Which do you think is more effective on game in your leveraction?Cast bullets or Jacketed?

Jayco

Jacketed - no contest.

Jayco, my comparisons and experience tend to lead toward hardcast. Both leverguns have taken meat for the freeezer, that is a 94 .30-30 and 1895G .45-70 I have used Mt.Baldy or Beartooth bullets and it seems to do one of two things knock em down know or they jump and walk a short distance and drop. Meat damage with hardcast is amazingly at a minimum-understandably why. Lately have been "tweaking" lapping bullets thru my Marlin to get bullets to "tighten" up and it is working out quite nicely. "Broke in" my .45-70 in last night with hard cast--40 rounds, ouch! Really likes them hardcasts - am loadin up 425WLNGC with 52grns of H322--what a thumper! Shootin .7"@100yds, just mounted couple wks back a "Scout" scope system on this and what a gun!

I only use jacketed bullets on game. lead is for practice as far as I am concerned.

Winchester 1886, 45-70, Winchester 92, 45 Colt, Winchester 95, 405, Winchester 95 30-06
Cast bullets exclusively.
Jim

jackets are for when its cold out side...
hot lead!

Well, if you could do it like Grizz007, a flat nose lead would be good.
So far my efforts with lead, lead me back to jackets.
Don't know about hard cast, was using something like Lymans No. 2 ? Wheel weights and some 50/50 lead-tin solder?
Damn things shot about 8" lower at 50 yards too.
JL.

In my Savage 99 in 303 Savage and Winchester 92 clones (puma) .357 Mag. and .454 Casull I shoot cast bullets about 99% of the time. The barrels will last forever and I can afford to shoot them about as much as I want to, and I retired. I can show you a bunch of deer who didn't know it was a cast bullet that sent them to deer heaven.

use bear tooth bullets, cast performance, belt mountain ect...

quote:

Originally posted by JAL:
Well, if you could do it like Grizz007, a flat nose lead would be good.
So far my efforts with lead, lead me back to jackets.
Don't know about hard cast, was using something like Lymans No. 2 ? Wheel weights and some 50/50 lead-tin solder?
Damn things shot about 8" lower at 50 yards too.
JL.

I am no hand at casting bullets and somewhat curious but it seems cleaner and cheaper for me to just "order" them from various businesses. Don't suppose it is cheap for you to do the same eh? It's around 7bucks for 70lbs.shipping here in the States at present time. But you're quite aways away.

In my 50 Alaskan I use cast as expansion is not a issue with that size Bullet
On 41 Mag i use cast also as they are usually
heavier than most jacketed bullets on the market. 4t1

Currently, in my 30-30, .32 Win. Spl. and 45-70s, I shoot my own cast bullets exclusively. I can think of 17 deer that were either bang flop of moved only a few feet before dropping when using the 30-30. Shots ranged from maybe 50 feet to a bit over 100 yards.
As soon as I can get good working load for my .358 Win. and .35 Whelen, I'll probably stick to strictly cast bullets in those as well.
Works for me.
Paul B.

I have shot some big game with jacketed bullets in the 30-30, 45-70 and I assure you a good corelokt in the 30-30 or a 350 gr. Hornady RN in the 45-70 or 45-90 is a better killer of game, the rest is just a process phanse that some gun nuts have to get out of their system and no amount of intelligent conversation will change their mind at this point, it takes a few head of escaped wounded game to get their attention and then they just kind of fade out of sight...

oops make that cast bullet in the above first sentance...sorry

Aternoon Ray
I for one buy lever actions for the sole purpose of using cast bullets. My Winchester 95 in 30-06 uses a 208 grain flat point cast bullet at the same loads for 220 grain jacketed bullets. It's sort of a 30-30 on steriods.
I use the 30-06 95 as a practice gun for shooting my 405 95.
My 45-70s have never had a jacketed bullet through them.
I'm a bit unsure of the performance of the Hornady 300 grain jacketed bullet for the 405 so I use 350 grain cast bullets.
The whole purpose of cast bullets, for me, is to be able to shoot hundreds, maybe even thousands, of times economically.
I may be blind, pigheaded and otherwise contrary but it seems to me that if I shoot several thousand 350 grain cast bullets through my 45-70s and learn where that bullet hits at any hunting distance, out to, say 250 yards, I'm going to be more precise during the hunt.
While I'm sure that you have several dozen life times worth of experience hunting here in CONUS and Africa, I'll have to bow to your experience. It sure galls me to throw $.50 to $1.00 everytime I pull the trigger one of my lever actions.
Jim

Cast. 30/30, 32 spl, 35 rem, 357 mag, 41 mag, 44 mag and 45 colt....My grandson will be using cast also this year.

Jacketed for my M99 Savage.

ZM

Expansion shouldn't be crucial if the bullet dia. is big enough (~44 or higher?) and it should pass through the animal broadside, but I've never shot game with a hard cast, so I plead ignorance in this category.

I shot a whitetail with a 416 Rigby and I don't think the bullet even expanded, but it made a nice clean hole that bled considerably.

Ray, I suppose you are entitled to your opinion and surely you have divese arms in your arsenal. I only have maybe 15-20 arms and like you have shot most everything with what we have here and experienced. I beg to differ about your statement about us who use hardcast are not intelligent minded not to say ethical in regards to what we have experienced with-namely lead. I suspect a wide-meplat works wonders compared to a little nose don't you? What I say is true about leverguns and have never and mean never lost an animal using hardcast. Now on the other hand how many times have you lost a animal in all fairness. Do you think the older you get that wisdon supersedes bullet performance? It is obviously an old argument and no matter how much of an intelligent conversation we have you will not "grasp" the truth about hardcast.

good post ---- hardcast gets my vote - KMule

In the 45-70, economy is the major factor, as all bullets 400grs and up pretty much perform the same on game softer than Cape buffalo. And learning to shoot is more important than pretty mushrooms.

If you cast your own or can purchase properly sized cast bullets cheaper than jacketed - shoot cast. But if you can buy jacketed cheaper than commercial cast - shoot jacketed.

On higher velocity calibers of lower mass, I believe I understand why the world changed to jacketed nearly 100 years ago. Shooting cast in a 30-30 is only a way to lower the cartidge's overall performance.

For my .02, I have taken big game with my 44 mag SRH and ww hard cast bullets. I am waiting on my gun smith to get started on building me a custom 1894 Marlin in 44 mag to shoot big cast bullets.

RAY I guess that all them animals that have been killed with cast bullets over the years feel cheated that they were not killed with a efficient jacketed bullet eh? A cast bullet kills just fine at slower velocities easy on the gun and shooter. I killed two deer last year one shot kills with a 308 shooting cast in a Encore pistol and both deer did not show me anything different than if a jacketed bullet had done the job. In fact I think in a lot of cases Cast works better. From now on my 30/3o will only see cast bullets and my 45/70 Roller has always used cast bullets.