The Quality of a Good Hollow Point

[sixshot]

Ten years ago I probably never would have written this because I have been shooting cast solids since the 60's & having very good results with them. Sometimes I would read the horror stories of long tracking jobs, no blood trails, etc but for the most part the animals I was shooting were not to far from where they were shot. That wasn't always the case but because I lived out west I was hunting in more wide open country & most times game didn't get out of sight before it went down. Again, this wasn't always the case but either through blind luck or help from my hunting buddies I don't think I ever lost an animal that I hit.
Fast forward several decades & I started seeing these new cramer style moulds that came with multiple sets of pins so that you could make solids, round HP's, penta HP's (whatever that was) and even a button HP if you chose to. What a bargain, that is if they were as advertised. Long time bullet caster Bob Kell was the mover & shaker on these dandy looking moulds, problem was I was a bit skeptical about these new HP moulds, especially with the penta (whatever that was) pins. But the moulds looked so pretty I had to dive in & give them a try & I slowly eased into the magic of the HP cast bullet & was I ever in for a surprise.
At first it was on small game, there I knew I was safe, they couldn't fail. The ground squirrels & rock chucks flew higher than I had ever imagined possible from a cast HP from a six gun. Even my 9mm's seemed like they were on steroids! I was powder coating all my bullets & was able to shoot my bullets quite soft so I changed my alloy. They I crept into the unknown, I started hunting big game with a cast HP, something I never thought possible, at least not possible with success, everything I thought I knew was proving to be wrong.
Even with the penta HP's (whatever that is) I was making kills on mule deer bucks & the bullet was giving me amazing results, fast kills & most times exits, how could this be! I had been preaching for years that only cast solids were the magic wand for taking big game but I was wrong, even on game bigger than deer, much bigger. I shot 3 big animals in Africa with HP's & they hit the ground so fast they were down before my gun came down out of recoil. Not only that but I only recovered one of those bullets, the others were complete pass throughs. This from a 282 gr HP from a Ruger 45 colt at 1340 fps.
The secret with a HP, actually the secret with any bullet is to match the velocity to the hardness of the bullet you're shooting, if you do that you're probably going to end up in the winners circle if your hit is decent.
Bob has had it right for a long time, these HP's will do the job if made correctly & placed correctly, just like any quality bullet. I'm up somewhere around 35-40 animals now, mostly deer & antelope & I'm pretty sure all but one of them was shot with a cast HP, I did shoot a buck last fall with the dandy Bradshaw/Martin bullet in my Maximum, if it were a HP you would probably have to outlaw it.
Below is a few of the HP's I'm using, all can have the pins changed & I have others but this is a fair sample of what works for me. The 357, 128 gr HP is a particular favorite in 9mm, 38 special & 357 magnum. I hope this has been a little bit of help & also this is just my opinion, if you choose to disagree jump right in.


Dick

[bigbrowndog]

Dick, I have had bad luck with hard cast solids on medium game but your 41 HP from my 414 has proven both accurate and effective, I’m trying those 250’s from my 41 mag this year with high expectations. They have made me less critical about cast lead on medium game for sure!!!

Trapr

[boolitdesigner]

A bit of explanation. This HP series used to have a Cup HP, Small HP and a Large HP. The Cup and Large HPs are the same as originally drawn, but someone wanted a Penta HP and Miha changed the Small HP into the Penta HP.... and it remains as such to this day. It works and looks nasty, but it doesn't out do the Large HP. As far as alloy, there are quite a few surprises on that. I have written that up on this site a few times, but those that have tried it haven't commented. Yes, it does work once you do it right... rather spectacularly at that with much less labor and trials if you do it right. Enjoy what Dick writes about as he has discovered something you should want to do yourself.

The penta HP is a 5 sided regular polygon. All that means is all 5 sides are the same length which makes each slice of the pie the same shape. Sometimes one has to polish the sharp flutes some to let go of the bullet, but that's really not hard to do.

[iwsbull]

I do enjoy reading experiences from all of you and I really am glad to see the real life results and how they were acquired. I also really enjoy when the knowledge gained is shared in some detail so others can benefit and perhaps expand on it.

[Deleted]

Several guys I've talked to really like the pentas. They say the petals break off leaving a wake of destruction and the remaining solid base keeps going. Pretty serious results. I like the pentas and deep hps because they save lead. Great info Sixshot.

[pws]

IIRC, the alloy of choice is 50:50, clip on wheel weight:pure lead, correct?

Cast with air cooling, powder coat, and load to ~1200mv?



Thanks for any clarification or tips or tricks. This could be a great thread.

[gnappi]

"choose to disagree" With that? Not me!

[contender]

I have quietly followed sixshot's exploits with his cast bullets for a long time. I would read with interest when he'd post results of a hunt,, with the details of what caliber, what bullet, and what design was used.
As such,, the above post by him isn't a big surprise to me. But it points to exactly what we all hope to see in the performance of our chosen bullet.

[sixshot]

I think with powder coating you can certainly use 50/50 air cooled, at least to try if your bullet fit is correct. I'm shooting some really soft bullets that are HP'ed & still getting pass throughs almost every time on deer & antelope. But I do tend to shoot heavy for caliber bullets just like everyone else. I did up the hardness on my African bullets, I think 80/20 & I was using the small pins.
I wanted delayed expansion on those bigger animals because I was playing a game I had never played before, that is, using HP's on very big animals. I had never even tried HP's on elk in all the years I've hunted them & 11 elk taken with six guns. You can understand me being a bit nervous using the HP's on the large animals although as I've mentioned before my cylinder was flipped, HP, solid, HP, solid, etc. That way if I needed to take a raking shot the solid was next in line & I could run one full distance from a bad angle if necessary, I've done it before.
In my prior testing at home my 282 gr HP's & my 308 gr solids would shoot into 3" at 100 yds rested, if I missed it was on me. Again, I can't explain how impressed I have become with these HP's. Would they work as good if they weren't PC'ed, I don't know & I'm not changing anything. I've shot enough game now that I trust them completely. If they are placed in the right spot they are going to do the job. The best of the bunch is Bob's 640 design I think but everyone has to decide for themselves, just giving my opinion based on the last several years.
The one bullet I did recover from a large Zebra was under the hide on the off side, it had worked perfectly & Zebra are notorious for being hard to kill. It went down so fast the PH lost sight of it when the herd took off. If anyone needs to see the bullet I can show it again. One rifle guy shot his Zebra 6 times (I think with a 300 WSM) and had to chase it over a mile to finish the deal.

Dick

[boolitdesigner]

Dick, I've only recovered one bullet that I intentionally shot thru both shoulder blades of a very large whitetail deer, mainly to see IF I could recover one. I would like to see what yours looks like.

[bradshaw]

Dick Thompson writes in a style where you don’t have to read between the lines, but some lines should be read twice... or three times.
David Bradshaw

[45MAN]

POSTS LIKE SIXSHOTS OF ACTUAL EXPERIENCES, AND DATA ON THE BULLETS, etc., AND THE GUNS USED ARE WHAT I LIKE AND RELY ON.

[boolitdesigner]

May 31, 2023 20:50:12 GMT -5 pws said:

IIRC, the alloy of choice is 50:50, clip on wheel weight:pure lead, correct?

Cast with air cooling, powder coat, and load to ~1200mv?

Thanks for any clarification or tips or tricks. This could be a great thread.



You have the alloy correct, but it can be air cooled or water dropped. The water dropping is the part that makes it unreal. There is a technique to use for that to happen. First, adjust your pot temperature so a hot, ready to cast mold has the sprue freezing at 3.5 to 4 seconds from when you stop pouring. This is important and that temperature will be between 720 to 730 degrees usually (and that depends on what mold you are using). Once you have that situated, you simply to to keep it there while casting thru the entire session. You simply water drop all the bullets out of the mold into a big pail of water, close the mold and repour, then dump again. You may have to use a small fan, slow down, speed up to maintain that sprue freeze timing. Basically, this allows the water drop heat treat to remain on the edge of it's working cycle. It also allows the skin of the bullet to harden without all the extra temperature from hardening the core of the bullet. You basically get a jacketed bullet out of this........ and it allows the hollow point to act like a dual core partition bullet. The hollow point expands and usually breaks off while the base drives thru and out the animal. I've got over 30 years of testing and it works like a partition bullet.

Now, the waiting begins. It takes the lower percentage of antimony time to harden and stabilize in the bullet. I've used a hardness tester and tracked the hardness over time to determine this. It seems to be the same for all bullets of this alloy and technique. You cast outside of the sprue freeze timing/ pot temperature and this no longer happens as the bullets usually harden thru the entire bullet and you no longer get the partition effect. Two weeks is usually the minimum time. Simply let them set and age for two weeks, then size, lube and load them. Try it, you might like it..............

For the people asking how fast do you drive these. I like to shoot 308 Win in semi autos. I shoot a 176 gr. or so cast bullet at about 2,400 fps with absolutely no leading. So, this works from about 800 fps to over 2,400 fps with water dropped bullets.

[bisleyfan41]

Jun 1, 2023 6:03:03 GMT -5 bradshaw said:

Dick Thompson writes in a style where you don’t have to read between the lines, but some lines should be read twice... or three times.
David Bradshaw

Absolute truth! I LOVE this thread!

[Deleted]

I bought the mp 454 640 recently. The 100 rounds I've shot so far, are proving it as a great bullet. It is great for regular blackhawk cylinder but comes to the very front edge of new model flattop midframes and new vaquero. The 270saa swc is my choice for the shorter cylinder. I'm always inspired by the exploits of Sixshot!