http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XozK9...1&feature=plcp

The 320 with 80gr 2f goex is a darn good tight shooting load! About knocked my arm off due to the angle i had to shoot at LOL.

Those REALs are funny. They shoot great in some rifles and horribly in others. Probably due to the variations in bore diameters.

and interesting video.. commercial and all. At the end I was shocked when I saw the bullet until you explained the wheel weight part. Which made sense. Actually if you had to penetrate and thick skinned animal, that might be a plus because of the penetration. But the lack of expansion.. does that concern you? It would be interesting to see the same test with a pure lead bullet.

Not concerned at all about expansion, i just remembered idahorons post about mixing the lead a bit harder and so i gave it a try. I still want to try it out tomorrow and see how the harder lead REAL groups. I only fired 2 shots prior to the video to make sure i was on target.

Lil booger kicks like a freight train!

Next test i will use pure lead.

Agree Bronko. I've had very mixed results with them. After my last outing with 300 grain .54 caliber REALS in my Great Plains I came to the conclusion that the quality of the casting may also play a big part. Some of the ones I had loaded very easily with little or no cutting of the driving bands. Some cut just the top band. And some cut the top and second band. I suspect a little weighing, measuring and sorting would have improved my results greatly. (It's on my to do list.)

Thinking more about this, I just pulled ten .54 caliber 300 grain REALs out of the box I bought from Black Jack Hill a couple of years ago, and weighed and measured them. The weights ranged from a low of 293.2 grains to a high of 305.6 grains. That's a variance I would never accept with my home cast round balls. The top band diameters ranged from a small of 0.545 to a large of 0.554. I would not expect excellent groups with bullets like that.

Hey Devil. How about another test? Do you have a scale? If so, weigh your REALs, find five that weigh the same, and see what kind of group you get with them.

Sounds like the lead is not hot enough.

I have a weird way of telling if my mold is to hot, When i spit on the underside of it, if the spit jumps up, to hot. If it sizzles and slides off the side, just perfect!

I find I get more consistent balls with my mold on the hot side too. I have molds for 250 grain .50 caliber and 300 grain .54 caliber REALs that I've never used.

They're single cavity molds that I bought when Lee discontinued the single cavity ones. They had them on sale on close-out on the Lee web site for $15 shipped. Bought them because of the price and "just in case" I needed them.

I'm sure I can cast a better quality bullet than the ones I bought back before I had these molds. Guess I'll have to give them a try the next I have the lead pot fired up.

cayugad
Dave my first wife used them for many years, they were very accurate out of her underhammer. Most of the animals she took were in and out and no bullet to show for it only two do I remember retrieving the bullet from one was a buck of 9 points she shot in the left side of his neck just a bit behind the head and the bullet went all the way down the neck through the chest at an angle and was stuck in the skin at the short ribs on his right side ;the other was a big wild boar she shot as it ran past her went through the shoulders bones and all and stopped in the skin on the far side.
The first was mushroomed half way back the second was well mangled they were cast from pure lead and she could shoot them into a 23/4 inch group with the peep and covered front sight that was on the gun, she use 90 grains of RS and a #11 cap.

I have and still use pure lead REAL conicals for hunting. I never had a deer walk away from being hit by one. My friend hunts with a .54 T/C Hawkins and he shoots a 300 grain REAL. The damage they do to a deer is very impressive. I was just thinking about the harder lead. As I have a excellent supply to wheel weights.