This article by Terry N. McArthur, appeared in Fouling Shot #145, May/June 2000.
There is no way in this day and age that the average person can become an expert on bullet performance, but I have hunted with cast bullets in two states for the last 20 years and have formed some opinions.
About all my hunting with cast bullets has been done with the .375 H&H in a Ruger #1. I have used other rifles for coyotes, but even for them I prefer the .375.
The first mould I used was the Lyman 375449 hollow point. This is a grand little mould that casts a 260-grain bullet when using wheel weight metal. It is just too light and fragile for deer at .375 H&H speeds. It sure is a great bullet for coyotes and rock chucks. The bullet will usually shatter inside a coyote and not leave any big exit holes to sew up.
Figuring a heavier bullet was needed, I had Richard Hoch make a two-diameter mould that casts a 330-grain bullet when using wheel weight metal. That bullet never was very accurate and it was all my fault. I ordered a .375” diameter bullet and that is just what he made for me. Later on I realized my rifle shoots a lot better with larger bullets.
At this time I had not even heard of water quenching or heat treating to harden bullets. The air-cooled bullets that were recovered from deer all had expanded. Not having a chronograph, I don’t know how fast I was driving them, but I had 70 grains of H4831 in the case, so they were probably leaving the muzzle around 2000 f.p.s. After playing with the 330 gr. Hoch for a few years, I ordered a single diameter mould from Dave Farmer of Colorado Shooter’s Supply (P.O. Box 3777, Milan, NM 87021), which drops at .378”. About this same time I started water quenching. That bullet is accurate with 70 grs. of H4831, but with only a small flat on the point, it isn’t very good on game.
Several things were tried to improve the performance of this CSS bullet. A bored hollow point helped quite a bit. Annealing just the point seems to help but the way I was doing it isn’t very reliable so I gave that up. Casting a two-alloy bullet with a pure lead nose seemed to work best but is quite a bit of bother. For some reason soft pointing ends any shattering problem, at least in these .375 bullets. When a small soft point is added, that bullet really penetrates. One was driven through thirty inches of bear, and for all I know it is still going!
There is no way in this day and age that the average person can become an expert on bullet performance, but I have hunted with cast bullets in two states for the last 20 years and have formed some opinions.
About all my hunting with cast bullets has been done with the .375 H&H in a Ruger #1. I have used other rifles for coyotes, but even for them I prefer the .375.
The first mould I used was the Lyman 375449 hollow point. This is a grand little mould that casts a 260-grain bullet when using wheel weight metal. It is just too light and fragile for deer at .375 H&H speeds. It sure is a great bullet for coyotes and rock chucks. The bullet will usually shatter inside a coyote and not leave any big exit holes to sew up.
Figuring a heavier bullet was needed, I had Richard Hoch make a two-diameter mould that casts a 330-grain bullet when using wheel weight metal. That bullet never was very accurate and it was all my fault. I ordered a .375” diameter bullet and that is just what he made for me. Later on I realized my rifle shoots a lot better with larger bullets.
At this time I had not even heard of water quenching or heat treating to harden bullets. The air-cooled bullets that were recovered from deer all had expanded. Not having a chronograph, I don’t know how fast I was driving them, but I had 70 grains of H4831 in the case, so they were probably leaving the muzzle around 2000 f.p.s. After playing with the 330 gr. Hoch for a few years, I ordered a single diameter mould from Dave Farmer of Colorado Shooter’s Supply (P.O. Box 3777, Milan, NM 87021), which drops at .378”. About this same time I started water quenching. That bullet is accurate with 70 grs. of H4831, but with only a small flat on the point, it isn’t very good on game.
Several things were tried to improve the performance of this CSS bullet. A bored hollow point helped quite a bit. Annealing just the point seems to help but the way I was doing it isn’t very reliable so I gave that up. Casting a two-alloy bullet with a pure lead nose seemed to work best but is quite a bit of bother. For some reason soft pointing ends any shattering problem, at least in these .375 bullets. When a small soft point is added, that bullet really penetrates. One was driven through thirty inches of bear, and for all I know it is still going!
Being basically lazy, I was looking for a good game bullet right from the mould without having to do anything extra to it. A rough chamber cast and an even rougher picture of what I thought I wanted was sent to Old West Bullet Moulds (P.O. Box 519, Flora Vista, NM 87415) after I found out they made hollow point moulds. They made a few suggestions and I ordered the mould. The hollow pointing pin is short and cone shaped. The bullet weighs 337 grains when cast of wheel weights and is .379” in diameter. It has been a very accurate bullet and great for game. It usually loses about one-third of its weight with the long remaining shank penetrating far enough on deer and bear to reach the vitals even on a quartering flank shot.
I did hit one bear in the chest as it faced me and couldn’t find the bullet or an exit wound. It probably shattered but I didn’t find any bullet fragments to speak of, so maybe I just missed it during the butchering.
Reading Paul Matthews books got me to wondering about dead soft paper patched bullets. I cast some bullets of pure lead from the undersized 330 gr. Hoch mould, and they came out weighing 340 grains. Paper patched, they aren’t as accurate as the Old West hollow point, but they don’t do too badly. They work great on deer and black bear. A few coyotes have also been taken with them. That dead soft bullet is pretty tough on a coyote pelt.
I did hit one bear in the chest as it faced me and couldn’t find the bullet or an exit wound. It probably shattered but I didn’t find any bullet fragments to speak of, so maybe I just missed it during the butchering.
Reading Paul Matthews books got me to wondering about dead soft paper patched bullets. I cast some bullets of pure lead from the undersized 330 gr. Hoch mould, and they came out weighing 340 grains. Paper patched, they aren’t as accurate as the Old West hollow point, but they don’t do too badly. They work great on deer and black bear. A few coyotes have also been taken with them. That dead soft bullet is pretty tough on a coyote pelt.
L to R: The paper-patched bullet is the 330 Hoch that weighs 340 grs. cast of pure lead. The expanded bullet below it weighs 336.2 grains and was recovered from a bear. The bullet hit the left flank and ended up under the hide in front of the right shoulder.The second bullet is a 355-gr. Hoch. The recovered bullet below it is one that had been soft pointed and now weighs 228 grs. The deer was hit in the neck and the bullet was found under the hide between the back legs.The third bullet is the 337-gr. Old West hollow point. The recovered bullet weighs 205 grains and was taken from a buffalo. The bullet hit the crease where the neck joins the shoulder and ended up under the hide on the far side flank.The fourth bullet is a 330 Hoch cast of WWs and air-cooled. The recovered bullet was taken from a deer. Retained weight is 180 grains. The paper-patched bullet and the Old West hollow point seem about identical for penetration, but the wound channels are quite different. The hollow point makes a big entrance hole, then the shank penetrates deep after the nose has broken off. They act like a Nosler Partition bullet in that respect. The dead soft paper patched bullet opens immediately on contact, and due to the nature of the soft lead it hangs together and has a large frontal area to push through the animal. Meat taken with the paper-patched bullet is nicer to eat.
Sometimes fragments from the hollow point end up in unexpected places.
I never have had a wide flat point mould for the .375 but I’m sure one would work just fine, if heavy enough. Getting right down to it, when you put a soft point on a cast bullet it acts about like a wadcutter. The soft lead probably wipes away almost immediately leaving a wadcutter type shank.
My son got his deer this year with a 440-grain wide flat point bullet cast of half pure lead and half wheel weights, and air cooled. He was using his .45-70 Ruger No. 1. Both the entrance and exit holes were about three inches across. Needless to say, the deer didn’t get very far after that. I’ll bet a Ruger No. 1 in .50 Alaskan would be a great cast bullet rifle for brush hunting. If I really thought I was going to hunt another 50 years, I would probably talk myself in to getting one.
Sometimes fragments from the hollow point end up in unexpected places.
I never have had a wide flat point mould for the .375 but I’m sure one would work just fine, if heavy enough. Getting right down to it, when you put a soft point on a cast bullet it acts about like a wadcutter. The soft lead probably wipes away almost immediately leaving a wadcutter type shank.
My son got his deer this year with a 440-grain wide flat point bullet cast of half pure lead and half wheel weights, and air cooled. He was using his .45-70 Ruger No. 1. Both the entrance and exit holes were about three inches across. Needless to say, the deer didn’t get very far after that. I’ll bet a Ruger No. 1 in .50 Alaskan would be a great cast bullet rifle for brush hunting. If I really thought I was going to hunt another 50 years, I would probably talk myself in to getting one.
