Cast Bullets in Muzzle Loader

[Hunter 257W]

Well, I finally got around to testing something I've been thinking of trying for a while now. That is to stop using jacketed bullets in my muzzle loader and go with cast. The particular bullet design that got me off the fence is Lee's 310 grain 44 mold. (Part # 90858) It has a very wide flat nose. (Meplate for real bullet nerds.) Such a nose hits hard and tends to drop game fast all other things being equal. Since I would be using a sabot to fire these bullets, I would be free to make them a soft as I needed to get good expansion with no worries at all about leading the bore. I cast the first batch with 70% Clip on Wheel Weights and 30% pure lead. At 50 yards it punched through 4 milk jugs and bounced off the 5th and was found in the grass expanded to .75 caliber. Not bad at all but might as well see if I can do better, right?

Next test was to add more pure lead to the alloy with the goal of even better expansion. With 310 grains of weight to aid in penetration, I can easily give up some penetration in the search for more violent expansion. I bumped up the pure lead amount to 50% this time. Back to the 50 yard range and more water filled milk jugs. Got the same expansion and penetration but it did bust the 1st two jugs more violently and make more of just a hole through the later jugs rather than "busting" them good. Both bullets look very similar but the softer alloy did give a more symmetrical mushroom and from the damage done to the jugs, a faster more violent expansion. Either way if you get a 310 grain flat nosed 44 caliber bullet to expand to 75 caliber in a deer, it's going to do the job.

I used two 50 grain pellets of 777 powder and Harvester sabots for 44 bullets in a 50 cal ML.

 

[GOODWIN]

Interesting test. Yep that'll work! What's the accuracy?

Curious. If your going cast why not go for a full bore slug and ditch the sabot?

 

[MUP]

Awesome! The ones I cast were 100% wheel weights. I'll have to mix some lead into the mixture for more reliable expansion. ;)

 

[DaveB]

IIRC when you push a cast bullet much past some FPS it leads the bore. Accuracy quickly degrades until the bore is clean. I cannot recall the number but it very much depends upon what you are melting. Too hard you add this, too soft you do that. You get the correct hardness that allows you to achieve your FPS and is accurate.

This is why folks use sabots. They can concentrate on terminal ballistics instead of worrying about leading the barrel.

And folks who cast their own talk mold model numbers, most keep their mixture percentages to themselves, the make and color of various sabots is a very big deal. I know several people who have tons of lead in various stages. Raw unsorted, then sorted, then melted and poured as ingots for long term storage. Guy down in Tampa has 12 tons of ingots. These people walk among us and look perfectly normal.

I think the site to end all cast sites is
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/

Some of the nicest people you ever wanna meet hang out there and front porch rules are very definitely in effect.

There are some folks powder coating their cast. I've seen a few-red, blue, green, white, black. Looks very cool.

 

[Hunter 257W]

Interesting test. Yep that'll work! What's the accuracy?

Curious. If your going cast why not go for a full bore slug and ditch the sabot?

Several factors made me chose to stick with a sub caliber bullet and sabot. First is the fact that this particular 44 bullet has intrigued me for a while and I wanted to try it so using it in the ML was as good an excuse as any. :D There is also the versatility of being able to use it in the ML plus my 44 Magnum revolver, although it is a bit heavy for that imo, PLUS the 44 Mag lever action carbine I intend to buy some day. Loading data shows that you could get almost 1,500 ft/sec out of a 44 Magnum carbine and that would be a nice woods load. Second reason I went this route is to keep the sectional density higher without letting the bullet weight go so high that recoil became a problem. Once you go to a full bore 50 caliber bullet, you have to get real heavy to just fill that hole up! :shock: A 300 grain 50 caliber looks like a short pistol bullet. Third reason is uncertainty about the force to load a full bore bullet. I've never actually tried a full bore muzzleloader bullet so I don't know how much force it takes to load one but it has to be more than a soft sabot. I guess I could have tried one of the Lee REAL (Rifling Engraved At Loading) molds that are specially designed to ease the loading process but then that bullet would only be useable in the ML for 2 weeks a year during deer season. Someday though I may try one just to see how it compares to the 44 slug/sabot combo.

 

[Hunter 257W]

Awesome! The ones I cast were 100% wheel weights. I'll have to mix some lead into the mixture for more reliable expansion. ;)

I'm assuming you are talking about the clip on wheel weights not the soft stick on style. I know you've said you made your own mold blocks but I don't recall if it is a full bore bullet ? I think it is but not sure. Do you have a bullet you can show us? I'd say you can easily add up to 50% of the stick on wheel weights or pure plumber's lead. I lucked into a pile of the pluming flashing at a scrap yard a few years ago. At 1st I started to trun it down because I was thinking it was too soft to ever use but am sure glad now that I didn't.

 

[Hunter 257W]

IIRC when you push a cast bullet much past some FPS it leads the bore. Accuracy quickly degrades until the bore is clean. I cannot recall the number but it very much depends upon what you are melting. Too hard you add this, too soft you do that. You get the correct hardness that allows you to achieve your FPS and is accurate.

This is why folks use sabots. They can concentrate on terminal ballistics instead of worrying about leading the barrel.

And folks who cast their own talk mold model numbers, most keep their mixture percentages to themselves, the make and color of various sabots is a very big deal. I know several people who have tons of lead in various stages. Raw unsorted, then sorted, then melted and poured as ingots for long term storage. Guy down in Tampa has 12 tons of ingots. These people walk among us and look perfectly normal.

I think the site to end all cast sites is
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/

Some of the nicest people you ever wanna meet hang out there and front porch rules are very definitely in effect.

There are some folks powder coating their cast. I've seen a few-red, blue, green, white, black. Looks very cool.

A friend of mine has done a lot of experimenting with cast bullets in his revolvers for years and is just now getting into rifle cast bullet shooting. His testing has been interesting along with a lot of other shooters on the cast boolits website's results. I used to think it was a simple velocity threshold that cast bullets were limited to regardless of caliber, weight or fit-to-bore. That's not always the case it seems thank goodness. It's sort of like working up an accurate load where each gun is an individual and you have to try it in your gun to see how a load works out. Cast bullet fit to the bore is a big factor it seems as far as leading is concerned. Also you can get away with a lot higher velocity with a gas check than a plain base bullet design obviously since the check shields the bullet base from the heat of the powder charge and I think it scrapes out whatever leading was left from the previous shot. My friend has done a fair amount of experimenting with powder coating and has even done some for his rifle bullets with good results. I can't get excited about powder coating for some reason. Guess I'm too old fashioned and don't feel right unless I put a couple rings of greasy kid stuff around each bullet. Besides, another friend and I split a big order of beeswax several years ago to make out own lube, so I have at least a lifetime supply of bullet lube already in my hands. :) Casting bullets opens up a whole new world of reloading and fooling with guns. Anybody who is drawn to the self reliant aspect of loading your own is bound to enjoy casting and consider the mess worthwhile.

 

[MUP]

Awesome! The ones I cast were 100% wheel weights. I'll have to mix some lead into the mixture for more reliable expansion. ;)

I'm assuming you are talking about the clip on wheel weights not the soft stick on style. I know you've said you made your own mold blocks but I don't recall if it is a full bore bullet ? I think it is but not sure. Do you have a bullet you can show us? I'd say you can easily add up to 50% of the stick on wheel weights or pure plumber's lead. I lucked into a pile of the pluming flashing at a scrap yard a few years ago. At 1st I started to trun it down because I was thinking it was too soft to ever use but am sure glad now that I didn't.

Using the black sabots with my casting. And yes, it was the clip on weights. I have some lead ingots that I may carve some off of and add to the pot this next go round.