Poor Man's Hollowpoints (DIY?)

bluemike807

bluemike807

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Wondering if anyone has ever dabbled - or had success - in making their own cast lead hollowpoint bullets.

I've seen the youtube video, where the fellow uses a case trimmer with an embedded drill bit - not a terrible notion. Has anyone done this, or even better methods?
 
"...cast lead hollowpoint bullets..." Kind of pointless. HP's require velocity to expand reliably. And cast bullets normally flatten when they hit anything remotely hard.
 
I do believe there is merit for hollow pointing cast bullets for accuracy reasons.
As for hunting, other factors should be taken into consideration if deciding to use hollow points for hunting, things like alloy hardness matching to velocity etc’.

I find hollow point very useful in lead bullets, mostly in the smaller calibre rifle bullets.
I find that in the small calibre rifle bullets the hollow pointed ones tend to be more accurate.

Just last month i was experimenting with a 308 mould that had one cavity hollow pointed and the other was a solid.
I was working up a load and i made two identical batches with the only difference being that one batch was solids and the other was hollow pointed.
The final weight of the solid Bullets was around 179 grains after gas check and lube.
And the hollow point bullet final weight after lube and gas check was 174 grains
Powder was varget, worked up from 35 to 40 grains
Best accuracy for the solids was around 39 grains with a group size of about 1inch five shots at 100 yards and results were duplicated (no fluke).

Best accuracy for the hollow points was 40 grains five shots, group size... very small holes touching each other like a nice 5 leafed clover, results were duplicated to make sure it wasn’t a fluke as well.
One could argue that it is because of the 5 grain difference in bullet weight, possibly but there may be a bit more to it than that.

It is also said that due to the structure of the cast bullet (not as tapered as jacketed bullets ) hollow pointing reduces the weight in the front end of the bullet and by that it makes the center of gravity of the bullet shift back.

For example: If you place side by side a 30 cal bullet weighing 150 grain, lead by jacketed, You will notice the lead bullet has a heavier front end(more meterail) compared to the slender taper of the jacketed bullet.
Both bullets weigh the same but the weight distribution is different.
By hollow pointing you shift the center of gravity a bit back, more like the jacketed bullet.

I have also witnessed this accuracy improvement in the small 223 rem calibre and the 6mm.


I do believe there is merit for hollow pointing cast bullets for accuracy reasons in some calibers .
Just my 2 cents
 
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I have successfully made a duplex bullet for my .444 Marlin. Since it is a crammer Hollow Point mold that the pins stay in to make the HP I simply melted a pure lead .44 cal RB and poured the contents into the mold. Then I filled the rest of the cavity from the bottom pour melter filled with lino/WW and a bit of tin to help in the fill out. I rested the mold on top of the molten lead until the sprue on top was melted and I knew that the lead inside was melted and fused together. The top hp of the bullet measured a bhn number using the Lee kit of 6 bhn and the rest of the bullet measures 22 bhn.

Here is a demo of how it is done other than this guy uses a normal non-hp mold http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrPKivrETZs

The ultimate goal is to have a bullet that holds up well to high speed and pressure of the .444 and also have the nose mushroom just like a nosler partition. Mind you even if you have the nose blown off you still have about 230 gn or .44 cal bullet doing its business at 2200 fps.

Well please don't ask the two deer I took with this bullet arrangement for there thoughts on the usefulness of a hollow point bullet.

First deer I took was a broad side shot at a measured 135 of my yards and the entrance hole was as normal and the exit hole on the back side was almost 5" round. The deer was dead before it hit the ground, didn't even kick, was as if someone turned the light switch off.

Second deer was hit at a measured 218 yards and a quartering away shot. It entered just behind the front left leg, went thru the chest cavity, disintegrated the heart and exited the front right leg that was almost completely blown off. Once again the deer hit the ground and gave one kick and that was it.

As Elmer Keith said in his extensive experiments, if you have the same bullet type, one hollow and the other solid, you will never get a solid bullet to equal a hollow point bullets accuracy.

Lots of great casting info here also. http://www.lasc.us/ArticlesFryxell.htm
 
One of the better shooting bullets in any of my 45s, 45-70, or 45-75, or even my 45-120 is a Lyman / Gould 330 HP.
Its an excellent deer hunting bullet..
 
There is an attachment for the Giraud trimmer that lets you make sort of a hollow point out of FMJ rifle bullets. I have no experience with the attachment (or making my own hollow points) but you take a look at what Doug has on his website...
 
Careful with hollow pointing military FMJ ammo!If a core and jacket slips you have a barrel obstruction and the next shot won't be pretty............JMO...Harold
 
sunray said:
"...cast lead hollowpoint bullets..." Kind of pointless. HP's require velocity to expand reliably. And cast bullets normally flatten when they hit anything remotely hard.
Click to expand...


Yep speed is key, but it does not take too much. I loaded 45 cal HP cast bullets into 455 brass from Lyman's devestator series mould. As far as it being pointless I am not sure I agree.

The second picture show mild/minimal spread at 725 ft/sec .52 -.6 inches diameter.

Bottom picture show the results at 825 ft/sec with signifigantly improved expansion at .7-.85 inches. These were shot with a penetration of 24 inches into water (four 6 inch water filled milk jugs) which is apparently equivalent to approximately 12 inchs of ballistics gel.
hollow.jpg

hp.jpg

hp2.jpg
 
sunray said:
"...cast lead hollowpoint bullets..." Kind of pointless. HP's require velocity to expand reliably. And cast bullets normally flatten when they hit anything remotely hard.
Click to expand...

Depends on what alloy you use. Here is a .327 Mag. with a custom HP mold a friend of mine does for his Ruger.
32.jpg


45 ACP and 45 Auto Rim MP Mold HP's another friend of mine cast.
100_2405.jpg


Mp Mold
http://www.mp-molds.com/index.php?pr=Gal_45cramer&curPhoto=0&curAlbum=#album

Expansion Properties of Cast Hollow Points
http://www.lasc.us/FryxellExpansionOfCastHP.htm
 
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