| I have yet to take a Big Game animal (deer, boar, bear, moose, or elk)
with a my 44 magnum cast bullets but have had the opportunity to use it
on some domestic big game.
In the early 1980's I was visiting a butcher friend in Pennsylvania on
a day that rapidly became quite exciting. This particular pig didn't
take kindly to having its lights put out and got quite p___ed off when
the attempt to do just that failed. I don't know if you have ever seen
what a 900+ pound, highly upset pig can do to anything in its path,
but this fellow proceeded to dismantle some of the butchery. In the
process it knocked down part of the stall that a ready-for-butchering
steer was residing in. This in turn got the steer upset and he too
started to see how much he could tear down, drastically increasing the
level of excitement. My friends 30-30 succeeded only in getting the
steer even more upset and when the cry went out to shoot them anywhere,
a 320 grain JDJ sent into the shoulder of the pig sent it to the
ground. About a half hour later we caught up with the wounded steer
and another 320 grain JDJ, again through the shoulder, sent him to the
ground to stay. The 320 grain .44 JDJ had completely penetrated both
animals. Neither bullet penetrated the heart, but sent pieces of bone
into the heart and lungs, and busted bones in both shoulders. Neither
animal took a single step after being hit with the 320 grain .44 magnum
load.
At the time, I was mixing about two pounds of linotype with each 20
pounds of wheel-weights, and then tempering them. This resulted in a
very hard cast bullet. I sincerely believe this bullet will take down
any North America game animal, but think that a cast bullet made up
with a hard base and somewhat softer nose would be much better for an
all-round bullet North American Big Game. Ross Seyfried makes such a
bullet, and has had good luck with it. I'm still trying to find out
the process he goes through to make them.
As far as handguns go, I much prefer cast bullets over jacketed for
use in revolver cartridges. Cast bullet performance is much more
consistent over a much wider range of velocities than jacketed bullets
are in handguns. In addition, cast bullets exit at higher velocities
than jacketed bullets at the same pressure levels.
In a revolver, cast bullets are my only choice for hunting.
Roy...
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I too am a fan of cast bullets...
I haven't cast up anything (for the 44mag) like the 320 grain JDJ,
but the 250 gr. Lyman gas checked bullet has proven to be a good all
round bullet. I did in fact use it in a 44mag rifle that I USED to
have. It was very accurate out of that rifle, and produced absolutely
no leading with the alloy that I was using (1/2 linotype + 1/2 wheel
weights. In 1988 I *just* missed a deer with this rifle and the cast
bullet loading. To make a long story short, the deer (when I first
spotted it) was behind a tree about 85 yards away, and all I could
see was it's hindquarters. It finally moved after about 5 minutes,
and went directly behind a group of 3 trees and stopped. To the left
of these trees was a hill where if he took 2 or 3 steps, he'd be behind
the hill and long gone. I tried to weave a shot into his chest between
trees #1 and #2 but I hit one of the trees with a glancing blow. Cie La
Vie ! Adios deer! So, I didn't get to see what a cast bullet would do
to a deer... Since then I did take a nice little spike buck with a
muzzleloader using a 265 grain lead roundball. It worked perfect!
It punched a big hole going in, and a bit bigger hole going out. The
deer didn't drop at the shot or anything, he just looked around as if
to casually see where the noise came from. He walked about 10 steps
down the hill and keeled over dead. Nice blood trail too!
... This is, I feel, one of the biggest advantages of using cast
bullets. Blood trails. Invaribly when a cast bullet is used (either
in a rifle, handgun or muzzleloader) they are going to be large in
caliber. I have come around in recent years to acknowledge that a
large caliber round is better in this regard than any of the sub-
30-caliber rounds. The deer that I shot in 1981 with a 243 showed
no blood whatsoever coming out of the entrance and exit wounds (this
deer dropped immediately from a spine hit, than God :-) ... It's
that blood trail that'll, in many instances, be the deciding factor
in whether or not you recover that deer, so why not use something
that'll be much more likely to produce that good blood trail? Old
Elmer Keith knew what he was talking about afterall!!! :-)
Roy, if you want to cast up those "dual-alloy" bullets you're
probably going to have to get in touch with NEI to see if they have
the moulds. The process from what I understand, involves casting up
the bullet bases first in a hard alloy. Then the "bases" are put into
another mould, and the soft alloy in poured in on top to complete
the bullet nose. The process to cast these up sounds pretty "labor-
intensive", so they're probably a "hunting only" bullet, sorta like
the "nosler partitions of the cast bullet world" :-) ...
You also mentioned heat treating. How did you do it? Some folks
that I know just drop their bullets from the mould into cold water.
Of course, wheel weights must be used here because it's the arsenic
in the wheel weights that allows the hardening when heat treated...
Also, in the NRA publication "Cast Bullets" by Col. E.H. Harrison,
he states that heat treating will "undo" itself over time, and suggests
that bullets that are heat treated be used within the year that they
are cast... I figure if Linotype is still fairly available, then heat
treating takes a back seat... But, if/when linotype becomes
unavailable, it'll be either the commercially made bullet alloys like
Lawrence Magnum Alloy (big $$$), or heat treating...
I don't think you have to go to the trouble of casting those dual
hardness bullets... Those 320 gr. JDJ's seem to be fine medicine...
Joe
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| re: .2
I was heat treating at the time trying to save on the amount of
linotype needed. I tried the drop it in water routine with little to
no success. Timing must be really critical by this method.
The way I do it is to place a couple in the oven, and slowly heat it up
until the bullets just start to deform. Then back it off a few degrees
(using a thermometer to do this). Then I would place the rest of the
bullets in the oven for an hour upon which time I would quickly quench
them in a bucket of water that had towels at the bottom to soften their
fall. This seemed to work quite well and sure saved a lot of linotype
or 50/50 solder. Was quite an envolved job though and can be disaster
if the oven thermostat is not reliably consistent.
Don't know how long the hardness will last when heat treated since they
seem to fly away on me within a couple months, regardless of how many I
cast at a time.
Roy...
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