cast vs jacketed

[lisa1lacy2]

this question has most likely been ask before but wich one is better for hunting deer hardcast or jacketed hollow point

[Lawdog]

I don't use cast bullets for anything but target shooting.  Jacketed bullets for my for hunting.  Lawdog
 

[Old Griz]

:cb2: My first rule is shoot what is the most accurate in your gun. I used to use Federal CastCore bullets, but now I have found that Speer Gold Dots shoot even tighter groups. Either one is gonna stop a deer. I just gotta hit the darn thing!

[Lloyd Smale]

ive killed alot of game with cast bullets the biggest was a 1000lb buffalo never had a failure cant say that about jacketed bullets. Ive seen two failures to penetrate with jacket hollow points one on a boar and one on a bear. All ill use jacket bullets for now is cleaning lead out of my barrel. Granted they work fine on deer sized game but i cant imagine why id ever use them when cast works as well and much better on bigger game.

[lisa1lacy2]

thankes guys what do you think of 250gr rnfp in a 45 colt at 1000fps

[Old Griz]

:cb2: Think it'd definitely leave a bad bruise!  :-D

[Lloyd Smale]

I would take care of anything under 400 lbs if cast hard enough. Better choices would be a lfn or swc but the round flat would do the job if it shot good out of your gun and was cast out of something as hard as wheel weight or harder.

thankes guys what do you think of 250gr rnfp in a 45 colt at 1000fps

[Redhawk1]

I use both. It just depends on my intended game.

[WD45]

We been trying to get all the worms back in this can for a long spell
Me.. I like cast , preferably keith style. I have killed several deer with RNFP's  at about 1000 fps,but like the keith better running between 1000 and 1200 FPS. I jumped a doe at about 40 yards and the 1st shot hit square on the tail bone and drilled a nice 45 cal hole all the way through.
The next one went into the boiler room and she crashed after a couple of bounces. The sound of that bullet hitting bone was like  the crack of a baseball bat.

[Mikey]

I'm with Lloyd.  I have seen jacketed bullets fail but I haven't seen hardcast slugs in the semi-wadcutter configuration fail, and that's all I use now.  Mikey.

[Castaway]

If a cast bullet won't do it, I wouldn't trust a jacketed one.  A 255 grain Keith style SWC at greater than 1,000 f/s will make an inney and outey on any deer you shoot broadside, bones and all.  I use a Lee RNFP at 255 grains, and although not  Keith bullet, it has a 0.320" meplat that gives a tremendous amount of slap on hogs and deer.  Never have recovered one yet.  In a pistol, I cast straight wheelweights; for carbine, it's half WW and half lead since I have another 400 f/s and will get some expansion and still drill through a critter.  Could use WW in the carbine since a 0.452" hole is a big as those new fangled 30 caliber rifles try to grow up to.  Remember, that's 0.452" from start to finsish with the meplat cutting tissue as it goes.

[crawfish]

I started out loading jacketed bullets and used a 210g Sierra to kill a bunch of beasties. Deer were no match for that bullet pushed by 19.5/2400; pigs, goats and sheep all die quickly. I now use a 250g cast simply because it will shoot through anything I have hit with it so far up to 2200+ pounds. Hard cast will work of anything that walks, crawls on four or two feet. Jacketed bullets are effective on thin-skinned animals such as deer, antelope, caribou and the like.

[longwalker]

I guess I have been lucky. I have killed 8 deer with JHP bullets. 2 with 158 grains bullets .357 and 6 with 240 grain .429. The closest was about 15 feet, the furthest about 60 yards. Both .357 bullets were recovered. Only one from the 44 mag. That one was the 60 yard shot. I found it under the just skin in front of the opposite side shoulder.

The 44 magnums are 240 grain Federal American Eagles. They shot so well, I decided there was no reason to work up a load. I am not sure I would use JHP on boars or bears, But then again I don't have that problem in SD.

longwalker

[volshooter]

Hard cast all the way. For my $ they are a better choice in accuracy and cost. I really like the two nice holes in the varmits I hit, lots of blood and good hard cast can rivial jacketed bullets. I took a sholder shot shot on a nice doe this past season and had complete pass through as well as a nice fat doe in her tracks. Hard cast really don't give a rat's behind about bone. From a 44 mag stem to stern penatration is normal. I like the massive tissue damage from jacketed I shoot so much that jacketed doesn't make $ sense
Rick

[poncaguy]

I don't reload.......yet, so I use  factory loads..357 Max and 45-70.

[MS Hitman]

For what you appear to wnat to do, either type bullet will do the job.  I have over two dozen deer under my belt using the 240 grain slugs from my .44s.  These range from generic SWC to hand cast 429421s to XTPs, REmingtons, and Sierras.

[winman]

My experience favors hard cast lead bullets over jacketed hollow-points.  The Keith 429421 hard cast lead bullet in my 8 3/8" model 29 always exits the far side while doing lots of damage.  Hollow point jacketed bullets don't seem to get thru the second layer of bone nearly as well.

Edit:  And thats with 20.5 grains of 2400..

[Jim n Iowa]

Shooting a jacketed bullet or 2 after shooting lead helps clean the lead out? I would think it would seal the lead in the barrel. What this board say?
Jim

[sharkhunter]

If you shoot jacketed bullets, I would lean toward the Gold Dot Speer bullets. They seem to be very accurate and hold together very well. My main experience with them have been 44, 45 , and my new 480 Ruger. My main bullets in all of these are cast though. I shoot a 370 grain gas check LBT style bullet from Mountain moulds at close to 1400fps for my hunting load.  I am shooting deer and hogs in east Texas.  I actually shoot a little softer alloy bullet.  I manufacture Paper Patch bullets for rifles and I just harden this lead to a little under WW hardness.  They seem to bend up on most anything they hit and if they don't, oh well.  I put one through about 2 to 2 1/2 feet of hog this past season and he didn't seem to slow it down much.  The hog dropped and the bullet kept on trucking.  One thing, with 255 grain bullets, I would go with wheel weight alloy.  If you want to go a little softer, go with 300 or so grain bullets. That way, you will still have good penetration. As one fellow said above, if the Gold dots shoot well and the cast don't, shoot Gold Dots until you get an accurate cast bullet.

Good shooting,
Dave Mace

Sharps made the west safe for Winchester

[Mikey]

Jim in Iowa:  using jacketed bullets to clean the lead out of your barrel after shooting cast may or may not help.  I know that in the old days (listen to me) we used to do that but the concern arose that we were just squashing the lead down more into the grooves and the lead would be more difficult to remove.  But, Beartooth bullets tells you in their firelapping literature that you can do that to remove lead when you are firelapping the barrel.  They say to load a jacketed bullet in backwards (square end out, so to speak) and fire it at slow speeds using the same (very low) powder charges you use when firelapping with cast bullets.  I had to do that a couple of times firelapping one of my Big Bore Winchester rifles and it worked well.  Keep in mind though that my firelapping loads were using 4 grains of Unique under a 240 gn soft cast bullet in the 444 Marlin and the jacketed bullets were used with the same charge - so, I'm thinking you wouldn't get the same 'pack it down' effect as you would with a full house load and that may be what gets the lead out - that and shooting the bullet flat base first.  HTH.  Mikey.

[lisa1lacy2]

thankes guys for all the info just shot my first gold dot the other day wow very good the pic of the group is in the album take a look.