Seems like hardcast is very popular. I have no experience with hardcast. Have always used hollowpoint. Always figure bigger hole is better and figured without expansion bullet won?t kill as well or do as much damage. Have notice last couple deer shot haven?t gotten pass thru and no blood trail. Both shoulder shots. Have been considering hard cast for bloodtrail but still leery about no expansion. Will be getting 480 shortly for bigger hole and seems like most ammo available is hardcast. Guess looking for opinions from people with experience with hardcast bullets and 480 ruger.

You will get some good ideas here, I use the Lee,325 grain mold in my 480, just bought the 400 grain mold, i?ll play with that this winter.

"HARD CAST" IS USED AS IF IT MEANS SOME MYTHICAL FAILSAFE CAST BULLET. "HARD CAST" IS AN UMBRELLA TERM FOR AN INFINITE VARIETY OF LEAD ALLOYS, SOME OF WHICH WORK BETTER THAN OTHERS. OTBC MAKES SOME PRETTY GOOD "HARD CAST" BULLETS, AS DO OTHER COMMERCIAL CASTERS. ONCE YOU FIGURE OUT WHAT VELOCITY YOU WANT THEN YOU CAN SEEK ADVICE ON THE BETTER HARDCAST BULLETS FOR THAT VELOCITY. THERE WAS AN EARLIER THREAD ON "CAST BULLETS: HOW FAST IS TOO FAST". GENERALLY, I BELIEVE ONCE YOU GET TO 1,300 fps YOU ARE GOING TOO FAST FOR CAST BULLETS. THERE ARE GUYS HERE WHO KNOW WAY MORE THAN I DO ABOUT CAST BULLETS, HOPEFULLY SIXSHOT WILL GET ON AND PROVIDE YOU WITH A TUTORIAL.

I have a Lee 325 grain Mold and also a Lee 400 grain mold. The Lee 400 works pretty well on deer. I have not worked with the 325 much at all. I did not have time to cast bullets one season and bought some 375 GC I believe Oregon Trail bullets. They worked just as well as my home cast ones.
I got a custom 375 grain Gas Check mold and that has been making my go to bullets the last few years.
I normally try and shoot my deer broadside behind the shoulder to minimize meat damage. I have always gotten complete pass throughs. The 480 Ruger does a very good job with cast bullets. Always a good blood trail.

Bob R

Elmer Keith was probably the most to blame for the term "hard cast" because he was perhaps the most well known writer of the day, along with Phil Sharpe & a host of others although they did less writing.
The problem is, what Elmer was calling hard cast wasn't really hard at all compared to what many of us shoot today. His bullets most times were around 9-11 BHN using a lead/ tin mix, usually 16-1 or 20-1.
And so it goes, people call a bullet a hard cast & it can be anywhere from 9 up to 22 BHN or even harder if you decide to heat treat them in the oven, etc. Here you can exceed 30 BHN.
As Rey mentioned, and I happen to agree with, once you exceed around 1300 fps all you're buying is recoil. If you're using the correct bullet/alloy a cast bullet will pass through "almost" any animal you shoot with it, except for the megatron animals that some shoot from time to time.
In that case a better mouse trap (bullet) is needed, not a harder bullet, trust me. If you shoot a heavy for caliber bullet that's made out of the proper alloy for the game at hand you will seldom ever recover a cast bullet. Not saying it won't happen, just saying it's rare.
In over 50 years of shooting game up to the size of elk (many) moose & African plains game I've recovered maybe 4-5 bullets & these have been HP's. My solids have always exited, a few have went through big mule deer length ways.
My suggestion for HP's on deer if shooting for the shoulder would be to shoot a small HP at 3/4 throttle, say 1000-1200 fps in the 41, 44 or 45. Pushing a big HP faster just turns them inside out without the needed penetration & if you make a harder bullet you can upset the balance of hardness vs velocity.
The best way to over come this (my opinion) is 2 things. First is a gas check & the second is powder coating. This allows you to shoot a soft bullet faster than normal without leading but still, trying to use HP's on game bigger than deer or antelope size game is a slippery slope.
One exception is the big Miha 385 gr HP's running at 1000-1150 fps. Using the correct alloy at this speed, this bullet has taken some really big game like elk, moose & bison with complete pass throughs. Taking the next step up to the megatrons requires the high dollar bullets, so use them.
Another very good HP if using the medium HP pins in 45 caliber is that Miha 275 gr bullet like I sent to 45man, that bullet will handle game up to elk size.

Dick

I have a few thoughts and theories on handgun bullets, and my handguns I mean straighwall cased rounds pushing bullets of sd's from .18-.25 at 1200-1500 fps. Unlike centerfire rifle rounds, in most cases with such rounds you can either have sufficient penetration to get consistant exits from all shot angles, or you can get bullets that expand. In general you can't have both.

So the question is, what is better, more internal damage with no exit, or an entrance or exit wound? The answer with all things is, it depends. In some situations a shallower more dramatic would will result in the animal dropping at the spot, or only covering a small stetch before expiring. In other cases the animal covers a fair bit of ground and the entrance and exit provides a better blood trail for tracking. I'm in the camp that prefers deeper penetration as IMHO I'll trade off the bullet that requires everything to go right, for the bullet that is more likely to work when some things go wrong.

The followup is, if you choose to go with a cast bullet for deeper penetration, what designs are the most effective killers? Nearly a century of use seems to show that a cast bullet with a meplat of 70-80% of bullet diameter provides both good penetration and a reasonably large permanent wound channel. As far as caliber and bullet weight, it seems that on the low end a 44 or 45 with a 240-250 gr @ 1000 fps is that point where more good things happen than bad things. Size does matter, and if you can handle the recoil, bigger is better.

I've found the 480 to have the perfect balance of power and recoil. I've lost track of how many rounds I've fired from my 480 but I'm sure it's well over 5000. All cast handloads. As much as I like the 480, I can't imagine having one and not handloading. It is the most accurate revolver I've ever owned and very easy to load for. My target loads of 310 gr cast over 9.7 gr of Unique clock right at 1000 fps and are more accurate than I can shoot, likely moa as I've shot a 1 1/2" 100 yd group with them. More than likely such a load would easily take any deer. My working load is a 400 gr cast over 21.0 gr of H-110 lit off with a CCI 350 for 1200 fps. I've tried that powder charge over 1/2 dozen different cast bullet designs and every one has grouped five shots into 1" at 50 yds. The Lee 400 gr shoots just as well as custom molds from LBT, Ballisticast, Mountain Molds, NEI, RCBS and MP.

As far as "hardcast" I've found straight wheel weight alloy or equivalent either air cooled or water quenched seems to be the ideal hardness to hold the engraving forces of the rifling and resist leading and yet be maleable enough not to shatter when hitting bone.

Agree with Paul_H.

I run 400gr lead hard ball gas checked through my Ruger 480. I run H110 behind them and the are very accurate and will make 2 holes when they hit something ( so far LOL). Getting 1150 and 1200FPS with these loads.

With a .476' diameter bullet, I'd go with penetration because your bullet is "expanded" prior to pulling the trigger. For the most part, I'd stick to 1,000 to 1,200 fps loads in the larger calibers as increasing the velocity over this gets you mostly just more recoil and noise. I do have a .38-44 load using the Lyman 358429 that is getting right at 1,400 fps and I haven't shot a deer big enough yet to hold that bullet.

Sellers push ''HARD CAST'' because they fare better with the

handling shippers subject them to.. l prefer a bit softer bullet

mostly... Softer fits rifling better and also expands a bit after

hitting meat... l have recovered some cast bullets that were so

hard they could reloaded and fired again

Some if not all of the previous commenters have likely forgotten more than I know on this subject but I agree with what has been stated based on my personal experiences. I hunt primarily with 357 and 44.

I like the cast bullets with gas checks for a couple of reasons:

The increased velocity and energy gives me much more confidence at the outer limits of my effective range (100 yards).

Also, as previously stated I don?t have any qualms if I don?t have a perfect broad side shot angle.

I have never recovered a cast bullet from a deer, hog, or the one elk my son shot.

I have also observed that a blood trail may be slower in coming with cast bullets. That said, I have never had a tracking job over 75 yards. I simply prefer the flatter trajectory with the heavy for caliber cast bullets and the through and through penetration.

I reload but I don?t cast my own bullets. There are some high quality store bought cast bullets available that answer the how hard is too hard question for you.

My 0.02.

And specific to the 480, at least with my SRH it has been an exceptionally accurate and easy to load for round with cast. I'm sure I'll forget a few I've tried, but I've had great success with a custom 275 gr swc (I tried to scale up the classic keith design) a 310 gr LFN, more 390-410 gr designs than I can remember, and even a 460 gr WFN (it was supposed to be a 450 gr).



275 gr swc, 310 gr lfn, 400 gr rf lee, 400 gr XLFN gc, 460 gr WFN gc 310 LFN and 460 WFN from balisticast



275 swc and 400 XLFN from Mountain Molds



Loaded rounds

I basically settled on the 275 gr over 13 gr of blue dot for ~1000 fps for a mild load, and the 400 gr XLFN gc over 21 gr of H-110 for a 1200 fps working load. Sadly I misplaced the four cavity balisticast 310 gr LFN mold which was an outstanding bulelt and I need to get a replacement mold made. The lee 400 gr rf is also a good one, I have one of the prototype molds.

The 460 gr WFN seemed to be too much of a good thing. 19.0 gr of H-110 would push it 1050 fps, but I found that after ammo had been sitting some time I'd get sticky extraction. Not something I'm fond of for a self protection round so I ended up selling that mold. I think a 430-440 gr with a long nose idealized for the 480 cylinder would be the way to go. I had to crimp into the first lube groove to keep the gc from bulging the case.

Though years ago I sent someone a box of those 460's to try at the linebaugh seminar and as I recall his load pushed them 1100 fps and they penetrated 90% as deeply as the best 475 and 500 loads, and outpenetrated most everything else that year. Something like 38" of wet newsprint in one test, and 12" of newsprint and 2+" of bone in the other other test.

recovered bullets from the the penetration tests



I've only had a few cast bullets that I haven't been happy with, and that's mostly because I've been spoiled by a gun that with most cast bullets will print five into 1" at 50 yds, scoped off the bench.

I tried a Lee .490" round ball as a plinker. I was looking for a powder puff load and while a few grs of red dot was such a load, accuracy was about 3" 25 yds and cases were very sooty. The lee 325 gr rf. Somebody cast some up and sent them to me. I didn't have enough of them to really work up a load, but various charges of unique were ho hum in the accuracy dept. I had a 400 gr mihec hp mold. I think it's a well designed accurate bullet, but I had the darndest time trying to get them to cast properly. HP molds need to be cast hot to get complete fillout, and you need a fast enough cadence to keep the mold hot. The problem is if I cast fast enough to keep the mold hot the bullet bases would tear when they dropped from the mold. Slow down to keep the bases in tact and the noses would be wrinkly or incompletely filled out. I'm partial to molds that cast easily so gave up on it and sold it. I might get another in the future. It was pretty impressive when I shot it into glacial silt. Blew the nose off but still retained a 300+ gr full wadcutter which in and of itself would be a respectable killer.



275 swc, 400 hp after testing, fresh 400 hp



.358" 160 gr hp compared to .476" 400 gr hp

Paul_H,
Those are some really nice looking bullets.

Many years ago I had Ballisticast make me a 2 cavity 475 mould that was a 350 gr LFN on one side & a 370 gr WFN on the other. I shot a lot of those bullets in a Ruger Super Redhawk & a Taurus, but gave up on the Taurus because the bullets were too long to crimp in the crimp groove.
I took a bull moose with the 370 gr bullet off hand at about 45 yds with one shot. Down & out in 4-5 seconds. My buddy used it to take a large Bison with one shot & then later when I got my custom Harton 480 my dentist buddy used it with a 370 gr cast slug to take a very nice bull moose with one shot as I sat beside him & watched the show.
Later the Miha 385 gr HP came along & it has taken a lot of game & been a wonderful bullet on all different sizes of animals. Using a 79/30 alloy at 1000-1100 fps it has shown weight retention of over 380 grs with expansion exceeding 1". Most times this bullet has not been recovered but from time to time some shooters have recovered one. These are plain base bullets & most of the time are powder coated.

Dick