hunting with cast- slow expiry?

WhelanLad

WhelanLad

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Would you guys say that hunting with Cast projectiles is a bit of a funny thing... i mean, ya shoot it out at the animal, it typically goes thru the animal and much like Bow hunting, the hunter waits for 10-15 minutes before going to find his deer?

have you found the Cast kill normal or quicker than say a "solid" ? for sake of arguement, i think my hard cast coated are just straight up solids at 1500fps bracket. even so at 2000 i rekon...... very hard. hardest from the comercial company at the time.


Am i better off going for a softer lead projectile to help with some wounding? or wont it work that way?

more of less need to sharpen up the placement and really wack the shoulders?"


What happens or typically happens when you shoot your deer with Cast? do you watch em drop? or wait a while then go find yer steak?


my thoughts are alo along the lines of literally drilling a 6-7mm hole in the FN part of the projie to give it a cavity to maybe expand or bust off on its way?

what ya think about that one??


Obviously im up and down like a YoYo... long range 7mm rem mag one month and a friggen slow and steady lob of a bush stalker the next.... but this Summer Lever gig is one il continue for a long time, an this season i will be particularly keen to use that LEver gun more often, so i am hell bent on it and keen to work some things out with it!


keen to talk some stuffs though, what has worked for you and what didnt etc!

Thank you
WL
 
The lead hardness has to do with the pressure you are operating at. There is a simple formula for it( i cant recall it right now) but lead can be like a solid. If you hit bone it can mushroom up but often like to pass right through.

But yes it seems to be a shot wait 10-20 minutes and then go get it unles you hit bone
 
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I've shot a # of deer with cast, both commercial hard cast (brinel 24-26) & home cast COWW that should be around a brinel #12 and have also tested a bunch of .379 & .459 (265 gr for .379 & 350-405 for .459)into a make-shift testing media made with pine planks and old horse blankets to try to replicate meat & bone hits.

I cant remember any cast slug -hit deer going more than 30-40 ft after being hit and I have yet to recover a slug from a body, all complete pass through's so far ( shots at 60-245 yrds). None of the slugs have been going faster than 1400 fps, some as slow as 1100 fps.

So, not having any recovered slugs from actual meat, I can only comment on the test media recoveries. I have found that even hard cast slugs when hitting a 1" thick plank to replicate a rib bone that they will smear a bit at the nose, not a bunch but enough to cause an action that I believe makes cast slugs excellent killers. The softer slugs will not "mushroom" as we expect our jacketed high speed slugs to do but they just more or less blunt themselves, causing a significant bulge to over-dia. by as much as 30%...another thing I notice is that most of these long heavy slugs start to bend in the middle on impact...both of these will cause the same action as I mentioned earlier, what is that action...the action I have noticed a lot is that these long heavy slugs start to tumble when they are deformed. This tumbling will increase the wound channel in the animals organs much the same as a sharp stick broadhead will do.
Some of the animals I have skinned after being shot with a slow cast have reinforced this theory for me. These slow slugs don't rip a huge exit hole like a 3000 fps jacketed do, the exit hole is "bullet sized and whatever orientation the slug is at"...the orientation I have notice more than once after skinning an animal is the distinct "key-hole" exit wound...the same as we see on a paper target with a poor barrel or bullet choice.

My observations anyways...
 
I harvested a bear in September with a 44 mag levergun. I usually cast for this rifle and I read on the internet that soft points were the way to go so I bought a box of Federal factory loaded soft points for a jaw dropping $80 with tax.

This was the wrong choice. I really wished I stuck with my hard casts. My shot placement was ideal, the bullet should have sailed through and only damaged the ribs. Instead the bullet fragmented and wrecked the ribs AND the tasty shoulder meat.

Next time I'm using hornady leverevelution tips for my hard hitting hand loads.
 
I've taken several deer with cast, .35 Whelen and .450 Marlin (same as a 45-70) As mentioned by Fingers284 I've NEVER been able to recover a bullet, ranges from 40-130 yards. The 35's were cast using a LEAD BULLET TECHNOLOGY mold (Virgil Smith) and weighed 250gr's, Flat Nose. The 459"'s were cast from RCBS molds, both 300gr FN & 405gr FN molds. Im my experience they either Drop Right There or run for only a short distance, perhaps 50 metres. I do find that using SOFTER slugs(12-14BHN), or at least casting a SOFT NOSE on a hard base, performs better.
 
I run PL out of my 38-55 ( have to mind you )...had better luck putting them on the ground STAT with that, than with Winchester factory jacketed junk cartridges
 
My sample of one is a medium size bear this spring with my .444 Marlin and 325gr water quenched WW powder coated at 2000fps. Shot at about 50 yards through both lungs. Ran about 25 yards and was dead by the time I got to him. Full penetration, off course.
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Pearler!

those .44 holes are a thing hey!

Right, So more important in this scenerio is the Shot placement.... Copy that!


BC Steve- is that with Opens? what set up do you use?
 
The main reason there are less drop dead in their tracks kills with cast bullets is because the velocity of the bullet is considerably slower than jacketed high velocity rounds resulting in very little hydrostatic shock. But make no mistake any critter being ventilated both sides is just as dead but possibly 50yds away.
 
Standardvel said:
The main reason there are less drop dead in their tracks kills with cast bullets is because the velocity of the bullet is considerably slower than jacketed high velocity rounds resulting in very little hydrostatic shock. But make no mistake any critter being ventilated both sides is just as dead but possibly 50yds away.
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For sure mate,, i guess good to know the harder cast is guna belt shoulders an still go on, an even so a .375 ish hole in both sides (in the right spot) will do the deed.

i guess, been a while since i hunted the 375 ... looking over the footage, im not sure why i shot when i did.... that completely turned the situation around i think...hence these posts.

i will have to redeem myself in the future when i get thru these steaks!
thanks mate
 
bcsteve said:
Top of the post.
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Thanks Steve for the info,

I went an shot my Lever again today after adjusting the windage from yesterdays F up....

Im clearly on Target at 100m with shots some distant from one another but all within the 5 inch circle say... Im happy. im just not happy with my Shooting yesterday. perhaps it was so unexpected to have them walk in that i definatly had "buck fever" as these deer are very likely to spook at nothing an run ha ha!

ive just ordered another Companys Hardcast. how does this sound for a mixture ???
Our projectiles our mix is 92 %lead 6% antimony and 2% tin,
 
As another member said, the speed that the lead bullets are travelling at usually don't have the dramatic instant drops that faster cartridges do. Nothing to worry about. Good cast bullets don't really need to expand to kill, though it doesn't hurt. A good cast (in my mind) has a big flat nose. This shape helps it cut a hole like a hole punch, and imparts more peripheral damage than a RN or spire point. If your slugs are RN, I'd just use em' up on targets. And let's face it; most of us could use the time with our guns.

A common misapprehension that persists among many shooters is that harder cast is always better, so many shooters that would be served better with dead soft bullets are looking for the hardest lead alloys that they can lay their hands on. As another poster mentioned, it has to do with pressure. And gas checks help there, too. Lee Reloading #2 has a good section on that.

What gun are you shooting? And what does your load look like?
 
Doors of Perception said:
I harvested a bear in September with a 44 mag levergun. I usually cast for this rifle and I read on the internet that soft points were the way to go so I bought a box of Federal factory loaded soft points for a jaw dropping $80 with tax.

This was the wrong choice. I really wished I stuck with my hard casts. My shot placement was ideal, the bullet should have sailed through and only damaged the ribs. Instead the bullet fragmented and wrecked the ribs AND the tasty shoulder meat.

Next time I'm using hornady leverevelution tips for my hard hitting hand loads.
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Those LE bullets are pretty soft from what I've seen.
 
If you cast your own you can get the best of both worlds by casting a SOFT NOSE first, then filling the mold with a harder alloy and water dropping if you want them very hard.
I do this for the 450 Marlin using either the 300 or 405 gr RCBS mold. A 50cal muzzle loading ball is about ideal to cast a PURE lead (soft) nose. I melt the ball in a spoon over a torch, then pour it into a PRE HEATED MOLD. Follow that by immediately filling the mold with whatever hard alloy I prefer to use for the base. The soft nose and the base are "welded" together making a sort of "Nosler" partition bullet. It's not that difficult to do, though for other calibers you will have to experiment with how much soft lead to use for the nose. I've done this for the 35 Whelen years ago and made a "spoon" of appropriate size using a cut off brass case as a dipper. You only need to make enough for the season, perhaps 10 at most. Not that difficult really.
 
big boar said:
If you cast your own you can get the best of both worlds by casting a SOFT NOSE first, then filling the mold with a harder alloy and water dropping if you want them very hard.
I do this for the 450 Marlin using either the 300 or 405 gr RCBS mold. A 50cal muzzle loading ball is about ideal to cast a PURE lead (soft) nose. I melt the ball in a spoon over a torch, then pour it into a PRE HEATED MOLD. Follow that by immediately filling the mold with whatever hard alloy I prefer to use for the base. The soft nose and the base are "welded" together making a sort of "Nosler" partition bullet. It's not that difficult to do, though for other calibers you will have to experiment with how much soft lead to use for the nose. I've done this for the 35 Whelen years ago and made a "spoon" of appropriate size using a cut off brass case as a dipper. You only need to make enough for the season, perhaps 10 at most. Not that difficult really.
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I love this idea, will have to experiment with it once I get the rest and of my casting gear together. I already have a bunch of pure lead tucked away.
 
tactical lever said:
As another member said, the speed that the lead bullets are travelling at usually don't have the dramatic instant drops that faster cartridges do. Nothing to worry about. Good cast bullets don't really need to expand to kill, though it doesn't hurt. A good cast (in my mind) has a big flat nose. This shape helps it cut a hole like a hole punch, and imparts more peripheral damage than a RN or spire point. If your slugs are RN, I'd just use em' up on targets. And let's face it; most of us could use the time with our guns.

A common misapprehension that persists among many shooters is that harder cast is always better, so many shooters that would be served better with dead soft bullets are looking for the hardest lead alloys that they can lay their hands on. As another poster mentioned, it has to do with pressure. And gas checks help there, too. Lee Reloading #2 has a good section on that.

What gun are you shooting? And what does your load look like?
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Hey mate sorry i missed this but its still relevant today....

So they are a wide FN boolit, 245gr , 376 , i use in the 375 win, im loading 4198 around 20grs (v low) an its in a Model 94 'bigbore'.

ive done a bit with it since this last post , for what it is, 100 yard gun, it will do the job at hand but shot placement has been the issue, ive filed down the front bead more skinny an suitabl, coloured it and pravtise on a gong at 100m regularly now days, fairly confident if givin nice broad side shots, in the brush its often got to be much closer. 75m.

so the above comercial cast of 92% an 2% tin, sounds hard to me, an when smackin with a hammer, yeah its hard.
ive recovered a few now, msised a doe found it in the dirt, an some others ,hard dirt an stuff it deforms the FN , yet to take good note of a succesful hunt... will report when done so.

long story short, im o k with the velocity an accuracy for hunting, bit of fun an a step back in time with such low velocity lol
 
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