Flat nose hardcast vs. expanding jacketed ammo

[massmanute]

I am interested if someone can comment on the differences in performance between flat nose hard cast designs and jacketed expanding ammo on game. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

massmanute

[357cyrus]

The way I understand it... Flat nose bullets cause massive wound channels because the meplate scatters tissue with impact force like Gallagher's sledge-o-matic scatters watermelon. Pointed bullets induce a shock wave through tissue with their speed...almost like a sonic boom inside the body.

[44-40 Willy]

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.

[Missionary]

Good morning
Also have to consider purpose of projectile.
Hunting.. I want complete penetration for a good exit channel. Leaking out fast is important to getting older hunters. Using a larger caliber for hunting (calibers .41 and larger) really do not need alot of expansion. But casting from 50-50 will give some expansion. At normal impact ranges (not muzzle velocity) 50-50 does nicely on corn crunchers through the ribs / chest.
For busting shoulders a hard cast will work but if it is too hard it may shatter on large shoulder bones. I am pleased with wheel weight (WW) with tin added for this job. Not had one shatter yet. Havwe always busted through the shoulder and completed good interior work. As I am not planning on shooting many times leading is no issue. So far one round is all I have ever needed. I hunt river bottoms so ranges have never been more that 33 yards.
Linetype may shatter on heavy bone. Have seen it shatter on steel too many times. A mix of WW & linetupe with tin added is well used also. I am just too cheep to use up my linetype for popping whitetails with a handgun as that is all ILLinois will alow so far.
For CC I carry very soft cast. In 38 Special my own range lead which is soft. I want it to smash flat and not exit. Same in the 44WCF for "repel boarders" load. I want the intended to know he has been visited. Here lead bullets are viewed as "old fasioned" and not worth having. I totally agree... I only wish I had more powder and primer accesability to get rid of more of those old fasioned lead things.
Mike in Peru

[Ranch Dog]

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.

[44-40 Willy]

Thanks RD! Lots to mull over there for my pea brain.

[massmanute]

Ranch Dog,

That was the best discssion of this topic I have ever read.

massmanute

[mr surveyor]

that was certainly worth the price of admission. I could read that type of experience and knowledge for hours.

more to come on the subject?

[Ranch Dog]

...more to come on the subject?

Anytime, just tell me what is on your mind!

Ahhh, let me think what I could add. Oh...

In my work, the lower end of hoofed big game shooting is the 32-20 Win with my 115-grain bullet. I was interested in shooting this setup on a hog at 50 yards as it sits right at the minimum of Thornily's index of 50 for deer. The actual index of this .313", 115-grain bullet, impacting at 1860 FPS (50-yard velocity) is 49. This bullet did penetrate the rib cage of an average feral hog and kill it quickly so I have no doubt it would work on a deer. I would not shoot a deer with it beyond this range. The same with the Permanent Wound Channel calculation. It determined that a .977 hole would be cut and I had at least a 1" hole through the animal.

I offer this example as I know that many shoot reduce loads with their cast bullets. I think they will work as a whitetail bullet as long as they have a 70% meplat and you maintain Thornily Index of 50 at the yardage shot. In other words, a little poking around with your ballistic chart and the calculator to figure out where the performance falls below an index of 50 determines the maximum range of your cartridge.

[Rooster59]

Ranch Dog, if you have a pea brain then you must be using 95% of it instead of the typical 10% like the rest of us.

I use wide meplat cast bullets in the medium hard category for hunting and conventional RNFP cast for target shooting.

The only exception is my 30-30. For it I use the flattest shooting jacketed 150gr bullet that will give me the best point blank range with minute of deer vitals accuracy at longer ranges. I have used the FTX bullets which offer the best distance capabilities but their explosive expansion at shorter distances is undesirable to me. It seems every time my 30-30 or 45-70 had FTX bullets in the mag tube the deer appeared within spitting distance. They work but fracture and mess up too much venison for this meat hunter.

At 100 yards or under I like using bullets shaped like the flat end of a ball peen hammer versus a needle. Ever get hit by a ball peen hammer? No expansion necessary.