Well, only cast I evershoot is Laser cast 240gr bullets in my 44mag with 10gr of unique for gun shooting.

But have been recently intrigued with shooting in my 45-70. Its a marlin 1895 with 22" microgroove barrel. I am aware of issues with microgroove and lead. But have recently found a bullet that will give you a choice of diameters.

has anyone used beartooth bullets? Looks like laser cast but with options of diameters.

So why use cast? will it hold together better than a jacketed speer? If they are genuinely hard cast will they not mushroom much? Penetrate a whole lot better than my 300gr partitions?

What do ya think?

I kinda depends on how hard of a hardcast bullet we are talking about here. They have a wayto quantify the hardness known as Brinell Hardness scale. Or something similar.

A very hard bullet is going to give you less leading at higher velocities and probably work better with the micro groove rifling. Also give little expansion on game. My experience in experimenting around with these in a Marlin 1895 is that as velocities approach 2,000 fps, you really need to start thinking about a gas check. They were a good inexpensive big bore plinking load at about 1800 fps.

http://www.beartoothbullets.com/bulletselect/index.htm

Beartooth Bullets are indeed heat-treated. We heat treat our bullets to a BHN 22, and over the course of 18 months they will age-soften to a BHN 21, where they will remain stabile indefinitely.

Seems pretty hard.

BC, i have a friend (terry labbe) i used to work for, he is now making hard cast bullets, he is on the springfield team and he is a jam-up guy, send him an e-mail, and let him know what you need, info and bullet wise, i assure you he wont let you down

here is his site

http://www.magnusbullets.com/

Gentlemen,

I have a Marlin 1895SS and have started tinkering around with 405gn FN hard lead cast projectiles. The load I am using is 31gns of AR2207 (=H4198) for 1300ft/s. The load produces cloverleaf groups at 50m and is quite capable of head shooting rabbits out to 80m. There is no expansion (naturally), the slugjust acts like a wad punch. I have thought about trying this loadout on a wild pig in the next two weeks in lieu of my 300gn JHPs.

My question is what sort of penetration am I looking at with this projectile/load combination?





Thank you for your comments in advance.

Holy cow, your 45-70 is a rabbit gun. Thats cool. You like to raise the bar for the rest of us.

I was thinking more on the line of moose and pig.

I use to cast bullets for sale (and my own use) in many different diameters. (includeing .458") What i've found about hardness is, if it's too soft it will lead, and if it's too hard it will break up instead of expand on game. "Depending" on how fast your pushing it, the diameter of the bullet, type of lube, how rough your bore is, type of rifleing ect.. ect... will "all" make a difference is where that line is.

There are NO answers set in stone to what bullet will work in your rifle to do what you want, but i'll bet you in a 45/70 no cast bullet will "out perform" those 300 grain partitions!!!

I can tell you, if you use cast bullets for smaller game and practise, that fine line i talked about above gets a lot wider as you don't have to be so picky! That's what i always did and it worked out well for me.

Drilling Man

Thats the reply I was looking for. I would like to take some time to do some pentration tests.

Thing is, those partitions will be predictable and with cast bullets it's not so easy. One will not break up, and then the next one will. (asumeing your pushing them and they are hard cast) Then again, if you slow them down a bit, and make them a little softer, they don't break up. But, those partitions will work every time even if you move the velocity around a bit...

Drilling Man