How hard should cast bullets be for hunting deer or elk?

[geobru]

I have been wondering what the consensus is among those of you who have experience using cast bullets on deer and elk. I found the following information on line, and can only hope that the information is accurate. If not, please let me know!

Brinell # / Material
5 / Pure lead
9 / Wheel weights
10 / 1:20 Tin/Lead
15 / Lyman #2 or 1:1 Lead/Linotype
22 / Linotype

My question is what alloy should a guy use for hunting?

George

[Paladin]

I and friends have killed a lot of deer with lead balls in muzzle loaders and I have shot a few with cast bullets made of linotype. The best bet would probably be somewhere in the middle, keeping in mind it comes down to bullet placement.

[HEAD0001]

Straight WW is more than adequate. If you want it a bit harder then water quench the bullets, but I do not think this is necessary. Most BP shooter's use pure lead, but there velocities are not quite as high, but they are close. If you get the lead too hard it will get brittle. Tom.

[Andrew]

Paladin, WELCOME! I see you are new so I thought I would take the oppurtunity to steal the thread.

As to the question: I like the stuff on this page. Lots of info for sure.

[Tycer]

Welcome.

There are two schools of thought here. And it's Ford vs Chevy among cast bullet shooters.

If you are going to punch through both lungs and the heart with every shot, caliber and bullet selection really don't matter, you'll have meat to eat.

If you are using a .2xx caliber and you want to take an offhand shot at a moving target the last day of the hunt, you want to make sure that bullet is going to punch through bone and into the vitals. I'd choose 21 BHN. I get 21 from water quenched WW+2% tin+small amount of magnum shot for antimony.

If you are using a big bore gun moving 350+ grain bullets, you'll smash bone and hit vitals just fine with 20:1 lead:tin or harder. Air cooled WW work just great. You might need a little tin if your mold won't fill out well, it reduces surface tension of the alloy.

Personally I'll stick to the harder ones for deer and elk to reduce meat damage. For me, a nice 3/4" or bigger hole that looks like an apple corer made it will bleed out the animal just fine.

Two pics for ya. The first one is a 35 caliber hardcast hole from a 207 grain bullet traveling 1850fps. That hole is 40+ inches long. The 150# deer fell over, got up ran 30 yards and expired. It was not a good shot and passed from just behind the right shoulder, breaking a rib and passing through the femur and out the left ham.

The second pic is of a 45 caliber air cooled WW mess from a 450 grain bullet moving 1675fps. That bullet went through both shoulders, destroying all edible meat in the shoulders, neck, and part of the onside rear quarter. Deer landed 6 feet from where she stood. I did not need the expansion.

[JDL]

Like others have stated, aircooled wheelweights are very good for hunting. The list you show looks to be just cast hardness and is a little soft for aged wheelweights as mine run 12-14 BHN after a month of casting. Also remember that a larger, heavier bullet cools slower thus making it softer.
JDL

[KCSO]

I hunt for deer and buffalo every year and shoot cast bullets for everything. I have shot buffalo with pure lead, ww , 1-30 and 1/2 and 1/2 ww and lino. In the right gun pure lead will be just fine, but you are going to need caliber here 45 or above. A lead p/p slug from a 45-90 will do the job every time, but if yo drop to 38-55 I would go to W/W to gain a little more penetration. I see no need for anything harder than w/w alloy if you are going to hold velocities in the 2000 fps range. If you want to go 2200 or above you may need a llittle harder mix to prevent leading, but I wouldn't worry for hunting as you are going to shoot 3-4 shots at most and you can live with a liittle leading for that much shooting.
On of my favorite deer loads is a Lyman 31141 bullet sized to 310 and pushed by WW 748 to 2000+ fps in my 30-30 20" barrel. This load has consistantly works as well or better than factory ammo in the 30-30 for a long time. It has dropped every deer I have shot at and all but 2 were one shot killls. In 35 Whelen I push a 200 grain r/n bullet to 2200 FPS and this load is good for deer, hogs and buffalo. In 45-70 and above I use FFG and a soft lead slug and a 400+ grain bullet at 13-1700 fps is good enough for anything that walks this country. As a matter of fact a 180 grain rb from a 50 caliber muzzleloader will kill anythng in N/A right handy and you DON"T need over 100 grains of powder to do it. 80 grains of FFG and a round ball will let light through both sides of a 1200 pound buffalo. I don't know exactly when between 1880 and 1930 that they armour plated deer but up till then a 38-40 was reconed as a decent deer gun and a 38-55 was a magnum. Now if you aren't shooting a Remchester 309 USM you won't scratch hide on them tough old 175 pound deer.

Far more important than the alloy is being able to put your bullet in a vital spot, do that and caliber and alloy will take a back seat.

[Don McDowell]

Straight wheelweights are almost to hard to expand any.
20-1 is a fine hunting bullet alloy, tough enough to take some velocity, soft enough to expand. 16-1 (lyman2) is as hard as any lead bullet needs to be . If I need more velocity than those will allow I prefer to move on to jacketed bullets.

[Tycer]

450 grain air cooled WW from a 45-70 @ 1675 fps at 100 yds:

[Rimfire McNutjob]

... I did not need the expansion.

You think? That looks like expansion bordering on explosion.

[Hobie]

Welcome.

There are two schools of thought here. And it's Ford vs Chevy among cast bullet shooters.

If you are going to punch through both lungs and the heart with every shot, caliber and bullet selection really don't matter, you'll have meat to eat.

If you are using a .2xx caliber and you want to take an offhand shot at a moving target the last day of the hunt, you want to make sure that bullet is going to punch through bone and into the vitals. I'd choose 21 BHN. I get 21 from water quenched WW+2% tin+small amount of magnum shot for antimony.

If you are using a big bore gun moving 350+ grain bullets, you'll smash bone and hit vitals just fine with 20:1 lead:tin or harder. Air cooled WW work just great. You might need a little tin if your mold won't fill out well, it reduces surface tension of the alloy.

Personally I'll stick to the harder ones for deer and elk to reduce meat damage. For me, a nice 3/4" or bigger hole that looks like an apple corer made it will bleed out the animal just fine.

Two pics for ya. The first one is a 35 caliber hardcast hole from a 207 grain bullet traveling 1850fps. That hole is 40+ inches long. The 150# deer fell over, got up ran 30 yards and expired. It was not a good shot and passed from just behind the right shoulder, breaking a rib and passing through the femur and out the left ham.

The second pic is of a 45 caliber air cooled WW mess from a 450 grain bullet moving 1675fps. That bullet went through both shoulders, destroying all edible meat in the shoulders, neck, and part of the onside rear quarter. Deer landed 6 feet from where she stood. I did not need the expansion.

It is excellent photos such as those that clearly illustrate the effectiveness of cast lead bullets. Thanks Tycer.

[44LVR]

Hey George! From Elma, huh? I'm a bit South and East of you in East Lewis County! Lotsa elk around here that I've taken with cast bullets. Have never went harder than straight WW's and sometimes as soft as 1 part tin to 16 parts pure lead. I've never recovered a bullet in almost 2 dozen elk. 100% penetration in all instances.

44

[geobru]

Good dialogue on this subject. Tycer's pics definitely say more than a thousand words about the effectiveness of cast bullets!

Several of you made the point about the importance of shot placement, which is always top priority. Most of the deer I have shot in the last 30 years were shot in the neck, and didn't move from where they were standing. The difference for me is that those were shot with my 308 BLR with a telescopic sight. This fall I will be carrying an 86 in 40-82 with open sights, and I have zero experience with the lead bullets and the effectiveness of the caliber. I do know that I won't be taking any neck shots unless I get pretty darn close!

The bullets I am using are WW alloy. When I shot them into a clay bank, I got some deformation, but not much expansion, and I was a little concerned that they might be too hard. I guess I will just have to poke a hole in a deer and see what happens!!

Thanks for the feedback!
George

[geobru]

Hey George! From Elma, huh? I'm a bit South and East of you in East Lewis County! Lotsa elk around here that I've taken with cast bullets. Have never went harder than straight WW's and sometimes as soft as 1 part tin to 16 parts pure lead. I've never recovered a bullet in almost 2 dozen elk. 100% penetration in all instances.

44

PM sent

[71fan]

This is a great topic! Thanks everyone for the posts...this is the kind of thread a guy can print and file and refer back to, and I plan to do just that.

I have been absorbing the Lyman reloading manual of late and find it very informative too.

[runfiverun]

you also have the harder/softer option of mixing pure lead and ww's with 1% tin added and then water dropping them
if you do this i recommend sizing them within the first few days.
then waiting about a month before shooting them as they will harden up.
what this does is give you about an 18 bhn shell with a near pure center, you gan push them fast and they will penetrate with some expansion.
in other words they will act like a cast and jacketed at the same time.
there are other options also.
but with a cast bullet i will take penetration over expansion every time.

[Bronco]

Howdy,
Another chef into the kitchen.

Then again there is the choice of taking water quenched WW, I get a BHN of around 20, and putting them in water to aneal the nose, thereby giving a soft nosed, BHN 12, hard shanked lead bullet for those who want a large diam. lead bullet to expand a little.
I personally like hard lead that is not brittle, don't need expansion with a 50-110. The right combo of velocity and hardness is the trick. Those who have had success in the field with what they are using is where you can pick up information what bullet hardness you want.
Enjoyed reading this discussion!!

John