Hunting bullet alloy and hardness.

The Hackmaster

The Hackmaster

CGN Regular
Rating - 100%
29   0   0
I am thinking about starting to cast my own hunting bullets for 30-30 and 444 Marlin. I intend to use gas checks, alox tumble lube and size the bullets at .311 and .432 so I can get the fastest and flattest shooting load for these calibers. It's not like either of them go a zillion feet per second anyways.

The hunting I do is mostly for deer and black bear at short range (absolute max of 100 yards). The molds are flat point bullets from NOE with big meplats.

My question to the more experienced casters out there is how soft can I go with the alloy for maximum expansion and weight retention. Since I am shooting with gas checks, is pure lead an option? Or will pure lead just pancake on impact and not penetrate? I know too hard an alloy will shed pieces as it attempts to mushroom and the mushroom breaks off one part at a time. A super hard alloy would probibly behave like an FMJ.

I'm quite new to casting and I'm sure it shows. Any advice at all would be helpful.
 
Half lead half clip on wheel weights and 2% tin
Water dropped out of the mold.
Expands and holds together from the testing I have done.
Bullet fit is king as in sure you have heard. Have you slugged your barrels?
When possible I load to just touch the lands with light engraving. 3 light coats of 45-45-10 lube and I have got no leading around 1900 fps with my 30 cals and 1600 with 45-70.
If you find a accurate load for your 30-30 1700 fps would be enough for 100 yard deer.
Your 444 marlin will likely want a .433" sized cast.
Anything above 1300 fps and should do anything you want it to within 100 yards.

I haven't hunted with cast yet these are just tests I have done. I'm sure more experienced fellas will be along shortly to add and give their two cents.
 
Last edited:
I shot an elk a number of years ago, with a cast bullet out of my 303. It was travelling around 1800 fps and was a hardness of about 9, which would be close to the harness of the mix that ginseng Jones is recommending.

The bullet angled in behind the back rib, perforating the liver and lungs before striking the major blood vessel by the spine. It then clipped a couple of vertebra, before passing through the opposite shoulder and stopping under the skin on the neck.

My experience is that cast bullets have to be hard enough not to lead your barrel, but even the softer bullets still penetrate like a son of a gun.
With the smaller calibers, you often don't get the hydrostatic shock of jacketed, higher velocity bullets, so animals don't always drop right away. If you hit the vitals, the animal doesn't go far and there is very little meat damage.
It's cool to hunt like our ancestors did, but humane shots require a bit more patience and skill.
 
There is a method to cast hunting bullets with soft lead at the tip, with a harder shank. If you google "BruceB soft point" it should pull it up. Basically you can sight in and practice with bullets of uniform hardness and made of harder alloy, and then use this method with the same mold to make soft tip bullets for hunting. I haven't tried this method yet, but it's on the to-do list.
 
444 Marlin is a better choice vs the obsolete & over-rated 30-30. Soft lead cast bullets suitable for blackpowder rifle should be avoided. Its just too soft.
“ the fastest and flattest shooting load for these calibers” has issues in itself. Fastest means harder cast or factory, while flatest shooting means lighter, faster bullets.
Using a medium weight cast 444 bullet @ BNH 9-11 hardness, powder coated, & gas checked if you must, should be suitable for all your requirements.
 
I've never used a 30 cal (YET) but have taken a few deer with a 35 Whelen (250gr FLAT NOSE @ about 2000fps) and several with a 450 Marlin(300&405gr FLAT NOSE @ about 1600 fps) I try for an alloy about 15BHN but have used a 20BHN alloy (by mistake). The large diameter of the bullet and especially using a FLAT NOSE made it perform on the deer though I don't recommend a hard alloy. I started to cast 2 alloy SOFT NOSE bullets in 45 cal and you can do the same for other calibers.
I made a small ladle to hold the correct amount of pure lead for the nose, the portion that does NOT touch rifling. (Fortunately, my soft nose is the same weight as a 50cal Muzzleloader ball, 175gr). After casting 30-40 slugs and the mold is hot & up to temperature, I have a propane torch close by, on another bench. I drop a ball on the small ladle, hold it over the torch to melt it VERY HOT, do the pour, then immediately fill the cavity with the harder alloy. It only takes a few tries but works very well, the soft and hard alloys weld together. If the mold is hot you should be able to get several perfect bullets. You've now made bullets that will perform much the same as a Partition bullet, soft nose for expansion, hard base to keep velocity up. I've shot these on targets at 50&100 yards and they group the same as my regular bullets. As long as the mold is HOT you don't have to rush and it's not difficult to do. You could use a small second pot for the pure lead and just ladle the nose from it but I'm only making about 10/year so I use the propane setup. Works well and it's not difficult.
 
Hatman1793
Take a stroll over to a website called castbullets.gunloads.com and read how over rated that 30-30 is.
These boys take truckloads of game with 30-30 among many other obsolete calibers. All with lead, many with soft alloys.
They get it down to a science.
 
While I haven't tested softer alloys and their leading tendencies, I do know that powder coating has rewritten the rules about hardness and leading.
While leading can be reduced, bullet deformation after ignition is another matter.
The second edition of the Lee reloading book has a very interesting and innovative discussion on how pressure affects bullet distortion.
From it, you can determine how much pressure your bullet can stand based on its hardness, and the limits of the load you can use for accuracy.

However, a fine gentleman on the forum here, introduced me to powder coating, and a new door was opened.
Now I haven't bothered measuring bullet hardness or pressure levels, but I am pushing the velocity levels not previously reached with traditional lubed cast bullets.
I'm not hot-rodding my loads, just aiming for jacketed bullet performance with cast bullets.
 
Slug
Do you primarily use clear?
I have had good luck with clear however I got a few tinted clear coats emerald calls them candy coats. I am getting poor coverage on my bullets. I'm trying a bunch of different methods but cant get a even coat
 
if you are going to use cast for hunting
ww will be fine if you air cool them
water drop will make then too hard

for the 3030 go with a heavy cast and keep the velocity down around the 2000 fps mark ... when working up a load when the group opens up you have gone too far
 
ginsingjones said:
Slug
Do you primarily use clear?
I have had good luck with clear however I got a few tinted clear coats emerald calls them candy coats. I am getting poor coverage on my bullets. I'm trying a bunch of different methods but cant get a even coat
Click to expand...

I pretty well use clear in all my rifles now.
The pigments add some thickness to the coating and can affect the chambering in the ogive area, i.e., the loaded cartridge can no longer chamber.
This is mainly a problem in higher end rifles with tighter specs.
It's not so much a problem in milsurps or well used sporting rifles.

In blotchy coated bullets, it is the pigment that seems to be spotty, not the clear portion.
While in fact I may be full of it with that statement, I have some green bullets that look like they have leprosy, yet have shot very well.
So I'm assuming that the coating is flowing somewhat evenly during cooking.
On coloured bullets, the coating marks from the pliers as I pull them out of the tub, seem to have softened and are less noticable after cooking which makes me think that there is some flow going on.
 
Up one very close examination I am indeed getting full coverage. It seems that the pigment is separating from the clear. I guess I would need a powder coat gun to keep it mixed, unless I'm missing something.
 
It's hard to get the right alloy hardness in a rifle bullet so it will expand but not be too soft. You can make it work in test media at a fixed range but then when you go hunting and shoot an animal 50 yds closer or 50 yards further than you tested at, the alloy expands differently - too much or not at all. Below about 1400 fps it doesn't make as much difference but does as you get into higher velocities. I tend to make most of my rifle hunting bullets in the 14-16 BHN range and use a wide flat nose bullet. The wide flat nose bullets seems to do substantially more tissue damage than a round nose bullet, and doesn't rely on expansion.

In 30-30 the NOE Ranch Dog 165gr is an excellent 30-30 hunting bullet. This one: [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]https://noebulletmolds.com/site/product-category/308-311/sc311-165-rf-ah4



[/FONT]
 
jethunter said:
It's hard to get the right alloy hardness in a rifle bullet so it will expand but not be too soft. You can make it work in test media at a fixed range but then when you go hunting and shoot an animal 50 yds closer or 50 yards further than you tested at, the alloy expands differently - too much or not at all. Below about 1400 fps it doesn't make as much difference but does as you get into higher velocities. I tend to make most of my rifle hunting bullets in the 14-16 BHN range and use a wide flat nose bullet. The wide flat nose bullets seems to do substantially more tissue damage than a round nose bullet, and doesn't rely on expansion.

In 30-30 the NOE Ranch Dog 165gr is an excellent 30-30 hunting bullet. This one: [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]https://noebulletmolds.com/site/product-category/308-311/sc311-165-rf-ah4



[/FONT]
Click to expand...

I’m using the same NOE boolit for my 30-30 as well. I tried it my 308 and didn’t it group so well so I’ll keep using Lee 200gr RN w/gc. They’ve been game stoppers so far.
 
I load wheel weight lead in my .444 Marlin. 325gr custom Mountain Mold. I don’t water quench when I cast but I do after powder coating. I shoot those 325gr at 2000fps. Shot a bear last week end with it, clean pass through (obviously) and the bear went about 25 yards.
0-C559-A5-D-7143-4-A63-A007-8-EE24-D2881-D2.jpg
 
BCSTEVE, you water quench after powder coating. I'm picturing that the tray of powder coated bullets is dumped into water when you take it out of the powder coating oven. Is this how you do it?

I also make powder coated (Emerald clear) bullets for my 9.3x72R. They are water quenched when cast but air cooled when coated. I suppose the hardness from the water quenching is removed during the coating process and subsequent air cooling. Could you comment on this process of quenching, air cooling, and bullet hardness. I may have to modify my technique.
Peter
 
Last edited:
Gun5tuff said:
BCSTEVE, you water quench after powder coating. I'm picturing that the tray of powder coated bullets is dumped into water when you take it out of the powder coating oven. Is this how you do it?

I also make powder coated (Emeralt clear) bullets for my 9.3x72R. They are water quenched when cast but air cooled when coated. I suppose the hardness from the water quenching is removed during the coating process and subsequent air cooling. Could you comment on this process of quenching, air cooling, and bullet hardness. I may have to modify my technique.
Peter
Click to expand...

Yes, basically. I use a bin instead of a bucket so I can dunk in the tray flat and not bang the bullets together too much while they’re still “wet” from powder coating. I based my method from some charts and videos I’ve seen with quenching before or after. See this video, that’s how I decided on what method to use.

https://thereloadersnetwork.com/2018/11/05/does-cast-bullet-hardness-change-after-powder-coating/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom