Cast bullet path in game

[EdinCT]

I have been pondering something that happened to me this year deer hunting. I shot a buck of about 140 lbs at maybe 65 yards with a NOE 44 cal 250 gr dimple point out of my 44 mag CB II rifle. It was a very slight quartering shot almost broad side. I hit the buck right in the pocket 4 inches above the near side front leg. It bucked made two jumps and rolled with out a kick. Feeling pretty good about it until I rolled him over to dress him and the exit was just beyond his sternum on the other side. I was expecting a exit on the opposite side maybe a few inches lower than the 1/2 way of the entrance ? I put about a 1 inch hole in his heart but it wasn't destroyed like a soft point hit and appeared to deflect down and out the bottom
I have shy'd away from hollow points since my hunting partner shot a doe quartering to him and the XTP exited the same side and the one lunged deer made a good run.
I shot 2 of these Dimple points at gallon jugs and both went out the side at 30 yards before the hunt. I thought, I am hitting 2 inch groups at 100 don't over think it. Now I am wondering if I should just shoot the flat point nose? I have killed over 125 deer maybe 15 with cast and never saw anything like this. Alloy was 5lb Lyman #2 ,5 LB 20-1 ,5 lb range scrape and 5 LB pure shooting at about 1800 FPS.
What do you all think did I just have my once in a lifetime fluke?

[44shooter]

Well some will say your bullet killed your deer just fine, and they will be right. But, I see that performance as something that could go wrong on another animal. I like bullets to go straight as in break the opposite shoulder if I need to or reach the front half from the back if things go awry. I prefer exits and expect them on anything resembling broadside.

[JimT]

I have not used anything on game but flat nose bullets when using cast bullets. The Keith SWC or LBT LFN mostly. Before heavy cast bullets were available for the heavy .45 Colt loads I used Lyman #457191 45-90 rifle bullet sized down for the .45 Colt. It is a flat nose but the meplat is smaller than the Keith SWC. I never had one turn. They pretty much just went straight on through. I have shot full-length through deer and hogs with them.

I don't know what to say about what you experienced.

Maybe buy a bunch of hams and line them up and shoot through them with that bullet and with others and see if there is any difference?

[TedH]

I wonder if your dimple point is causing them to veer off course? Like Jim said, I have never had a flat point cast bullet do anything but plow a straight hole through deer.

[Tycer]

I wonder if your dimple point is causing them to veer off course? Like Jim said, I have never had a flat point cast bullet do anything but plow a straight hole through deer.

This
Veral Smith was on to something.

[Grizz]

I agree, the flat points have never done that in my experience. They will blow up a heart like a pin pricked balloon if it's full of blood. We never used any kind of hollow points for meat hunting. were you saying that the bullet comes out of the side of water jugs? sounds like it's not stabilized. I had a bullet going side ways thru plywood, not stabilized by the rifling.

[EdinCT]

When shooting straight on at the water jugs the bullet went through 3-4 gallon jugs and drifts out the side. I shot a 38 WCF 172 Lyman at the same set up and retrieved the slug mushroomed and even the 240 gr NOE with the Hollow point pin, I found a nice fat mushroomed slug.(Not a fan of hollow points I want a exit)
I had a NOE 32 Special mould I gave one of my sons and the Dimple point was the Berries making a cast expand like jacketed that is why I tried it in the 44.
One other thought popped in He was walking in the brush and I waited for what I thought was a opening to shoot through, maybe I tipped it on a unseen branch, but the entrance hole was round ?
I think I will Cast a batch of Flats and save some gallon jugs this summer and report back!
Jim if I bought a bunch of hams I would be eating them, not shooting them

[Scott Tschirhart]

I’m no expert but I find that some older bullet designs penetrate in a straight line. Keith bullets and LBT LFNs do this as do the older Lyman designs for the .45 Colt and .45-70.

The 270 SAA seems to track straight as well.

Sounds like you made a clean kill and the bullet did its job but I would also be concerned.

[JDL]

I like a flat point for my hunting use and have not seen a problem of changing directions with them. Have used the Lyman 31141 and 431244 without problems but, put the most meat in the freezer using a swaged, flat point, paper patched bullet from my .45/70.

[6pt-sika]

I’ve killed a pretty good amount of deer with cast bullet in various cartridges all were bullets I cast myself . Most were with the 444 and a fair amount with the 45-70 but still a bunch with various lever action cartridges . Anyway without a doubt as has already been said FP’s seemed to hammer them better . I have however used a bunch of HP 44 cals and one in the 45-70 . The first I ever popped with an HP was the old Gould HP mold that Lyman sells out of the 45-70 , shot a big bodied 6 point at 21 yards and he dropped like a sack of potatoes. One entry wound and to exit holes . In the 44 I’ve used 6 or 8 different hollow point molds and all of them did a fine job with the possible exception of the Lyman Devastater mold you can buy now , that mold has a big HP cavity and I tend to blame that . The one deer I killed with that bullet I shot twice first shot was a little further back than I like but he was down and flopping around , he got his front feet back under him so I popped him again and end of discussion . I had a HP version of the old stand by Lyman/Ideal 30 cal 170 grain FN GC mold I had wanted to try but never got around to it before I’d sold all the 30-30’s .

[Grizz]

The 525Gr 45/70 Pile Driver from BTB went dead straight thru a line of water jugs, stopping in the twelfth one. I'll post a post-op foto if I find it. Computer has so much memory I can't find anything in it.

[GunnyMack]

Is it possible your bullet encountered enough bone that it began slowing down and just rode down a rib?

Your experience reminded me of a buddy that shot Nosler partitions in his .30 something and he complained that just the rear section was under the hide on the off side of a moose. He was so concerned that he didn't get full penetration on a moose. Um yes you did cuz last I knew moose don't have vitals between the skin and muscles. Sure 2 holes to bleed from is better but as long as you hit em right a bullet could completely blow up inside destroying the vitals and I'm happy enough.

[Sixgun]

Read Elmers Keith’s stories on game shooting…….bullets do unexpected things. Just last week I was watching this Vietnam veteran talking on the Military Channel…..,..his patrol was ambushed and everyone was killed or laying down……the gooks came up and fired off their AK’s to make sure they were dead…….the guy who was talking was shot in the head at point blank range ……the bullet entered his skull, went around the inside of his skull and came out the other side of his head doing little damage to his brain.

[EdinCT]

I also have a bunch of dimple points loaded for my 375 Win my Dad left me. I was hoping to try it on deer but I think it will be used with flat points also. I once had a doe go 100 yards in the rain after taking a 300 gr RD flat point (45/70) through the top of her heart and had a heck of a time trailing her. Its all part of the business I guess.

[GunnyMack]

I shot a buck years ago with a 12ga slug through both lungs and it went over 200 yards- no matter the size hole if they are hopped up on adrenaline they are gonna run.
I've had deer drop DRT with buckshot. Granted they may have been hit with a stray pellet in the head or neck but most often a 12 pellet load was all in the vitals from my 870 with 30" fixed full choke and ported barrel ( really helped patterns by not blowing the over powder wad through the shot column. )

Muzzle loader I had was 1:24 twist and I was able to get sabots and 180gr 44 hps to shoot quite well. Just about every deer I shot were boom flop from spitting distance to 100yds. Most were not pass through but under the skin . Each of those 180s did the job.

[6pt-sika]

The 525Gr 45/70 Pile Driver from BTB went dead straight thru a line of water jugs, stopping in the twelfth one. I'll post a post-op foto if I find it. Computer has so much memory I can't find anything in it.

I had a mold for a 550 grain GC bullet that came from Ballisti something or other . Never killed anything with it but it shot well on paper . Recoil was a big push rather than a sharper recoil with say something in the 400-425 grain range .

[Grizz]

The 525Gr 45/70 Pile Driver from BTB went dead straight thru a line of water jugs, stopping in the twelfth one. I'll post a post-op foto if I find it. Computer has so much memory I can't find anything in it.

I had a mold for a 550 grain GC bullet that came from Ballisti something or other . Never killed anything with it but it shot well on paper . Recoil was a big push rather than a sharper recoil with say something in the 400-425 grain range .

That's a fact. Do you know the velocity on the 550? They are comfortable to shoot and work like a locomotive on rails.

[marlinman93]

All my loads for hunting with my old 1800's single shots and Marlin lever guns have been plain flat point cast bullets. On light game like deer all have been pass throughs, with what appeared to be a pretty straight path. I've never had a deer go more than maybe 20 ft. before dropping. But I have had some drop like a rock, and then kick on the ground for a few seconds before dying.
I like flat point cast bullets for more than hunting, but especially for hunting. Exit holes don't show huge expansion, but damage internally shows enough to do the job.

[6pt-sika]

The 525Gr 45/70 Pile Driver from BTB went dead straight thru a line of water jugs, stopping in the twelfth one. I'll post a post-op foto if I find it. Computer has so much memory I can't find anything in it.

I had a mold for a 550 grain GC bullet that came from Ballisti something or other . Never killed anything with it but it shot well on paper . Recoil was a big push rather than a sharper recoil with say something in the 400-425 grain range .

That's a fact. Do you know the velocity on the 550? They are comfortable to shoot and work like a locomotive on rails.

This is entirely from my speculative memory but seems to me I was getting 1200 or so . I tried them I think mostly with H322 and possibly RL-7 .

[Scott Tschirhart]

Following up on this, I used to shoot a Lyman government bullet in a .45-70 which was 520 or so grains at 1100 fps. Even when shot into a very resistant material like wet newspaper, it would penetrate so straight that you could run a rod through the bullet path.

Prior to that, I shot a Marlin with a 420 gr LFN GC at 1800 fps.

Surprisingly both seemed to be equally effective on game. But the 420 did strange things in flesh and did not stay on course.

My theory is that I was pushing the 420 too hard so that the bullet deformed on impact. Whereas the old government bullet was not disturbed by the impact and travelled straight.

I’ve seen and heard of instances where a .45 ACP ball round would follow the contour of a human skull instead of punching through,

But I’ve never heard of a standard round nose soft lead .45 Colt round that did anything but penetrate straight.

There may be some other thing going on here.

[Grizz]

Good info Scott,

Over on Marshal's BTB forum there was a long-running deep dive trying to understand the difference between your 520 load and the 420 load. There was an illustration showing the slower making an envelop type shock wave, what we call the initial large wound cavity, AND at the lower velocity the bullet is still creating this low-pressure area in front of the nose all the way through the game.

On the other hand the faster bullet traveled faster than the shock wave, and contacted flesh and bone before the shock wave caught up to it. That is the gist of the argument.

That's a poor description, but it seems to be the reason for the difference between your first two examples. Shooting the 420 into wet newspaper at the same velocity as the 520 load might clear up the question.

In parallel, the 405gr redhawk load at Marshal's 1000 fps penetrated 13 water jugs dead straight, like my 45/70 round does . . .

These discussions might still be available on that site, IDK, I can't log into it any more . . .

grizz

[6pt-sika]

The 550 grainer mold came from BallistiCast but I also had a 462-465GC mold that came from I think they were called BPR it kinda had a nose like a Ranch Dog mold which I liked quite a bit . Anyway that 465 grainer shot extremely well in the 4 or 5 45-70 in which I tried it . At the time I had three 450 Marlin’s and had thoughts of trying it in one of them but never got around to it before I liquidated them .

[Grizz]

The 550 grainer mold came from BallistiCast but I also had a 462-465GC mold that came from I think they were called BPR it kinda had a nose like a Ranch Dog mold which I liked quite a bit . Anyway that 465 grainer shot extremely well in the 4 or 5 45-70 in which I tried it . At the time I had three 450 Marlin’s and had thoughts of trying it in one of them but never got around to it before I liquidated them .

I have some old time 460gr Cast Performance .459 LBT that shot well from the Browning 1886, except that it didn't care for the the slightly rounded ogive, and I started using truncated cone bullets. I think that a 460 grain 45/70 bullet could prove to be the sweet spot for my 45/70s. Halfway between 525 and 425. I don't know if I will ever be in a situation where I could check that out. 1 load out of different barrel lengths would be interesting . . .

[cas]

Not completely on topic, but more just a way to say "Who knows what the heck will happen..." my first deer was a huge doe. Still the largest bodied deer I've ever shot. 50ish yards in a corn stubble field, slightly below me in grade, quartering to. 12ga shooting the old BRI style sabots. Hit her in the brisket in front of the shoulder, didn't enter the body cavity, stayed under the hide traveling over the shoulder, up the ribs and finally hit the spine about 3/4 of the way down her back and off into the wild blue yonder. She dropped, the back end paralyzed, but had to finish her with a shot to the neck with a pistol.





Still makes no sense to me. MAYBE if I was shooting up hill at it, but I was shooting down hill. And the hide must have resisted enough to curve that slug around and back in. No internal damage. If I didn't see it, I wouldn't have believed it.

[EdinCT]

I have shot a bunch of deer with the BRI and always got straight through penatration, go figure. Just goes to show you are never sure what will happen. One thing I now do that I didn't in the past is shoot again if game doesn't drop!