Making the switch to Lead Cast bullets ***slugged a barrel today***

R

Ricky Bobby

New member
Well folks, I'm in need of any info or suggestions for loading up lead bullets. I have come to the conclusion that when shooting high volume .357mag rounds at paper and other various targets, that I'm simply throwing my money away when using high-end jacketed bullets such as the Hornady FP/XTP's. I love the Hornady's performance for a hunting round, but that's exactly what they only should be!

I think I have decided to go with the Missouri Bullet Company's lead cast bullets because of them being a somewhat local company. They have a bullet they call the .357 Action. It is a 158gr SWC that they advertise as having a Brinell hardness of 18 and that it is for Magnum velocities. I have searched their website for load information & have found that they do not offer any, for liability purposes.

Here are a few questions I have:

Since they claim these bullets are for magnum velocities, can I load them with the current powders I have been using for my .357magnum loads ... such as H110 or Lil' Gun?

What velocities can these bullets be safely pushed to?

What will happen if I would accidentally push one to hard & for safety purposes, how critical is it to keep them below max velocities? Reason I ask this is because I currently load without using a chrony, but hopefully I will own one in the near future.

Would these bullets possibly serve as a hunting round? I'm sure they would be fine for smaller varmints when doing critter control around the farmplace, but what about coyotes and even up to deer sized game?

Lastly, how bad are these lead bullets going to be for making a mess inside my barrels? Should I just clean more often?



I'm really looking forward to gaining more bang for my buck! Just want to go into this with as much knowledge as possible. Really wish that the Missouri Bullet Company would offer some load data for their products, it would answer a lot of my questions. So I figure I'll try getting some info from the next best source, which is everyone lurking on this site!
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proper hardness and properly sized bullets will not make a mess of a barrel.

lots of reading for you to do.
 
Originally Posted By: Ricky BobbyAre you saying that I won't notice any difference inside my barrels when shooting these 158gr SWC's from Missouri Bullet Company?

He said PROPER hardness and PROPER sizing will not make a differance.

If you're too soft or too hard, it will likely lead. If you're too fast for you're brinnel hardness, you will lead. If you're undersized, it won't shoot for crap. Oversized? It will lead.

Like he said, you have plenty more reading to do. Or...invest in lots of Lead solvent and some good brushes.
 
RB I have run over 600 of the Mo Bullets through My 44 Mag with no leading as of yet. I have not tried full house loads with H110 as of yet. But using Unique powder I can get over 900 rounds per lb of powder. That combined with the cast bullet cost makes it fun and cheap to shoot. The effects on animals that I have shot is they seem to go right through like a FMJ. I have only shot squirrels and Jacks so far. Maybe they would expand more on a larger animal? Good luck.
ETA.. Got to Castboolits.com and do a little reading. Those guys have alot of good info
 
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If you are going to shoot lead bullets, I would strongly recommend the Lyman cast bullet manual, and the Lyman loading manual - they are THE bibles of lead bullet shooting and they are full of knowledge about this topic.
 
Guys

When do you know or at what point do you start using the gas checks with your lead bullets?

Trying to figure it all out. Thanks for the links with info.
 
Originally Posted By: Ricky BobbyGuys

When do you know or at what point do you start using the gas checks with your lead bullets?

Trying to figure it all out. Thanks for the links with info.

Read the above books - they will tell everything you need to know... or go to the boolets website.
 
+1 on the Lyman Handbook. I shot cast bullets out of my 357 and 45 for bowling pin matches. Cast bullets in my 45 Colt, 300 Sav, 358 Norma Mag, 35 Rem, 375 Win, 250 Sav and 25-204. Most were plain base except for the 45 Colt and 300 Sav. Most were used for small game and preds and the 375 on deer. Never had to push them hard enought to lead barrels.
 
I used to cast and sell even 500 S&W Mag bullets, people had no issues whatsoever with leading as long has they had the correct muzzle brake installed (put on the one for jacketed fodder and you spray your neighbors with lead shavings). I have also had NRA competition shooters with battle rifles get some great scores with my cast bullets, and even had a horrible backlog of folks trying to buy them, though we were casting round the clock, 7 days a week. Cast bullets definitely can be made to handle most things bullets handle, and can be effective on game from mice to moose, et al. It is simply a matter of matching the alloy and size to the pressures and barrel diameter. Of course, make sure you clear all the copper fouling out of your bore first, because that causes more leading in good bores than most anything else. I have seen a Ruger GP-100 bore with chatter in the internal tooling! That thing leaded no matter what we did. When Ruger replaced the barrel (after my client insisted on it, they did not want to) the resultant CLEANLY rifled barrel did not lead at all.

You do indeed have some research to do, but I personally would not go to full pressure loads with BHN 18, I would go for BHN 21 for those, however unless you are casting them yourself, you are not likely to get BHN 21 commercially. You need a smaller caster. You get it by simply casting wheelweight alloy (not the new stuff, the older stuff, the new stuff just foams up and makes a mess when you melt it) and checking it for hardness with a tester. Once you know you have 13, recast it clean and drop the resultant bullets in VERY cold water from the mould, it should hit BHN 21 hardness in a couple days. If you want to really harden em up for NO expansion, you can oven treat them, that is easy as well, but is another discussion.

BHN 21 as I described it can be used in full pressure .357 Magnums at 1300 FPS with no gas check, no leading (if properly sized to the bore), and Bullseye powder. I checked it with a Beta Chrony, they are just fine, and will penetrate 3/8 steel plate if you use the same alloy in a .454 Casull with a Keith design bullet. Zero expansion (but at that velocity and profile, you don't need it). They will drop a hog in the .357 instantly with a head or spine shot. I have not shot a deer with one, however I have shot 750 lb and larger holstein steers that I was butchering with that .357 Magnum. Worked just fine, so I imagine they will kill a deer that tops out at what, 300 lbs as an extreme mule deer maximum? Of course, we are talking about a revolver here, ranges have to be kept at what is normal for revolvers...
 
When you start buying Cast Boolits with gas checks its about the same cost as jacketed boolits. If anyone has a cheaper place than I have been looking, feel free to post links!
 
I was just about ready to chime in the same response! If you do the math ... jacketed bullets are looking better & better for the full house loads.

Maybe I just need to have 2 completely different loads, but I have always liked target shooting the same load that I hunt with.
 
I suppose it just depends on what you want the bullet to behave like and where you want to get it..

Another option you have is to cast them yourself. The checks for the .38 caliber last time I bought them were about 3 cents each, the lead cost per slug was infinitesimal. I reused the brass, the powder was something like 5 grains of bullseye or some such. Cheap as heck.
 
Missouri bullet will cast to whatever hardness you want as long as you order at least 1K. They also have a formula somewhere on there site for determining BHN based on your pressure. After that really the trick is figuring out the correct size for your bore. I shoot Missouri Bullet in my 45 and they are actually more accurate than store bought winchester FMJ.
 
Dogmessiah, at least they will do that for you! That is good! I used to custom cast all the time, and we generally got great results if the client bothered to slug the bore or if the barrel was reasonably close to "normal" (which varied tremendously based on who made it and when). Often we would send a few bullets to them they would try to see which was the better fit, and I would cast the remainder of the order and size it (or not) according to that situation. Revolvers seemed to be the worst offenders, there were a few bellmouthed ones every once in a blue moon with which we just could not deal, but they were rare. Normally everything worked out just fantastic.
 


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