Commercial Semi-wadcutters on game

I used to hunt a lot with a 6 ½” model 29 and a 6” 629. I used the same 10 gr Unique load as you with Oregon Trail, Bullet Meister and Missouri bullets and had good luck with them. I never shot anything large but did use it for several deer, javelina, coyotes, etc. I was only able to recover one bullet, a head shot which went the length of a javelina. It stayed together.

I don’t think you’ll go wrong with any of the bullets you mentioned.

hossfly said:

A We know cast Keith's work, but the mass produced casts hit the sweet spot for me regarding economy and time spent.

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IMHO, any SWC is a variation of a "Keith" style bullet since in Keith’s time, the only other bullet types were Wadcutter (WC) and round-nose (RN), both of which he felt were inferior hunting bullet designs. Why would a quality mass produced cast bullet perform terminally any differently on game than a home cast bullet?

I am not a hunter so please explain why you are going hunting with a reduced load.

There were numerous other bullet designs in Keith's day. He adapted several of them and his own ideas to produce what we now think of as the Keith semiwadcutter.
I think most of the revolver semiwadcutters you see now are closer to the Sharpe design, shorter and lighter than Keith's. A real Keith mould comes out about 245 grains in the usual antimonial alloy but was 250 grains with Elmers lead and tin.

Jim Watson said:

I am not a hunter so please explain why you are going hunting with a reduced load.

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Depending on the game, there's not always a good reason to use full power loads.

That 10gr Unique under a 240gr SWC is moving pretty good. It's likely north of 1000fps. That should punch right through deer sized game stem to stern. Other than making it more difficult to manage recoil I'm not sure what an extra 400fps gets you unless you're either chasing bigger game, or really stretching the distance.

240gns of lead chugging along at 1000fps is nothing to scoff at. Plenty of power for most things that walk and crawl

Barbaroja said:

240gns of lead chugging along at 1000fps is nothing to scoff at. Plenty of power for most things that walk and crawl

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I know, right?

Alas in my state, that 1100 fps load with the 240 grain bullet would be just under the legal minimum..., which is set for handguns in my state at 700 ftlbs..., BUT the solution would be to up the load a teeny amount to get 1150 fps.

LD

That’s a shame. Fortunately where I am at the only stipulation for big game with a handgun is a minimum 4” barrel and .24 caliber or larger. Center fire only. and .22 Rimfire is approved for cougars

Barbaroja said:

That’s a shame.

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It is, and it's only improving slowly. We just got approval for most of the state for the use of straight walled rifle cartridges for deer. Most of the state was shotgun and muzzleloader only..., sometimes handguns, sometimes not.

LD

I've killed more deer and hogs with that load than any other. It works with boring regularity. An expanding bullet at higher velocity will tend to work quicker but the SWC is cheap, plentiful and does everything I need it to without fanfare. Most run less than 50yds. I remember a heart-shot 200lb hog that barely got turned around to run away when he rolled over and went to Jesus.

I would say the experience the guy in the other thread had is atypical. However, as buck460 noted, some critters just wanna live. I had a doe run 100yds up a 100ft hill with a .54cal roundball at 1850fps through both lungs. Not every kill is going to be textbook.

The question I would pose is:
Since the bullets at those velocities are giving passthroughs, and they are not traveling fast enough for the “shock” factor to come into play, then what is really gained by pushing the bullet a couple hundred feet faster and increasing the recoil?

hossfly said:

Real world....there probably isn't any but in Dave's case it's an arbitrary game law.

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Oh I agree. I didn’t mean from a legal standpoint. It’s like guys who hunt with a 45-70 with a 405gr cast bullet and black powder. And the guys who take that same cartridge/bullet over a heavy dose of 3031 driving it 500fps faster. The 3031 guys really aren’t gaining anything except more sore shoulders.

Lot to be said for a solid, cheap, load which you can shoot a lot but still gets the job done well. I think the 240gr LSWC is a great option in a .44.

Looking for a similar load for a 44SPC and 41mag. Keep it mostly simple and have one load I use most of the time, get good with it and leave it be.

BigBore44 said:

The question I would pose is:
Since the bullets at those velocities are giving passthroughs, and they are not traveling fast enough for the “shock” factor to come into play, then what is really gained by pushing the bullet a couple hundred feet faster and increasing the recoil?

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Excellent point.

The real question is, why is the black powder rifle threshold pretty much the same as the modern handgun threshold of 700 ftlbs. (give or take a 100 ftlbs.) ? YET the muzzleloaders are still as lethal at 100 yards or less as the modern rifle that has to reach an additional 500 ftlbs. (At least for me over the past 20 years the empirical results using a flintlock have shown it to be so.)

Further..., some folks are worried about hunters accidentally or carelessly "shooting out of safe", for those not familiar with the phrase, it's a round that travels outside the public or private lands where hunting is permitted, landing in a neighborhood. Yet..., in the areas where this was a prime concern, they legalized straight walled cartridges like the .45-70, .450 Bushmaster, .450 Marlin, .350 Legend and etc.

When I first heard they were going to allow fixed ammunition in the once muzzleloader and shotgun only areas, I expected the regulation would adopt .357 magnum, .41 Magnum, .45 Colt, and .45 Winchester Magnum, and so on..., pistol cartridges in carbines...., because on paper these look a lot like the already approved muzzleloaders, loaded with bullets like TC Maxi-balls, etc. Nope, ANY straight walled cartridge is good as long as from the rifle it hits 1200 ftlbs.

As for your point, my .450 Bushmaster rifle delivers 2700 ft.lbs with a factory load. Yes it can be a tad "harsh" on recoil and the cost per shot is like shooting the most expensive shotgun shells made.

I however, handload for my .450 Bushmaster, a lead alloy, hollow point bullet, and step down the load to get a muzzle velocity 40% below the factory ammo, and it works just fine, reduces the barrel leading, and doesn't beat me up with recoil. (Costs less than half the factory ammo too ) IF I was going to be reaching out to 200 yards or a little farther, I might go back to factory loads, but as I'm hunting terrain that's 100 yard shots or less, regardless of the firearm used, there's no reason for the factory ammo.

LD

The only thing I would worry about with commercial cast SWC is that a lot of the commercial casters use very hard alloys and since that means lots of antimony and probably very little tin, they tend to be brittle. Perhaps in a pistol load with the bullet doing 1100FPS out of the barrel they are not going fast enough at impact to shatter if they hit a big bone. I know that I would not be eager to use bullets much above 12 BHN in a rifle and I would want them to have a good bit of tin in them.

A few hundred extra feet per second will flatten the trajectory a bit, if that is important. It also places a lot more stress on the bullet, which increases the risk of failure.

What I never got is people using 400gr bullets in the .45/70 for deer sized critters. You'll get the same result with 250's with less recoil and a flatter trajectory.

hossfly said:

Craig do you have a preferred swc you use for hunting?

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For deer, it really doesn't matter. I've used them from various makers. I still have bullets I bought from Space Coast cast bullets when I lived in Florida. I've used them from Hunter's Supply, Oregon Trail, Meister, Leadhead's, Rimrock, Matt's, Mt. Baldy, Montana Bullet Works, etc.. I was using Tennessee Valley for a while as they were semi-local but the last few years it's been mostly Missouri Cast Bullet. Beartooth makes some of the best premium bullets on the market. Grizzly's (Cast Performance) customer service sucks, so I don't recommend them at all unless you buy from a 3rd party retailer like Midway.