure a humane kill with what amounts to a non-expanding load, but it could really improve the performance of cast loads in the larger .30 caliber cases. I still feel nelsonted1's best alternatives for hunting deer are rechambering to .30/223 or upgrading to either the .30 Herrett or .30-30. The 7.62x39mm could go on the list, too, if one were so inclined, though the rims on the other two make for quicker extraction.
N.B.: The Sierra manual lists many different bullets for the Whisper, some of them hunting bullets, but not one of them attains the velocity ranges those bullets are designed to expand within, including the 130gr SSP offering.