LBT fan.....44 Mag.....elk

[GSSP]

I'm a huge LBT bullet fan.  I recently bought one of the new Ruger 4-5/8" SS Bisley's that Lipsey's took possession of (all sold now).  In Utah we have to have 500 ft lb energy at 100 yds for elk, my preferred game animal.  What bullet (PB or GC), weight and cast lead hardness would you pursue?  When I bought the same flattop revolver in 44 Special (.431" cylinder throats) I had Verl make me a mold that throws an air cooled WFN 254 gr that I can size to either .431" or .432".  A MV of 1050 fps will be legal with a little wiggle room.  My 44 mag cylinder throats are .431" checked via pin gages. Barrel is .429".  My WW supply is dwindling and I might have to purchase some lead from RotoMetals.  What metal would you buy from them?  This might just be an experience in academic mentalness since I have the current mold.  I might, for now, try one of Bruce's Montana Bullet Works bullets.  Which one?

Alan.....who is just rambling

[sixshot]

The easiest way is just shoot a few of each, you can measure if you want but you're still going to end up shooting some of both sizes to prove which one your gun likes. I shoot mostly .430" in most of my 44's. I have a couple that digest .431" bullets with a bit more accuracy. Just don't load up a bunch until you are sure. If you size them .431" and they aren't shooting as good as you like, run them through a .430" sizer & give them a test drive.

Dick

[lar4570]

I have switched from straight wheel weights to a 50:50 mix of WW and pure lead, air cooled.
I had a very hard cast water quenched WW bullet self destruct on an Elk's head. It dropped at the shot, but the bullet was just gravel inside. The 50:50 bullets hold together on bone, expand some and penetrate very well. I took two pigs with one shot from my 480 Ruger a few years back.
I have a 4 5/8" SS Blackhawk in 45Colt that I really like. I mostly shoot a 275 @ 1250ish. I can load it hotter, but this works well.
For the 44mag, the 310 Lee might be a good choice.
Quickload thinks that a 100% charge of H110 should move the Lee 310 out around 1300fps-ish from the short 4 5/8" barrel. It's a +p load, but the Bisley should handle it easily...
Dick has much more experience than I do on Elk with handguns, listen to him

[bigbore5]

From a foundry, I like 2 parts hardball to one part pure lead for most bullets and guns.

Or just buy some range lead plus tin from axman. Works great in my guns. He's also got some cable sheathing lead that works out well 50/50 mix with wheel weights.

If you powder coat, 50/50 stick on weights and clip ons works in almost everything without gas checks on elk or smaller.

For a bullet, it's hard to beat either an MP 430-649 design or the LBT lfn-style. Avoid too wide of a meplat. The wfn style often lacks penetration.

[ideal]

Sept 6, 2024 12:58:27 GMT -5 bigbore5 said:

From a foundry, I like 2 parts hardball to one part pure lead for most bullets and guns.

Or just buy some range lead plus tin from axman . Works great in my guns. He's also got some cable sheathing lead that works out well 50/50 mix with wheel weights.

If you powder coat, 50/50 stick on weights and clip ons works in almost everything without gas checks on elk or smaller.

For a bullet, it's hard to beat either an MP 430-649 design or the LBT lfn-style. Avoid too wide of a meplat. The wfn style often lacks penetration.

Wasn't the penetration situation supposed to be fixed with the WLN?

[bigbore5]

The wfn bullet always shows less penetration than a same weight swc or lfn style due to the resistance of the wider meplat. They hit hard and are outstanding on deer sized game.

A true wfn design has a meplat of at least 80% of bullet diameter. The best lfn and swc designs are between 68-75%. I like around 70% as used by JD Jones, Keith, Veral Smith, and even our member Bulletdesigner in some of his designs. It still provides an excellent wound channel, but drives deeper than the wfn.

The wfn designs I do use are heavy for caliber. Such as I mostly use the Keith bullet or the MP 359-640 170gr bullets in the 357's but move up to the 184gr MP 360-180 with the 82% meplat when I want the bigger wound cavities but don't need the extra penetration ability for deer.

[edk]

Sept 12, 2024 20:53:51 GMT -5 ideal said:

Sept 6, 2024 12:58:27 GMT -5 bigbore5 said:

From a foundry, I like 2 parts hardball to one part pure lead for most bullets and guns.

Or just buy some range lead plus tin from axman . Works great in my guns. He's also got some cable sheathing lead that works out well 50/50 mix with wheel weights.

If you powder coat, 50/50 stick on weights and clip ons works in almost everything without gas checks on elk or smaller.

For a bullet, it's hard to beat either an MP 430-649 design or the LBT lfn-style. Avoid too wide of a meplat. The wfn style often lacks penetration.

Wasn't the penetration situation supposed to be fixed with the WLN?

It may have helped due to the increased sectional density but my understanding is that the WLN was to address filling long cylinder types such as the Redhawk.

[Fowler]

The issue I have found over time is the WFN design has the ballistic coefficient of a brick, obviously, but much like full wadcutters they only hold their accuracy for so long then they go all over the place. I struggle to get WFN bullet to hold good accuracy beyond 50-75 yards, especially lighter ones. Going heavier for caliber and leaning on them helps somewhat but only so much.

I have a 250gr WFN 45 colt bullet that is decent to 50 yards and by 100 yards has lost it, I also have a 300gr WFN mold that will hold on to 75 -100 yards depending on the gun and load before it gets wonky but it wont stay on a car door at 250 yards like almost anu LFN bullet will for me.

If I am loading for a new mold for a gun and I want accuracy I start with LFN, then Keith's, then WFN in that order as I search for the load for a gun.

I haven't given up on WFN bullets, if I want something for up close defensive work who cares if the accuracy falls off at 75 yards when the problem will be at 12 feet!?!

Just my 2 cents here

And the WLN is a whole different beast that as stated was for heavy bullets where they were trying to get as much bullet out of the case as possible, they tend to be very heavy for caliber and if pushed hard enough to stabilize can very accurate, but tend to need maxed out loads to stabilize. I have a 365gr WLN 45 colt mold that needs max Ruger level loads and up to be really accurate, its even better at 454/5 shot 45 colt power levels but is no fun to shoot at those levels so it rarely gets shot.

[bigbore5]

In contrast to the wln above, I have the 340gr SSK bullet mold that's very accurate and stable from Ruger to 460 level loads up to the 150yds I have tried it. Especially in the 1100fps range, at which velocity my LBT 335gr loses it past 75yds

[41freak]

Sept 13, 2024 14:37:57 GMT -5 bigbore5 said:

In contrast to the wln above, I have the 340gr SSK bullet mold that's very accurate and stable from Ruger to 460 level loads up to the 150yds I have tried it. Especially in the 1100fps range, at which velocity my LBT 335gr loses it past 75yds

I have several of the SSK TC BR bullet molds and as of yet never recovered any of them. All of them are very accurate so far. I have one of the 200gr 357 molds and I hope to cast up a couple hundred for my Henry Big Boy X and see how they do.

[lar4570]

Several years back I went to the Linebaugh shoot and at the Powell range decided to try some different nose profiles on the 1000yd range. They had steel gongs set up every 100yds, so I just added more elevation each time and shot at those.
I had a series of molds from Mountain Molds in 45 cal from 320 to 350gn with Meplats of 70%, 80% and 90%. All of the shanks were identical with the nose lengths being .400" with a tangential ogive.
My best accuracy came in around 1350fps in my Taurus 454 Raging Bull, so that's where I stopped velocity wise.
At the range, I wasn't shooting for group size, just seeing if the bullets flew in a straight line, and at what range would they veer off course.
The 70% bullets flew fairly straight to the 1000yd gongs.
The 80% bullets started going squirly around 800yds.
So I thought the 90% bullets would not make it that far, but they flew good to around 900yds. At 1000yds they could land 20 feet off to either side.
I don't know why this happened. Maybe it was the heavy weight? or the 1350fps velocity with the heavy weight? Or the twist rate of the Raging Bull?
It was probably the WC820 powder

[bigbore5]

The twist rate of the Taurus barrel must have been about perfect for the 90% bullet weight and driving band contact area.

One thing about revolvers is that what works just works and whatever doesn't just doesn't.

I have two Blackhawk 45's. Both 7-1/2" barrel, throats honed to .4525", 11° cones, 18° crowns, .451" bores, fitted base pins, no barrel constriction. As identical as you can get with a factory barrel and cylinder. One loves the NEI 315gr swc grouping less than 1" at 25yds. The other one groups 3". So anything is possible.

[ideal]

I really miss Veral and LBT. I've ordered several moulds from him in the past. I've owned a number of Redhawks in my days and always ordered them with the longer nose for Redhawk cylinders, .50 I believe. I usually ordered LFNs, but got an irresistible price on a two cavity 300 gr WLN, but outside of knowing that this is an LFN with a WFN diameter nose I don't really know what its merits really are. I already have a 280 LFN and a 280 WFN in .44. Pricing on LBT moulds went nuts on ebay less than a month after I bought this last one, so I don't expect I'll be picking up many more of them.

[Cholla]

.430" bullets in the 250 gr. range typically have a B.C. of around .200. Given these parameters, at 1050 fps would possess exactly 500 ft. lbs. of energy at 100 yds.



Of course a little heavier bullet or a bit more velocity would provide a bit of cushion.


I'm a big fan of the RCBS 44-250 KT. My mould drops bullets, cast of straight COWW, at 258 gr. This one struck a nice Texas whitetail at, ironically, just about 1050 fps and penetrated from the left flank to the juncture of the right neck and shoulder, about 30" or so. It's also been quite accurate to at least 100 yds., which is about as far as I have business shooting at game.

[messybear]

Sept 14, 2024 14:28:55 GMT -5 lar4570 said:

Several years back I went to the Linebaugh shoot and at the Powell range decided to try some different nose profiles on the 1000yd range. They had steel gongs set up every 100yds, so I just added more elevation each time and shot at those.
I had a series of molds from Mountain Molds in 45 cal from 320 to 350gn with Meplats of 70%, 80% and 90%. All of the shanks were identical with the nose lengths being .400" with a tangential ogive.
My best accuracy came in around 1350fps in my Taurus 454 Raging Bull, so that's where I stopped velocity wise.
At the range, I wasn't shooting for group size, just seeing if the bullets flew in a straight line, and at what range would they veer off course.
The 70% bullets flew fairly straight to the 1000yd gongs.
The 80% bullets started going squirly around 800yds.
So I thought the 90% bullets would not make it that far, but they flew good to around 900yds. At 1000yds they could land 20 feet off to either side.
I don't know why this happened. Maybe it was the heavy weight? or the 1350fps velocity with the heavy weight? Or the twist rate of the Raging Bull?
It was probably the WC820 powder

Boy that’s an interesting one. We usually found that as meplat increased, long range accuracy suffered. And as mentioned by Fowler, some times under 100 yd. But one thing that we did see is the increased speed of the 454 helped. For instance we used to shoot a Wfn from mount baldy in keystone that didn’t ever lose accuracy at long range. So it wasn’t a cut and dried deal. Anyway thanks for posting. This is always interesting stuff.