Cast hunting bullets.

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  • Last Post 07 April 2026
2frogs posted this 15 December 2022

Ok. I got my first big doe with my Rossi 92 in 357,with the 158 swc,at a bhn of 10. At about 70 yards. It's snowing here in north east pa. Anyway,my question is,why are some folks saying that you need a hardness of at least 15 bhn. Seems to me it would be like driving a hardwood dowel through with no mushrooming. Therefore just crippling the animal. Any good explanation for this.. thanks..

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Aaron posted this 15 December 2022

Experienced folks say that you should match your velocity and hardness. A HP bullet needs to be softer to expand. A SWC needs to be harder to drill deep. Gas checked bullets can be softer than their PB counterparts, all things being equal.

Bottom line is that the alloy and therefore the BHN is matched to the velocity and desired terminal effect of the bullet. Yours worked just fine so - 10 works with your velocity, range, and desired effect.

 

Here are my 357 HP bullets in 20:1 alloy which is about 10 BHN. These were fired at 1200fps. Work great.

 

Here is a 44 Mag bullet in Lyman #2 alloy (BHN 15) fired at 1300fps. Total failure of the bullet. Hard didn't work here.

 

Here is the same bullet in 20:1 alloy at 1200fps

 

SSK 340gr 44 Mag bullet. COWW metal. Heat Treated. BHN about 22. These are made to drill through 400 pound wild Russian boar lengthwise. Then a tree. Then another tree. Then a hill. Then finally stop in a third tree.

As you can clearly see, velocity and alloy need to work together to make a bullet perform on target (terminal ballistics). You make the BHN what it needs to be to work in your gun for your purpose. laughing

 

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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Ken Campbell Iowa posted this 15 December 2022

... note that many of our national champ winners are using " soft " 20-1 or 30-1 alloy at 1500 fps ... ( gc ) ........   and these alloys mushroom nicely ...

one easy test is to whack your bullet with a hammer ... it should flatten nicely, not crumble or shatter ... for hunting ...

*****************

interesting that you can use soft mushrooming alloy at even higher fps with no gas check if you paper patch them ... seems strange, and there is something very interesting there but i can't figure it out ...

ken

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Eddie Southgate posted this 30 March 2026

I use 20-1 or 30-1 up to 1100 fps in HP and solids for handguns but anything faster gets 2 % Sn 2 % Sb  96% Pb . It's tougher and does not normally give the fracturing pictured above and penetration is excellent. I am starting to use cup points more than traditional hollow points . They seem to expand sufficiently for my use . Have used 2.5 % Sn 2.5 % Sb 95% Pb and it seems to work just the same but not better so I have settled on the cheaper to make alloy. 

Grumpy Old Man With A Gun......Do Not Touch .

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Tom Acheson posted this 30 March 2026

Guess I’m just lucky. I’ve taken (22) Mule Deer in Wyoming and (2) Whitetail in MN. 1982-2020. All with an iron sighted S&W .41 Mag. revolver. All using cast bullets.

The alloy was always just wheel weights and I didn’t pay attention to a velocity/ hardness relationship. Most hits on the animals were in the chest cavity. Entrance and exit holes were usually the same size. Bullet weights were 230 to 280- grains. These were either Hensley & Gibbs or SSK molds.

Tom

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Larry Gibson posted this 30 March 2026

I've come to find a binary alloy of lead to tin at 16-1 give excellent expansion in game with muzzle velocities in the 1400 - 1700 fps range, especially with HP'd GC'd cast bullets.  

BHN to withstand acceleration is only half of the equation with cast hunting bullets.  Malleability at impact velocity is the other half. 

LMG

Concealment is not cover.........

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Ed Harris posted this 01 April 2026

Larry is spot-on. Follows Elmer Keith's writings many years ago. I happen to like 50-50 wheelweights and plumber's lead with 2% tin added as general purpose alloy, but similar hardness and performance to 1 to 16 tin-lead.

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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pat i posted this 02 April 2026

Tom 24 deer with wheel weights in a handgun and wilderness's pig tally with bullets harder than whats accepted practice just proves to me at least that as they say it matters where you hit them not what you hit them with.

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Wilderness posted this 02 April 2026

Yes Pat, but as Larry says, getting them to shoot is just the first part. Then they have to do the job in the animal. That means balancing destruction and penetration.

The trifecta we have to manage is velocity x bullet hardness x hollow dimensions (or no hollow). Higher velocity may require harder bullets for accuracy or to steady the break up of a hollow point bullet. It may also require a lesser hollow. Lower velocity may require a softer bullet or a bigger hollow or both.

"Correct" hardness for hunting depends on velocity, hollow and quarry.

As to the original question by the OP - I would indeed ask why on earth go harder if the softer solid bullets shoot OK, penetrates sufficiently and kill the deer. You would only go harder if accuracy required it, or it was a hollow point bullet with excessive expansion or more particularly inadequate penetration. If you do shoulder shots and the soft bullets get at least into the second shoulder, then you don't need or want to go harder (on pigs anyway).

You are only as good as your library.

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Wilderness posted this 02 April 2026

Returning to the original question:

My first cast bullet load mistake, a couple of generations ago, was to use a hard alloy solid for .44-40 in the quest for a bit more velocity. The load was even less effective on pigs than the low velocity factory soft points.

What did work in the end was a duplex load of black and smokeless that prevented bullets pushing back into the cases, and a totally soft hollow point bullet. The lower velocity was no loss alongside the gain from the soft hollow point bullet.

This soft bullet preference to accommodate lower velocity in no way contradicts my hard bullet HP preference for 2000+ fps velocities. The aim with both is to get the bullet to perform.

You are only as good as your library.

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shootcast posted this 03 April 2026

Solid flat points will give some expansion from softer alloys. Just what you’re looking for as deer hunting bullet. Hard alloys don’t expand. 12 BHN tops seems about right for me. Hard enough for cast velocity without leading and plenty accurate enough for hunting. 30 caliber loadings. Bigger bores bigger holes. Probably not as important.

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Lee Guthrie posted this 03 April 2026

Something I learned from Veral Smith decades ago:  soft nose cast bullets.  This is a two part cast bullet that solders together in the casting process.  Fill your bottom pour pot with hard alloy and set temp high.  Float a Lyman lead dipper on top of the hot alloy in the pot.  Place a swaged pure lead round ball (such as Hornady) inside the dipper and allow to melt and get hot.  Cast enough of the hard alloy bullets to get the mould very hot.  Then using the dipper pour the pure lead into the mould and QUICKLY move the mould to the bottom pour spout and fill it to running into a large sprue.  Use an appropriately sized RB for the amount of soft nose you desire.

The end result is a hard cast bullet with a pure lead nose.  The two alloys will be soldered together and will not separate.  These are NOT target bullets but will shoot minute of bambi as far out as you would normally hunt with cast bullets.  I've taken a couple dozen whitetails with these using .35 Whelen, .375 Win, .375 H&H, and .45-70.

The soft nose will expand (and if too close will probably shear off but the body of the bullet with a ragged flat nose will push on through).  I never recovered one of these from a deer.  One doe taken with a .375 H&H (335 grain) had an embarrassingly large exit wound (as big as the end of a beer can).

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shootcast posted this 07 April 2026

I read an article once that I thought made a great hunting bullet. Cast an alloy bullet and heat treat. Then set it in a pan of water deep enough to cover the driving bands. Then use a propane torch and heat the nose area to anneal the bullet above the water. This supposedly gave the desired soft nose for expansion and kept the rest of bullet hard for higher velocity. I first thought it worked. My experience was the nose only softened about 2 bhn . I gave up and stayed with softer alloys.

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