They were good enough for Elmer but I'd like to hear from the guys here that use them.

Comments please.


TIA,WVS329.

And still better than good enough. The key is in the nose profile. I think negative results come from inferior products mainly. I am quite fond of the LBT designs and very few commercially cast bullets are of a true LBT design, despite the claims. A wide meplat hardcast bullet will not only penetrate deep, but will produce a much larger than caliber wound channel.

A commercial load that I have had much luck with in .44 Magnum is Double Tap's 320 grain WFN load. They run right about 1,350 from my Bisley Hunter and I have taken a number of wild hogs with this load.

No fire storm necessary......

WVS, are you going to be casting them or buying them?

Whit, what molds would you recommend??

Tex, I'm gonna buy 'em.

Considering Beartooth and others.


Can I get a BANG FLOP-DRT with the 44 Keith ??

Be gentle with this ol' raffle hunter.

TIA,WVS329.

I am with Whitworth on this.

For a hard cast bullet a WFN LBT style will give the best chance of a Bang-Flop. However you can get a Bang-Flop with any bullet if you hit them right. The larger the meplat the better the chance.

I would second the DT 320gr WFN for a loaded round. Those things do some serious damage. I haven't taken a deer with one but a couple of hogs did the DRT dance for me. I have had a complete pass thru (the long way) on a medium size hog (~175lb). Entrance hold just in front of the shoulder, exit hole in the rear of the opposite side ham

For loading your own, I like the Beartooth 300gr WFNGC


or the 325gr WLNGC

*you will need either a super redhawk or redhawk to chamber the WLN bullet. It is too long for a SBH

Pushed with a healthy dose of H110 or W296 they are excellent hunting bullets.

Federal also makes the 300 gr cast core that has a wide meplat. But did you know that when Keith wrote "SIXGUNS" he had killed less than a dozen big game animals with a handgun.

I take that back the number was 19 - my memory failed me. But hardly vast experience... I dare say the majority of members here have many more kills with a handgun than Keith ever did.

A friend just gave me a copy of SIXGUNS as a gift.

I also like Cast Performance's bullet offerings......

Not unless you hit the CNS and that goes with any boolit. The Keith is a good killer but don't think the shoulder does anything.
I use a WLN of my design in the .44 and I have taken so many deer with it I lost count. I used WFN too but see little difference.
A good meplat at the proper velocity is all you need. Keith, WLN, WFN or RNFP will all do the exact same thing.

Sure it does! I cuts nice holes in paper!

Cast Performance and Oregon Trail Trueshots although OT dosn't have near the number of bullets CP does. I just got my first Beartooth bullets from DanB but I'm not sure what I'm doing with them yet. These are 405gr .452's, I'll either load them for my 454 or maybe my Rossi 92.

In 50+ years with my 270 this shot placement pictured below has NEVER required a follow up shot but I'm NEW to handgun hunting and always defer to the man with real time experience afield. Given the fabled Penetration depth of the hardcast heavyweight out of the 44 I can only assume that I'm good to go with my old faithful



I'm pretty good at taking out the spine with this shot and NEVER take marginal shots thus my question on the hard cast bullets. Heart and lung shots usually result in a tracking job of varying distances for me and I'm a lazy SOB.

I've been a big fan of cast bullets for ages and shot the Lyman #429421 for many years but no longer cast them.

Comments again, please.

WVS329.

Yep, that shot will work like gangbusters. I too like the high shoulder shot.

Can you explain what WLN and such stand for? I am new to the cast bullet concept.

Also I have heard of increased barrel fouling, is this an issue relegated to the inferior cast bullets referred to above?

WLN = wide long nose


Amount/cause of fouling is dependent on several factors such as bullet blend/hardness type 2, wheel weights, linotype,a ect as well as the lubricant used, velocity, bore condtions 1200-1300fps is approaching the upper end but I've driven linotype to 1500.Others may have gone faster. Gas checked bullets can generally be driven harder when compared to other bullets of the same type and composition.

Lyman has a ton of info on cast bullets. Good place to start IMHO.


WVS329.

WLN = Wide Long Nose
WFN = Wide Flat Nose
SWC = Semi Wadcutter
GC on the end = Gas Check

Another factor in leading is throat and bore diameter.

In a revolver, if your throats are too tight, the bullet gets swaged as it passes from the cylinder to the forcing cone, allowing the hot gasses to start to creep around the bullet as it travels down the bore. This also results in leading in the bore.

Either way, some cut off section of a Chore Boy copper pot scrubbing pad wrapped around an old bronze brush will "get the lead out" in fairly short order.

Good to know guys, I really will have to look into them for a spring boar hunt. Man I love this six gun hunting stuff!

I will be reloading some of my first bullets tomorrow...can't wait.

I have two Lewis lead removers and THEY WORK. Strips the lead right out.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7IA6I3cM4Q

PM sent to ya.

Whit: After reading about the performance of cast bullets, I bought a couple boxes of DT's 320grn WFN. My problem with them is after sighting in with cheap hollow points (Taurus 44 8 3/8" barrel), the Double Tap's are shooting 8-10" high with the rear sight cranked all the way down. I don't understand the fact that a much heavier bullet shoots so much higher. What to do ?

Taller front sight blade......

Or put a red dot on it!

I have used nothing but cast since 1980 LWN GC are a big jump over a normal Keith at least in the .41 --If I hunt with my Keith it is cast HP-- I have had nothin but good from cast-- my aiming point is a little lower than the picture-- almost never recover a bullet- regardless of the angle
the DT bullets///no expert but longer dwell time in the barell and recoil lifts them up-- do not know a cure since they are not handloads

Even handloads suffer from that problem.

Heavy bullets going fast causes issues with front sight height on some revolvers. Single actions seem to suffer more due to how the revolver rises during recoil.

If your gun does not have a replaceable front sight then you are looking at some gunsmith work to put a higher sight on.

Another option, if you happen to have a gun with a soldered on front sight (blued super and regular blackhawks come to mind) is to cut the rear sight blade down and lower the groove a bit. This has exactly the same effect as raising the front sight. The sight blade is a $7.00 part and is something you can try at home with little to no risk of screwing it up.

I used this method on one of my super blackhawks with good success. I bought an extra sight blade and was able to use the original as a reference. Used a nice sharp file and was able to lower the top edge and groove enough that I didn't need a trip to the smith.

My .500 JRH BFR came with two sight blades of differing heights.

It is pretty simple actually, a heavier bullet requires more energy to get moving which results in more recoil which in turn causes more muzzle flip. Coupled with a longer dwell in the barrel because of the slower velocity, the muzzle is higher at exit with a heavy bullet than a lighter one which causes higher strikes. By the same token, that slower heavy bullet will drop quicker than the lighter one so the difference in POI at distance will differ than that close up.

I also would try to alter the rear sight first to see if that helps enough. Another option is to build up the front sight with JB weld. It doesn't take much.

I shot Garretts 330gr hard cast ammo from my Redhawk and had to buy a high front sight from Bowen Arms that allowed me to zero the load at the range. Wonderfully accurate and powerful cast bullet load...

load a 310gr gas checked lee cast bullet. works great on whitetails.

Just out of curiousity and not trying to start a cast vs jacket debate but is there a particular reason you want to go so heavy with cast for deer or are you planning on hunting something bigger? I just ask because there are alot of inexpensive jacketed bullets in lighter weights that are nasty on deer. I'm shooting 255gr Cast Performance WFNPB out of my 3.5" 44spcl but that's mainly because it's a back up gun and at 1050fps the hard cast is going to give me better performance. I was shooting 200gr Nosler Sporting bullets but I shot a doe at 15yds last year and internal damage was severe but it didn't exit. Anyways like I said I was just curious why you were going that way.

I bought the Taurus 44 as a back up for my Contender for bear. I know the long barrel is overkill for a back up, but I'll eventually also use it for bear and boar. Hence the interest in the heavy cast bullet.

gotcha, I was just curious, both will get the job done.

In my case, I started with the 240 gr XTP. I shot 3 deer with it and seen them go down but I recovered all 3 bullets. I backtrack deer to where they were shot and found almost zero blood on the ground. Two holes are best.
I wondered about a bone hit or a quartering shot. NOT GOOD. I went to the 320 gr LBT WLNGC and seen huge blood trails and maybe a 30 yard run. I then made a mold that came out 330 gr for the .44. Nothing stops it but it ruins the insides of deer but I would not hesitate to use it on any animal.
Going to the .475 and .500 JRH with heavier boolits will show you things. A hard cast from the .500 hit a deer in the neck, destroyed shoulder bones, the lungs, liver stomach and half the intestines before exit.
Put the boolit to work inside the animal and what is left after exit means nothing at all. Never put faith in "energy dump", it is not right.

Shot LBT WFN of WFLN hard cast and you will get large wound channels with excellent penetration. Life in the deer woods will indeed be good

Yes, I agree. Nothing better. I fear some expanding jacketed bullets in the .44 until they reach 300 gr. Some 240's are good.
Yet a 240 Keith, LBT or RNFP and up will do the job every time. I just like the heavy ones because they don't stop and will smash bone or what ever you hit and keep going.

Hi guys, I have cast and loaded the Keith 240 swc for a lot of years. Still do, and have killed 6 deer so far, only 1 I had to chase,running dead, right front sholder smashed, but it will do the job. I have a SBH with a 10.5 incher in it, a 2 lb trigger, and a red dot on top. I am running aruond 1650 fps, and holds it's accuracy out to 100 yds.

Cast bullets in a 44 will do the job. It can be loaded for small game or high and hot enough to put anything in north america down. It is enough. Some think more is better. Sometimes it is. But a smart man once said to me "Better becomes the enemy of good enough very quickly." So I say the 44 is good enough.

As most of you know I hunt primarily with jacketed stuff but I'm not the cast hater most think. I have hundreds of rounds loaded with hard cast from the 357 to 500 Linebaugh, with me it just depends on the situation. I've been shooting XTP Mags out of my 454 but I have a small supply of factory loaded 300gr SP's which aren't very soft, in fact they are the FA hard cores. I'll probably use those on my elk this year if the herd ever comes back on the farmers property. I do have a very accurate load with the CP 255gr WFNPB running 1050 out of my little three screw 44 spcl and I've considered using it on the elk if I can get a shot in the 35-40yd range and I think it should give me a pass through in the vitals or break at least one shoulder but not sure about two as these are big cow elk, 600-1000lbs.

I wish those were still produced -- great bullet. Very hard.

I use a 310 gr. TrueShot bullet over a healthy dose of H110. I have never seen anything so devistating in my life. Kept me from going the 454 route. And not too expensive either.