I went ahead and ordered some of those really heavy for caliber hardcast bullets that some of you swear by. I'm now wondering if my .41 is going to be able to stabilize the longer, heavier bullet. I went with a 250 grain bullet. Of course the standard .41 mag bullet weight is 210 gr. Just curious if anyone has had a stabilization problem due to longer/ heavier than standard bullets, or if handguns are less prone to this than rifles. Thanks in advance.

Twist is always important but there is still a large range. I shoot up to 330 gr in my .44 SBH and they are very stable.
In my fast twist BFR's my load is only 1/2 gr less then in a slower twist Freedom or Ruger.
You should find a sweet spot in the .41 by just working loads and I am sure they will be under max.
Your groups will tighten until the sweet spot, then start to open again with too much powder. Just back down to the best load.
Keep us posted.

Some guns do not like the heavy for caliber bullets.

I know my BFR in 500 will not shoot bullets over 440 gr. without key holing at 25 yards. Anything 440 and below shot great in my BFR 500 Mag. But I don't see a need for anything over 440 gr. to kill any game in North America and most of Africa.

You will have to see how they do. But to be honest, the 250 gr. bullets will not kill any better than the 210 gr.

So how did the 700 grain bullets hit that you shot in the 500 S&W

The 250 Grain 41 bullets will certainly out penetrate the 210's

My 4" S&W shoots 265 grainers WLFN just fine

quote:

Posted 20 January 2010 18:55 Hide Post
So how did the 700 grain bullets hit that you shot in the 500 S&W

The 250 Grain 41 bullets will certainly out penetrate the 210's

My 4" S&W shoots 265 grainers WLFN just fine

GOOD QUESTION, JWP.

quote:

Originally posted by jwp475:
So how did the 700 grain bullets hit that you shot in the 500 S&W

The 250 Grain 41 bullets will certainly out penetrate the 210's

My 4" S&W shoots 265 grainers WLFN just fine

I shoot them out of my S&W 500 Mag only now, for what ever reason the BFR does not handle heavy bullets well, but my S&W does.

As for the BFR, they hit the paper close to point of aim, but key holed. I did not try them at 50 yards, because I am sure they would of had worse accuracy.

Also, I did not say the 250 would not out penetrate the 210 gr., I just said it would not kill any better.Dead is Dead!

Almost all the game I have shot with hard cast bullet have gone completely through the animal, so who cares how much more it penetrates if it is out of the animal?

I killed a lot of deer with a 158 gr. hard cast bullet when I was using my Ruger Blackhawk 357 Mag for hunting. I did not see a need to jump up in bullet weight just to kill deer. I was already blowing through them with the 158 gr. so why would I need to jump up in weight, unless I was going to hunt something with a thicker hide like a hog.

325 gr hard cast Keith's shoot great in my .45 Blackhawk after I reamed the cylinder, ditto for the 300grs in my .44 Redhawk. I bought bunch of each from Lynn Halstead a few years ago before he went out of business.

Once a boolit gets too large, it can't be driven fast enough to spin up.
Would I go to 400 gr in the .44----NO. Would I go to 250 in the .41---YES. Would I go to 400 in the .45 Colt---NO but I do go to a 347 gr---TOPS.
Each gun has a limit so a 700 gr in a .500 is over the limit. But it seems like over 500 gr in a .500 should work fine. I have some nice 520 gr boolits shot from the .500 Linebaugh that shot great.

quote:

Originally posted by bfrshooter:
Once a boolit gets too large, it can't be driven fast enough to spin up.
Would I go to 400 gr in the .44----NO. Would I go to 250 in the .41---YES. Would I go to 400 in the .45 Colt---NO but I do go to a 347 gr---TOPS.
Each gun has a limit so a 700 gr in a .500 is over the limit. But it seems like over 500 gr in a .500 should work fine. I have some nice 520 gr boolits shot from the .500 Linebaugh that shot great.

I agree some what, but the 700 gr. to me is for playing around, I don't see a need for anything over a 440 gr. for my 500 Mags.

The onle way he will know how well the 250 gr. work in his 41 Mag is to shoot them. The gun will let him know if they work well.

quote:

The onle way he will know how well the 250 gr. work in his 41 Mag is to shoot them. The gun will let him know if they work well.

I agree, I think they will do fine.
Besides someone else can shoot those 700 gr boolits too, I still have a sore spot on my hand from Marko's beast. The bone hurts at the base of my trigger finger.

I'll give ya'll a range report once I've gotten them and tried 'em out. Thanks for the replies and I hope it works fine.

I'm sure they will work fine, Daniel. Keep us posted!

I tried some sized down 45-70 405s in my taurus 454. They made some reasonable groups but key holed with velocities from 1200-1550fps.

I have some 340-350gn WFN style bullets with the same base, but different Meplat size (70%, 80%, 90% ). When loaded to around 1350 fps the 70% and 90% bullets seemed to be very stable out to 800 yds. The 80% bullet shot good to about 200 yds, but after that you never knew where it was going to hit.
The suprising thing is that if the 80% nose destabilized after 200 yds, then the 90% nose should have been worse.

There are theories and general observations about bullet stability, but you still have to shoot it and see what it actually does.

I did not shoot paper targets at all the ranges. I aimed at silouettes in 100yd increments and noticed where the dust flew.
From a bench rest it was fairly easy to adjust holdover in the scope, shoot 10 rnds of each and move to the next range.

Glen, I make it a habit of recovering boolits to study. My boolit trap is full and needs dumped but with 3 to 4' of snow, it has to wait.
One thing many don't think of is just a few BHN points can ruin your boolit. The wrong alloy can make you blame the boolit.
I have many boolits on my bench right now that show land marks double the width of the lands from skidding the rifling. The marks on the base are larger then the rifling too which leads the bore from gas leakage. Even water dropped WW metal is too soft in some calibers. These are PB boolits and a gas check would help.
Many times it is not the meplat or boolit design, only what happens to the boolit when it is shot.

This was one test with fast powder in the .44, 231 and Unique. The boolits are 28 to 30 BHN, 25 and 50 yards.

Now this is a softer boolit, 22 BHN, same loads.

This is the difference in boolit skid with different alloy. The left 347 gr .45 boolit is perfect. The .475 boolit is too soft.

The wrong lube that is too hard will ruin accuracy. This is a recovered commercial boolit that has lost some lube. Accuracy goes to pot. Compare to the .45 boolit above that is clean of lube.

Well guys, I finally had took the chance to go and shoot a bit. I didn't have time to make it to the range, so this was fairly informally shot across the back of a John Deere gator into a ditch. It did appear as though the highest load of H110 was the best. I did have a bit of unburned powder residue in the first inch or two of the barrel, but no leading whatsoever for 23 rounds. These are five shot groups, which I know some of you will frown on for a six shot revolver (so I'm a titewad, that's ok), but I did use the same five cylinders for each group. Also, I was unable to find any exact data for this powder/bullet combination, but as some of you pointed out, Hodgdon did have data for a similar bullet and the bullet manufacturer told me over the phone to start at 17.5 grs of H110 and go up to 18.5 grs. Without further ado, here they are. I must say that I was hoping for a bit better accuracy, but I suppose if the best group can repeat the 2" groups, it will do. Sorry about the signage. I brought the paper, but forgot the staple gun and was running low on daylight, so I just went with it. I'm sure ya'll have all been there before.


The lowest charge of 17.5 grs. H110


17.8 grs.


18.2 grs. (the guy who was with me was kindof breathing down my neck while I shot this one, and I claim one of the fliers as my fault.


and the best group of 18.5 grs.


I've also not shot my pistol as much as I'd like to have lately, and was definitely getting back into the groove the more I shot.

These loads were all fairly light on the recoil, and the gun didn't heat up at all. I mean not at all. It was 45 F or so, with barely any wind.

I would like to push these a bit further and see if the accuracy gets even better, but being new to the hardcast stuff, I'll defer to ya'lls judgment. The primers are slightly flattened, but this gun always seems to do that, even with the lightest of loads. The cases ejected easily. I'm not too sure of any other signs of pressure for a wheelgun, so please chip in. As I said before, there was absolutely no leading whatsoever. Thanks for all the help guys, and please feel free to let me have it again.

Daniel

There is absolutely no reason to need a gas check to prevent leading wita "hard cast" bullet. Many confuse a soft swaged pure lead bullet (tht will lead when driven fast) with a hard ast, 2 different animals.

18.5 grains was max for the 250GC bullet with H-110 according to Hogdon. A plain base bullet will make a bit more pressure than the same bullet with a GC, so I'd ay that yoiu are already loading a top end load. Chronograph them and see how fat they are going

Have fired many 245 gr. bullets out of my .41's with no signs of any stability issues. H110/WC820 works well with these; I get 1300 or so out of a 6" bbl M57. Recoil is a bit much in my 4-5/8" bbl. Blackhawk at this level. Accuracy has been good.
C.G.B.