45-70 hardcast vs jacketed

hansol

hansol

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Hey guys,

here's a question that has been nagging the crap out of me. I've got a new guide gun, and am working on loads for it. I want some heavy hitting, deep penetrating loads that can hit the boiler room from any angle.

So with that being said, I've come across a lot of people talking about how hardcasts are the best for deep penetration, that garett hard casts and buffalo bore stuff are the bees knees and have taken cape buffalo and blah blah blah. Where I get confused is the logic that because a jacketed bullet expands, it won't penetrate as well as a hardcast at 45-70 velocities.

Now to me that seems kind of silly. By my logic, a hardcast .45 boolit is no different than the jacketed solids in a 458 win mag used for cape buffalo. Of course a solid will penetrate better than an expanded jacketed bullet. But on the other hand, if the hardcast leaves a better wound trail than the jacketed bullet, and penetrates even better, then that would prove quite a magic combination indeed. From what I've read though, jacketed solids DO NOT leave as good of a wound trail, ergo a hardcast boolit would be faulted for the same thing.

All of this of course is just speculation on my part, and was wondering if anyone here has first hand experience on a hard cast bullet vs a jacketed with regards to terminal ballistics and such. I'm slightly confused here :redface:
 
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hansol said:
Hey guys,

here's a question that has been nagging the crap out of me. I've got a new guide gun, and am working on loads for it. I want some heavy hitting, deep penetrating loads that can hit the boiler room from any angle.

So with that being said, I've come across a lot of people talking about how hardcasts are the best for deep penetration, that garett hard casts and buffalo bore stuff are the bees knees and have taken cape buffalo and blah blah blah. Where I get confused is the logic that because a jacketed bullet expands, it won't penetrate as well as a hardcast at 45-70 velocities.

Now to me that seems kind of silly. By my logic, a hardcast .45 boolit is no different than the jacketed solids in a 458 win mag used for cape buffalo. Of course a solid will penetrate better than an expanded jacketed bullet. But on the other hand, if the hardcast leaves a better wound trail than the jacketed bullet, and penetrates even better, then that would prove quite a magic combination indeed. From what I've read though, solids DO NOT leave as good of a wound trail.

All of this of course is just speculation on my part, and was wondering if anyone here has first hand experience on a hard cast bullet vs a jacketed with regards to terminal ballistics and such. I'm slightly confused here :redface:
Click to expand...



Cast bullets out of the 45-70 would be best to shoot large heavy game with, I would shoot for the bone like the heavy ones in the shoulder area. I wouldn't take the same shot with jacketed bullets because they would not penetrate as far due to higher expansion. Many a buffalo has been put down with pure lead bullets doing 1100 fps out of old black powder rifles.
 
IMHO, if the hardcast wfn bullet is cast to BHN 19 or so it will do both for you, penetrate deep or completely, yet give expansion to some degree, a harder bullet may indeed give complete penetration with little if any expansion. This is suitable for velocities to 2000fps....at 1500fps the bullet can be cast somewhat softer and give similar expansion. In either case you will have a more effective hunting bullet for bigger/heavier game, for deer or small bear almost any lighter bullet will be effective, jacketed or cast, and give less recoil.
 
Sorry, I should have clarified my statement: What I meant was it is obvious that an UNEXPANDED solid would obviously penetrate further than an expanded jacketed bullet.

Thusly, an unexpanded hardcast boolit would penetrate just as well as an african cape buffalo jacketed solid bullet of the same weight/velocity. This in turn leads me to skepticism regarding all the garett and buffalo bore stuff, as it seems to be stating the obvious: "our non-expanding solids penetrate better than a jacketed soft point".
 
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45/70 bullets come in all different shapes and sizes. You can go to Midway to look up 6-7 pages of reviews of .458 sized bullets.

I've used 350gr Hornady round nose and flat nose for years. It shoot well and kills deer, bears, moose just fine at 2000fps ish out of my Marlin GG.

For end to end penitration to put down anything in NA I would go for heavy hardcast bullets, in the 400-500gr range. Jae bok young casts awesome bullets as does Cast pefoamce and Beartooth bullets and there are lots of others, Sharptail here cast some nice biggins too.. Any of them in the 420-525, 550gr range will no stay in any NA animal. With the large flat nose bullet designs they create a large 1-2 inch wound cavity, wound channel, and really do kick ass.

Heres Roy and his water buffalo with 420gr craters, good acticle and why I like heavy hardcast for my big game hunting.http://www.marlinowners.com/forums/index.php/topic,40924.0.html

Heres a buddys Elk shot in the behind with a 420 Hardcast bullet @ 1800fps which came out the Elks front shoulder. http://levergunlovers.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4334

The Elk http://levergunlovers.com/viewtopic.php?f=74&t=7905

I shoot 420gr and 550gr Jae bok crater bullets in my Marlin and get excellent accuacy (5shot 1 ragged hole 100yrds) and knowing what they can do is peace of mind.


Cheers

Seabass
 
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I've loaded up five 480-grain flat point hard casts in 45-70.
35 grains of RL-7 over a winchester large rifle primer.

Hopefully my gun does not blow up.
 
The key behind wide flat/long nose hard cast gas checked bullets is to use bullets with the widest meplats that are available, when I use .458" bullets I prefer a meplat width of .360".

Jae-Bok Young 420gr Crater Lites and 550gr Craters or Beartooth 425gr and 525gr Piledrivers are a perfect example of the best available designs with the 420-425gr bullets loaded to 1800fps (you can safely) push them to 1950fps from a guide gun or 525gr to 1600fps and the 550's to 1580fps because these velocities give the best penetration wound cavity results (according to Garret).

One of the benefits of wide meplat bullets is that they do not need to expand they are already the same width of expanded smaller caliber bullets and they penetrate while creating wound cavities that are better than almost any other design on the market.

I use all kinds of different designed .458" bullets in my 1895GS 45-70 I prefer 525gr Piledrivers and the 550gr Craters when I am using cast bullets and 350gr Swift A-frames are my favorite jacketed bullets.

I load the A-Frames with 56grs H322 which gives me over 2000fps muzzle velocity.

.458 bullets that I load/shoot left to right

150gr JRN .308 far left for standard

300gr Spitzer Alpha Lafrank
300gr Hornady HP
350gr Swift A-Frame
405gr Beartooth GC
405gr Spitzer Alpha Lafrank
425gr Beartooth WLNGC
430gr Cast Performance WLNGC
450gr Barnes TSX
550gr Jae-Bok Joung "Crater" WLNGC
525gr Beartooth WLNGC

458_Bullets_003.jpg
 
Just curious, anybody ever shot anything with the 405 Rem. I'm loading them to 1800 in my Guide Gun. Use them for targets and blowing stuff up. Just wondering how they'd hold up on game.
 
I have used them a lot and know several other guys that have also used them the are a good hunting bullet.

The 405gr Rem are a tougher bullet than the 405gr Speer and is known for when used in hunting situations to hold together very well.

The key is hunting situation not defense...
 
Randy Garrett used 405gr Remington way back when he first started making ammo. It works ok and will certainly kill but pushed over 1700fps some people encountered bullet falure on Elk sized game. And it will break up on bone. He then went to the hardcast we all hear about.

If I wanted to push a 400gr jacketed bullet in the 1700fps + range I would look at the following. Somthing that will break heavy bone and keep on trucking.

Barnes orignals (400gr)
Woodleigh (405gr)
Kodiak (405gr)

The Speer and Remington are better when not pushed too fast over 1700fps as the likely hood of them coming apart increases.

Cheers

Seabass
 
hansol said:
Thusly, an unexpanded hardcast boolit would penetrate just as well as an african cape buffalo jacketed solid bullet of the same weight/velocity.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure this necessarily follows in the context of African big game given that bullets must overcome massive bones. A hard cast lead bullet is more prone to damage than is the traditional Kynoch style steel jacketed solid, and the steel jacketed solid is in turn more prone to damage than the mono-metal solid which has not lead core to compress.

In this respect I think Gate got it right with respect to solids . . .

Gatehouse said:
Hmm, maybe make the jacketed bullets the same shape as the cast bullets and they will penetrate even more!:D
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In any case, maximum penetration is realized when the non-expanding bullet design enhances straight line penetration. This requires that the bullet be short for caliber, have parallel sides, and a flat or hemispherical nose. These characteristics work together to resist key-holing or excessive yaw as the bullet overcomes the resistance of impact, and the hardness and structure of the bullet resists deformation without being brittle.
 
thanks for the info guys. I tried the 400 Barnes originals. thery shot 3-4" groups with the same load as the Rem. Shoot these for now and switch to a big hardcast if I need it for something serious.
 
Again, I must apologize for my goof. I meant that a hardcast would penetrate along the same lines as a jacked solid, but not necessarily as well. Thanks for the info Boomer. It definitely helps confirm what I originally thought.

So in theory, a heavy-jacked bullet would perform just as well as a hardcast, as the heavy jacket would lead to less deformation?
 
Oh man, I think I'm having a thought: a guy can drill out a 3/16ths hole through the nose of those solids for the first 1/3rd, then fill them with then. THEN you would have an epic "expanding" bullet...

I feel a new project coming on.
 
If you're casting your own you can pour the first 1/4 to 1/3 of the bullet nose with almost pure lead and fill the rest with a harder alloy or linotype. The result is a "partition" that expands quickly but has a solid base to penetrate deeply.

There was an article in Handloader about this some time ago.
 
hansol said:
Oh man, I think I'm having a thought: a guy can drill out a 3/16ths hole through the nose of those solids for the first 1/3rd, then fill them with then. THEN you would have an epic "expanding" bullet...

I feel a new project coming on.
Click to expand...

The GS custom solids will expand if driven hard into hard objects...

FN458.jpg
 
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