Bullet "failure "

[GunnyMack]

The buck I shot last Saturday afternoon went all of 30 yards. I used my muzzle loader, 2 50gr 777 pellets, a 300gr hornady FTX bullet.
The FTX stands for Failure To Expand, I shot that buck in the shoulder, broke both sides up quite well. However, I struggled to find the holes in the hide, in .452 and out maybe .500. Minimal expansion at best.
Did the bullet fail? Yes and no. It killed the deer sure but I sure would like more expansion.
So here is my query to you all.
Have any of you heard about putting a sheet of paper between mould blocks to create an expanding cast bullet?
I heard of this 30 plus years ago but have not heard of it since.
Supposedly the void in the nose by the paper of a cast bullet will cause it to begin 'expanding' on impact.
Im not opposed to buying a mould just for this purpose.
Over the years my buddies and I tried all kinds of bullet combos, A frames, Speer Sierra, Hornady. All fell short of expansion, just zip through. On the other end of the spectrum were the Remington 240gr .429 semi jacket bullet, they REALLY expanded, causing all sorts of internal damage, to the point of ruining too much meat.
Looking at commercial jacketed pistol bullets everything seems way too over engineered as far as I think a deer bullet should be. There is one bullet by Hornady, 245gr interlock that might work more to my liking and I have some on hand. Gotta put a few on paper.

I tried some of Mr Noody's Northern Precision bullets , he makes some really nice bullets but they just didn't shoot that well from my gun.

I know cast will work but they gonna be armor piercing like the FTX.
So has anyone heard of this paper trick?
Or should I get a HP mould ?

[yooper2]

Ive heard of the paper trick but never tried it.

I'd be more inclined to get a hollow point mold or cast soft nose bullets both of which I have had great luck with. Perhaps you could size down a Lyman gould bullet for your use? Seems the new Lyman molds all cast small anyway. Cast 20:1 and driven to 1300-1400fps it has always been a reliable performer.

Casting soft points is a way to make your own sort of nosler partition. Have two lead pots going, one with dead soft lead, the other with a tougher alloy that you would normally use for your velocity range. Make a dipper for the pure lead that gives you a volume of lead equal to the nose of your bullet. Pour that in, then follow as normal with the harder lead immediately. It helps to have the mold and pure lead quite hot for this. The two parts solder themselves together. I can't tell a meaningful difference in accuracy out of hunting rifles. I wouldn't use this method with bore riding bullets as I think the nose would slump upon firing but that's just a guess.

Eric

[Pisgah]

In my .58 caliber flintlock I use pure lead round balls.

Nothing I shoot with them seems to care if they expand or not... and neither do I.

[GunnyMack]

Yes, I have never had a complaint with my 54 round ball gun! I've gone to an inline for multiple reasons, easier cleaning, loading plus extended range mostly.

I'm not equipped to double pour.

[JBowen]

I have used the 300 gr. .452 Hornady XTP magnum bullet in sabots that worked about the same as you described. I switched to the .452 250 gr. XTP and they expanded quite a bit more, probably more than you would like.
Looking for a little better accuracy than sabots in my CVA
With the 1:28 twist I tried the CVA Power Belts with the
built on skirt. I think they are the 285 gr. hp. They are more accurate and the expansion is somewhere in between the 2 XTP’s.
You should look at the PowerBelt options. They have several styles and weights.

JBowen

[Scott Tschirhart]

In my .58 caliber flintlock I use pure lead round balls.

Nothing I shoot with them seems to care if they expand or not... and neither do I.

My .58 caplock is the same. Pure lead round ball and I have never recovered any of them.

[TedH]

My experience with FTX bullets and similar has shown them to be violent expanders. I think in your case the impact velocity may be lower than what the bullet was designed for. Higher velocity with a 250 gr bullet may give you better results.

[GunnyMack]

I have used the 300 gr. .452 Hornady XTP magnum bullet in sabots that worked about the same as you described. I switched to the .452 250 gr. XTP and they expanded quite a bit more, probably more than you would like.
Looking for a little better accuracy than sabots in my CVA
With the 1:28 twist I tried the CVA Power Belts with the
built on skirt. I think they are the 285 gr. hp. They are more accurate and the expansion is somewhere in between the 2 XTP’s.
You should look at the PowerBelt options. They have several styles and weights.

JBowen

I shoot the 295gr power belt from my Encore until they came out with their 245 gr. But I have a 1:48 barrel, probably too short for the 1:28 twist.

[FLINT]

I don't think the solution needs to be that complicated.

Just swap your FTX bullet for an XTP. Done.

I've been shooting .452 XTPs in my muzzleloader for 10 years and they work awesome. Almost all of my bucks have been shot with this bullet.

I shoot the .452 300 grain mag with the black crush rib sabots and 90 grains of blackhorn at 1765 fps and they absolutely wreck deer. Huge blood trails and they never go far. VERY effective.

JBowen suggested that they don't expand, but I've not found that to be the case.

the 300 grain mag is designed for 1100 - 2100 fps, so it's golden for 1700s fps

the 250 grain non mag is designed for 800 - 1600 fps, so I don't think I'd shoot it out of a rifle.

[Griff]

I suspect it was less a matter of bullet failure, but more due to a lack of velocity.

[GunnyMack]

A buddy of mine has a Savage ML , the kind that can use smokeless, he does and his velocities are higher and he gave up on the Hornady bullets because he wasn't getting expansion, deer going farther than they should.
Im going to do some testing come spring with different bullets, give me an excuse to buy a block of gelatin!

[Bronco]

I played around years ago drilling a hole in a cast bullet that made it a HP. Of course I was a lot dummier then and put stuff into the hole topped it off with a primer. NOT suggesting that but try drilling a hole as centered as you can get?? Sure would a like a range report to see how accurate they be. I was just testing the rounds for penetration into 2X4's . playing dangerously and did not test them at any distance over 50 feet!

[Scott Tschirhart]

If you punch a hole all the way through something is that really a “failure “?

[GunnyMack]

Exactly why I used the quotes Scott. The bullet did its job certainly.
Friends dad used to go moose hunting every year in Quebec. He shot a moose once with a 30 something using Nosler Partition. He made a heart lung shot.
When we butchered the moose here at home he was complaining about how the bullet was just the rear section under the off side hide, the front section was gone. He ranted about it being a failure. I said to him the partition is designed to do exactly what it did and explained the fact that old man Nosler designed it after he had a bullet explode on a moose shoulder losing the animal to run off and suffer.
Yes I'm disappointed in these bullets. I'll use up what I have in my 450 Bushmaster and start looking, testing other bullets.

[Shasta]

Years ago I had an Italian 1874 Sharps in .45-70. I had read about using a piece of aluminum foil between the nose portion of a bullet mold to increase expansion. I was using a big ol' 525 grain Lyman 457125 cast of pure lead ahead of 55 grains of black powder, and so I decided to give the foil a try. While deer hunting I spotted a coyote up on a hillside about 125 yards away, and my first shot went high but the dumb coyote just stood there. My second shot put him down right there. I was curious to see how the parted bullet had performed, but when I got to the coyote he had obviously been rolling in something very dead as the smell of him was overwhelming. I could see a bullet size entry wound on the near shoulder, and using a tree limb I got him rolled over expecting to see a very large exit wound, but darned if that bullet had not passed through! I decided that was not a good sign so never went further with those bullets.

Shasta

[Scott Tschirhart]

When we butchered the moose here at home he was complaining about how the bullet was just the rear section under the off side hide, the front section was gone. He ranted about it being a failure. I said to him the partition is designed to do exactly what it did and explained the fact that old man Nosler designed it after he had a bullet explode on a moose shoulder losing the animal to run off and suffer.

I wonder at times if we don’t expect way too much out of bullets? No bullet is going to be able to do anything.

Some bullets are really amazing. A Remington Core Lokd from a .30-30, .30-06 or .35 Remington are real killers but you take this same bullet and push it a few hundred feet faster and it will blow up on a close range shot.

[samsi]

About 15 years back I was getting ready for an elk hunt and when checking the zero on my '06 discovered that the bedding had deteriorated - accuracy was in the toilet. My backup rifle was a 77 MkII in 280 but the only load I had on hand was a deer load with a 139 Interlock at around 3000 fps.

I decided on a limit on only shooting a solid broadside shot at reasonable distance. It turned out I got a large cow at a shade over 100 yards with a target angle of about 80 degrees at around 20 degrees downhill. The shot was a little high and a bit far back but probably as good as possible given the setup, she bolted about 15 yards and somersaulted. The bullet broke 2 ribs going in and 4 on the way out with the exit side ribs extensively blood shoot. The chest cavity was a mass of goo.

Did the bullet fail? I don't think so. Was it the right one for the job? No, but it worked about like you'd expect given the less than ideal application.

[GunnyMack]

Of all the animals I have shot, mostly whitetail deer and having to use slugs/muzzleloader by law I have only stopped 1 slug and that was a new fangled sabot. A foster slug, forget about it, it's gonna go through .
However, years ago I had a Lyman Cougar inline muzzleloader. It shot 180gr Remington hollow points amazingly well, with a 1:24 twist. I still scratch my head over that. Just about every deer I found the bullet in the off side, perfect mushroom though retained weight suffered. It was a perfect deer bullet in my opinion. That led me to think, that 180 +/- weight range is perfect, think 30 caliber at 165-180 grains for how many of yesterdays and todays favorite deer guns.
Of the 2 elk I have shot, one with my 338WM, a hand loaded 225 Hornady interlock and the other was a factory load Federal Fusion from my 338 Federal. Both bullets stayed in the elk. Both shots were about 200 and 175 yards. A very large pig on a fenced hunt I shot with a Ruger 44 carbine, hand loaded 300gr XTP
shot at about 15 yards. The bullet went in and out with nary expansion.
The perfect bullet is the one that gets inside to the squishy bits.

[Scott Tschirhart]

I think that’s right. I want a hole in one side and another hole on the other side to let cold air in and blood out.

Even a 60 gr Hornady Interlock bullet out of my .223 dis that this year.