Water-Cooled Wheel Weights Cast Bullets...LARGE Animal Protection???

[Southern Shooter]

I will be casting 360 grain bullets for a short-barrel Ruger Super Redhawk Alaskan .454 Casull. The velocity goal would be 1,000 FPS. The material used will be clip-on wheel weights that will be water-cooled. Most will be for target shooting and for woods protection in the Southeast.

However, there will be times that I will be spending time hiking and camping in the backcountry of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. If I run into an unhappy, large animal I would like to protect myself and thought about making the bullets used, myself.

Question:
Would water-cooled wheel weights be hard enough to have the needed penetration for large animals? Also, does it matter how cool the water is when the bullets drops in? Does the water temperature effect how hard the cast bullet ends up?

Thanks

 

[Walkalong]

Probably, yes, and yes. One thing to remember is that water quenched bullets will lose hardness over time.

 

[Travis Two]

Water quenched bullets will only work provided arsenic in trace amounts is present in the alloy and current WWs don't have the arsenic in them like the old weights. You can sometimes find shot that has some arsenic in the lead.
For my .454 I use the SSK 340 gr. bullet form www.pennbullets.com It is superb.

 

[res45]

My WW alloy drops AC bullets at around 12 BHN if I water quench them it goes to around 20 and heat treated for one hour at 450 degrees and water quenched the get up in the high 20's they will keep pretty much in the 20 for about two years. If you want the bullets to stay at there hardest point for long periods of time store them in the freezer.

I shoot my AC WW bullets at around 1200+fps. water quenched can go higher and if I gas check them I can shoot them at max velocity.

 

[KodiakBeer]

Even a soft lead slug of that weight would give all the penetration needed in the areas you're contemplating. A grizzly would be the biggest predator you might encounter, and even the males rarely go over 500 pounds in the Rockies.

 

[twofifty]

Issue No.222 of Handloader (April 2003) has a very good article on casting 2-part lead bullets.

The shank is hard lead from heat-treated water-quenched wheelweights (Brinell 22); this makes up 2/3 of the total bullet length.
Soft lead (1/3 of length) is cast on top of the first pour, to form the nose.
Both casts are done in rapid succession.

According to author Ross Seyfried these composite cast bullets mushroom very well but the hard shank keeps them driving deep through bone, cartilage. Makes for very efficient hunting bullets, for rifle and handgun.

 

[Seedtick]

Issue No.222 of Handloader (April 2003) has a very good article on casting 2-part lead bullets.

Here's the article. Casting Softnose Bullets.

Thanks twofifty.

Seedtick

 

[dagger dog]

SS,

Just to build your confidence in cast wheel weight bullets, read John Linbaugh's writings at his web site!

 

[Ridgerunner665]

Rotometals hardball alloy...it water quenches to 30 BHN (oven heat treated would be even harder)

$2.51 a pound, but worth it if your life is on the line, and its easy to work with too. Run the pot at about 780 degrees and it makes beautiful bullets...almost, but not quite frosted (just the way I like them)

Water quenched 425 grain RanchDog boolit (TLC-460-425) pictured here...cast from Rotometals Hardball alloy (2% tin, 6% antimony, 92% lead)

 

[Southern Shooter]

Update to an old thread..........

To add some specifics to an old thread. Here is the mold that I am casting bullets from. They are dropping at 362 grains on the norm. A few, as you can tell from the additional information below, do drop heavier.

Is this round sufficient for northwest trecking?

.454 Casull in the Ruger SRH Alaskan and 360 Grain Plain-base Bullet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 25, 2012
Just passing on today's experience with my Ruger SRH Alaskan .454 Casull with the 2.58" barrel........

Went to the range today. Sunny. Warm 80 degrees. The bullets fired were from my Accurate Mold 45-360C plain-base, straight wheel-weight lead. The bullets were the "rejects" in my last casting. Out of 140 bullets cast 114 weighed in at 362 grains and the remainder weighed anywhere from 364-370 grains.

I just grabbed 20 of the mixed weight (364-370 grains) bullets, did not check their weights, and loaded them on top of 23.5 grains of W296 and used my Lee Factory Crimp Die. The numbers are listed below in the order they occurred.

FPS:
1033
1040
1024
1044
1056
1044
1030
1044
1027
1031
1031
1056
1024
1064
1039
1024
1031
1036
1020
1058
------------
N=20
Hi=1064
Lo=1020
Ave=1037.8
SD=12.8

 

[NCsmitty]

Those are some pretty decent numbers from the short barrel, Southern Shooter, thanks for posting.


NCsmitty

 

[twofifty]

d'oh

"The shank is hard lead from heat-treated water-quenched wheelweights (Brinell 22); this makes up 2/3 of the total bullet length.
Soft lead (1/3 of length) is cast on top of the first pour, to form the nose.
Both casts are done in rapid succession."

Got my casting order reversed in the quote as posted above.
It should have been:
first cast the nose with soft lead, then quickly top off with the quenched wheelweights for the shank.