Flat nose hardcast vs. expanding jacketed ammo

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Re: Flat nose hardcast vs. expanding jacketed ammo

Post by galaxieman »

Take your hand and put all your fingers along with your thumb together making a point, now hit a large tub of water. as your hand hits the water expand your hand. this is a hollow point. Now just flat hand the water with your hand. notice the difference in the reaction of the water? I realize this is an over simplified description, but it gets the "point" across.
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Re: Flat nose hardcast vs. expanding jacketed ammo

Post by Ninety Caliber »

Ranch Dog wrote:
44-40 Willy wrote:I've always thought that jacketed expanding bullets would transfer more energy to the target on mushrooming than a bullet that's just passing through.
The magic is in the meplat (pronounced "me" "plat")! When I decided to start designing my own cast hunting bullets, I spent quite a bit of time reading the works of Garrett, Smith, Stanton, & Thorniley. These guys are the modern pioneers of cast hunting bullet design. A long or wide, flat nose bullet cuts a predictable hole through a critter and they have done quite a bit of research concerning not only the hole that is cut but the penetration that can be achieved while cutting the hole.

From that work, I started out on on my own trying to decide what the optimum bullet nose profile might be for killing a hooved animal. Because of the abundance of feral hogs I was a able to test bullets with a wide range of meplats rather quickly and decided that majority of my designs would feature as near to a 72% meplat as possible.

Meplat, if not an actual decimal measurement, is typically expressed in percent and that percent is an reflection of the great caliber of the bullet. For example, a.323" 32 Win Spl bullet with a 72% meplat has an flat, .233" point. The only time that I would adjust that point is if something different was needed to enhance cartridge feed from the magazine into the chamber. In the case of my 32 Win Spl bullet, the TLC323-180-RF, a .225" meplat (70%) provide a bit better feed allowing a longer overall length to be used so that the bullet could be heavier and end up with more powder pushing it once it was seated in the case.
TLC323-180-RF.jpg
So much study has been done on meplat that it's performance can be rendered down to mathematical performance projections. The hole that is cut by the bullet's meplat can be predicted by math but the easiest way to do this is with a calculator such as is available on Beartooth's Ballistician's Corner. The Permanent Wound Channel calculator uses meplat diameter against bullet strike velocity (not muzzle velocity) which determines the diameter of the entry wound channel. As an example, my TLC323-180-RF as shot from my Marlin 336RC, leaves the barrel at 2215 FPS (30.6-grains of H322). At 80-yards the bullet is traveling at 1960 FPS and it should cut a hole that is 1.103" in diameter.

Bullet penetrations can also be determined. Typically this is calculated as an index rather than actual inches. Actual inches would not account for the unknown of hide thickness, bone encountered, etc., where the use of an index allows the performance of different bullets to be compared against each other. The TLC323 has a Relative Penetration Index of 51 or a Thornily Stopping Power Index of 81. You can use these calculators to compare this bullet or others to what you use. Be sure to use the impact velocity where "FPS" is specified.

As noted above I have an abundance of test material and for a period extending across the span of a decade, did my own research against well over a thousand feral hogs. Every design that my pea brain spit out was tested against a feral hog either by me or shooters that hunt my ranch and were willing to take my rifles and bullets into the field. When the animal was down, all kinds of data was taken from the distance of the shot, to the distance the critter ran if not knock off it's feet, to the diameter of the entry and exit wound, and ore. To qualify the data, only shots taken behind the shoulder and through the rib cage were examined. I was simply interested in entry & exit wound channel, internal organ damage, and recovery distance. Each and every animal was cleaned by me and I have huge zip files with photos such as this.
Entry Wound.jpg
This particular photo is of a 160# feral hog that was shot with the 32 Win Spl and the TLC323-180-RF at, you guessed it, at 80 yards. As a whole, across all the animals shot, I would have to say that the BTB Wound Channel Calculator is a wonderful tool that when used with the appropriate figures will calculate the minimum diameter to expect. In this incredible number of critters, none were lost and the average distance traveled when the animal left the spot was 35 yards. I'm not saying that some weren't easy to find as the South Texas brush can be incredibly impossible to penetrate over that distance but the animals did not go far. The performance was not only recorded on hogs but also South Texas whitetails and nilgai, and West Texas pronghorns and mule deer.

With the shots taken immediately behind the shoulder and through the rib cage, I was able to assess internal organ damage. In a nutshell, it was total. The meplat impact and resulting shock wave destroys everything forward of the diaphragm. I don't know how else to describe it.

The target area on the animal was further defined as being at the point behind the shoulder at the lower third of the body height. In other words, the body was divided by three equally spaced horizontal lines from belly to back. We tried to place the shots at the point where the first horizontal line up from the belly intersected with a imaginary vertical line immediately behind the shoulder. If a critter ran, shots at this point or lower, created a huge blood trail. As the impact moved up to the next horizontal line from the belly, blood trails where lighter but consistent. Above that line, second up from the belly, blood trails were spotty at best. Above the first horizontal line up from the belly, missing the heart, only the heart survives as a recognizable organ.

There were some animals that split the scene but did not leave any blood trail. They were found and when examined the only thing that I could determine was that the critter was dead on its feet. The heart was either destroyed or disconnected from the supporting organs and the animal was not breathing.

In all this I only recovered two bullets. One from a nilgai and the other from a desert mule deer. They both showed some "mushrooming" and erosion of the alloy. To this day if you ask me what kills an animal with a LFN or WFN cast bullet I will tell you it is a result of the hydrostatic shock created by the meplat.

Most of this shooting was done with alloys that mirrored Lyman #2 with the bullet being shot at velocities that are similar to jacketed bullet velocities for the cartridge being examined.
Well sure makes a case for the semi-wadcutter as a defense bullet and in my mind validates what the old/timers thought about fight stopping ammo for police agency's . I personally have never jumped on the hollow point bandwagon .
I've been carrying a .38 with the old NYPD load that s&w used to manufacture. 158 grain LSWC at 900 ft per second.
I know this is not necessarily what this thread is about, but RD has articulated something I've always believed .
Thanks RD!
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Re: Flat nose hardcast vs. expanding jacketed ammo

Post by Ranch Dog »

Ninety Caliber wrote:I know this is not necessarily what this thread is about, but RD has articulated something I've always believed .
Thanks RD!
You're welcome!
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Re: Flat nose hardcast vs. expanding jacketed ammo

Post by Zippidydoodah »

RD,
You probably have a very full plate, but with your knowledge and background, you need to write a book about your bullet designs. You are advancing the art of hunting. I got into bullet casting I suppose like a lot of other people to save money and used cast bullets for target practice. I still buy jacketed but am starting to see the light with your help. Lyman is probably the only book I'ved read that had articles about hunting with cast bullets, and that was primarily in their black powder book. I haveHornady, Speer, Sierra,Nosler, Barnes and Lyman reloading Manuals and they hardly mention lead bullets. (Lyman excluded).
Their sales depend on producing pretty pointy bullets with lofty ballistic coefficients that are accurate at 1000 yards, but how many of us does that concern. All the deer I have shot have been well under 100 yards, and I doubt I would try one over 150 yards.
You need to write a book or have it ghost written and get the word out. I don't know how many hunters would be interested but I guess there are over ten million in the US alone.
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Re: Flat nose hardcast vs. expanding jacketed ammo

Post by Rooster59 »

I would be glad to pay full price for an autographed copy.
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Re: Flat nose hardcast vs. expanding jacketed ammo

Post by 62chevy »

Rooster59 wrote:I would be glad to pay full price for an autographed copy.

Tight wad!!! :lol:
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Re: Flat nose hardcast vs. expanding jacketed ammo

Post by Zippidydoodah »

I would too and I know someone who would ghost write it with you. My ex-brother-in-law. He is getting to be an old codger too but is a good hunter, excellent writer. And would probably do it for the opportunity. He has written for "cheaper than dirt", Dallas Safari Club, and wrote a novel waiting to be turned into a movie.
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Re: Flat nose hardcast vs. expanding jacketed ammo

Post by Model 52 »

Ninety Caliber wrote: Well sure makes a case for the semi-wadcutter as a defense bullet and in my mind validates what the old/timers thought about fight stopping ammo for police agency's . I personally have never jumped on the hollow point bandwagon .
I've been carrying a .38 with the old NYPD load that s&w used to manufacture. 158 grain LSWC at 900 ft per second.
I know this is not necessarily what this thread is about, but RD has articulated something I've always believed .
Thanks RD!
Gen. Julian Hatcher did a fair amount of testing on animals and cadavers when developing his theory on stopping power which is basically momentum times a form factor for the bullet type and assigned the following form factors:

0.90 Fully Jacketed Round Nose
1.05 Fully Jacketed Flat Point
1.05 Lead Flat Point
1.00 Lead Round Nose
1.10 Fully Jacketed Flat Point (Large flat)
1.10 Lead Flat Point (Large Flat)
1.25 Lead Semi-wadcutter

Other folks came along later and assigned other form factors

1.00 Jacketed Softpoint (unexpanded)
1.10 Hollow Point (unexpanded)
1.35 Jacketed Softpoint (expanded)
1.35 Hollow Point (expanded)

If you compare the form factor of 1.25 for the SWC to the form factor for an expanded hollow point and then look at everything else, it makes a strong argument for the SWC, given that it will never fail to expand.
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