What do you think about this wide flat HP bullet?

B

black_hog_down

New member
Thinking about these for hunting with 7.62x39 bolt action. Comes in 150 grain 309-311 from GT bullets.
It's an interesting shape that I've never seen before. If it's accurate they look like good hog medicine. Anybody use anything similar?

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So I went ahead and ordered 100 wide hollow points and 100 regular looking HP.
150 grain, 310 caliber.
They are gas checked with a 3-3-94 composition.

They are intended for the 7.62 but I have 30-30 and 300 blk that they may find their way into.

http://www.gtbullets.com
 
Just so you know, hollow points using a 94/3/3 alloy are not likely to be good hog medicine. Hogs are tough, and you won't get the penetration you need with those bullets.

Don
 
Somebody's daft idea. Any cast bullet will expand dramatically upon impact. Like USSR says, cast bullets are not made for penetration.
30-30 and 300 blk do not use .310" cast bullets. And gas checked cast bullets still require cast bullet data.
 
That's mostly bad information in post #4.

Very hard cast bullets do not expand, nor did USSR's statement apply to more than the design shown. There have been quite a number of dead hog photos at the Shooter's Forum shot with wide meplat BHN 21 LBT type designs sold by Beartooth Bullets, including some through-and-throughs. This would mostly be larger caliber, but as long as you don't drive the bullets so fast that they strip in the rifling, they work quite well.

In a cast bullet, a .310" is just dandy for a .308" groove diameter barrel. Many rifles shoot cast bullets that are 0.002" over groove more accurately than those sized the usual 0.001" over groove. You could always run them through a Lee .309" sizer if it bothered you or if you just wanted to try the different size for accuracy.
 
Like USSR says, cast bullets are not made for penetration.
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As Unclenick said, my comment was in reference to that particular bullet and it's intended use, not hollowpoints in general, and CERTAINLY NOT CAST BULLETS IN GENERAL.

Don
 
USSR said:
Just so you know, hollow points using a 94/3/3 alloy are not likely to be good hog medicine. Hogs are tough, and you won't get the penetration you need with those bullets.

Don
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Should be better than the 22 mag I'm using now.
Hogs here are typically 80#. Not that tough.
 
My impression of history suggests that the advent of jacketed bullets caused lead, and cast lead bullets to gradually fade into obscurity and be relegated to slower and cheaper, perhaps regarded as inferior, ammunition, as the older generations of shooters passed away. Of course, cast bullets never completely disappeared as there were a few fellows that saved the lost art from extinction and sowed the seeds of a cast-bullet rennaisance, that by the 1970's, when I started casting, was really picking up momentum. Even then, the cast bullet movement was kind of a cult following. But today, a great many shooters, especially handloaders, have long known, that for many applications, cast bullets are second to none in quality and performance. Now, I do find it odd, that there are still a lot of shooters that don't yet know this.
 
There is a feller over at CBA that did an amazing experiment testing bullet lubes with over 3000 fps using cast bullets made from straight reclaimed shot alloy in a 7 BR rifle.

He offers solid proof that those velocities are attainable and with the right lube, little to no leading and very good accuracy.

Remember though, he was using a bench rest rifle with a polished barrel. You ain't gonna find that with a off the shelf production gun.

As far as the OP's chosen bullet, if the pigs are not large, it should work OK.

Personally, I use flat pointed (aka wide meplat) bullets for most of my swine loads.
 
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USSR said:
As Unclenick said, my comment was in reference to that particular bullet and it's intended use, not hollowpoints in general, and CERTAINLY NOT CAST BULLETS IN GENERAL.

Don
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This is true regardless of any bullet construction. Far too many folks assume any HP/SP, any cast/jacketed, perform the same terminally, as the next. HPs are gonna expand rapidly and drastically and cast are gonna penetrate lengthwise thru a horse. Lot more to it than that. Particular design, hardness and jacket thickness is just as important as velocities. One cannot assume anything just by lookin'........

USSR knows what he's talkin' about.
 
FWIW; I'd suggest you visit a dedicated cast bullet forum and lurk/read there. Prolly the most quality information on cast bullets will be found at http://castboolits.gunloads.com/. Every question I could think of (and many that I couldn't) in the last 9 years about anything connected to cast bullets has been answered there...
 
Thanks everyone.
I have always interested in trying new things and thought these looked interesting.
And I personally prefer a bullet that expands well and stops quickly, dumping all of it's energy in the vitals.
I have used solid hard cast and gotten punch throughs but with small holes. I've just had better luck with the HP I guess.
 
...I personally prefer a bullet that expands well and stops quickly, dumping all of it's energy in the vitals.
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One of the biggest ballistics fallacies on the internet is, that a bullet that remains in the target has "dumped" all it's energy into the target, as opposed to a bullet that exits the target. Energy is nothing more than a mathematical formula, and this energy formula has never killed anything. What kills is the crushing and destruction of blood vessels causing rapid blood loss, resulting in a rapid loss of blood pressure and a loss of consciousness and death. Obviously, any bullet that penetrates deeper does more destruction to blood vessels, and in addition an exit wound helps promote a more rapid loss of blood. What you want is a bullet that expands well AND leaves a very large exit wound.

Don
 
Well, energy, as the atom bomb shows, seems to be more than just a formula. But as a predictor of lethality it is highly unreliable because it is a scalar quantity that can be dissipated in any direction, unproductive directions included. Lots of guys have put down some pretty impressive critturs with big bullets going too slowly to meet the "minimum" kinetic energy "requirement" for killing this or that. There just are no truly consistent measures of cartridge and bullet lethality.
 
USSR said:
One of the biggest ballistics fallacies on the internet is, that a bullet that remains in the target has "dumped" all it's energy into the target, as opposed to a bullet that exits the target. Energy is nothing more than a mathematical formula, and this energy formula has never killed anything.
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Not a fallacy. When the bullet stops it has spent all it's energy. This is not debatable.
Now what you could debate is if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
IMO... At speeds around 2000 fps your best bet is to have the bullet stop on the opposite side of the animal just under the skin.
At slower speeds... If you said you prefer a through and through I would not argue with you.
One you get around 3000fps it doesn't matter. Your probably getting a through and through and the hydrostatic shock puts the lights out instantly.
 
HP vs FH

Hog hunting stuff>

T/C Contender 14-inch barrel .357 Maximum Bear Toothe 185gr cast w gas check. Through and through. Never a second shot.

HP on cast bullets does not make any sense.

Concerned about leading or not grabbing rifling, match BHN to velocity.
 
ammo.crafter said:
HP on cast bullets does not make any sense.

Concerned about leading or not grabbing rifling, match BHN to velocity.
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I'll have to try them out and see how they perform. If they break apart and I get just the bottom left over then that's not what I want. If I get a mushroom then we are good to go.

As far as leading, the gascheck and lube should fix that. Right?

They should grab the rifling as good or better. Remember that a spire point only touches at the base. These will have more touching the rifling.
 
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