Big Heavy Bones, Bullet Alloy & Powder Coat

[barnetmill]

I have been doing my own alloys for many years long before wheel weights ceased to become available in my state. I have used my alloy for deer, elk, black bear, and putting down particularly unruly bison when a friend and I raised a herd. I also did a lot of terminal ballistics tests in soaked, compressed newsprint with 3/16" to 1/4" plywood 3" inside to simulate thinner bones all at 40 yards. My hunting alloy of choice has been 60% pure with 35-38% hard chilled birdshot plus a little tin. All are water dropped. Whether it was 180 gr 30 cal flat point at 1700 fps or 240 gr 429 SWC at 1500 fps, the result was similar. 20+" of penetration with a large hole in the plywood including 90-95% weight retention and expansion to almost double. I have never seen a need to invest in a hardness tester so can't tell you much about that. I have yet to find a boolit in a harvested animal. The pure lead is carefully selected at a local metal recycler (currently $1/lb) and the bird shot usually comes from the local LGS.

Sort of what I was wondering. What alloys did the buffalo hunters use. I always assumed it was fairly soft lead, but of course at black powder velocities.

[Earl54]

Lately shooting a lot of pigs at close range( under 30 yards,some over 250 lbs). 18 inch 308 win,214 grain wadcutter, 1700 FPS. 50/50 clip on wheel weights, stick on wheel weights, air cooled. 115 pigs from 30 to 70 yards, only stopped 1 bullet and it was in the 2nd pig. Even corner to corner shots exit, 50/50, air cooled works for me.

[Rapier]

Our local wild hogs move around in a feeding circle about 10 -20 miles in diameter. They eat off one area until the food supply is gone then move on. At this time the larger group is on a 130 acre place two miles from our farm. Property owner came to see me about what he could do with the hogs that come to or go through his fences and harass his livestock at night. I killed them all off my place, because I finally just hunted evey last one down and killed them all, literally. So I loaned him my thermal scope and my locking tripod for rifle use, that setup has got the group thinned down by about 20 hogs. With an AR in 300 BO, which works, but is actually weak on a hog. Hogs here get to 600 lgs so, they are our version of dangerous game and big game. Our deer are mostly on the smallish side, about 100 lbs.
My preferred hog rifle is one of my two 358 MGP AR-15 guns, with 200 grain RCBS plain base flat nose 200 grain hard cast, double powder coated in five 10 round magazines. The 358 cal 200 gr at 2,500 fps, does a real job on a hog of any size. This is my hog rifle, the recoil pad is no joke, that little AR gets lively at 2,500 fps with a 200. I use my match alloy of 70-20-10% water dropped, double powdr coated, sized the the groove diameter. A custom built AR with custom built magazines that shoots sub 1/2" inch at 100.

A friend using, one of my bullets, in his DW 8" 357 Super Mag gun, shot a 400 pound wild boar south of Perry in a palmetto swamp at about 20 feet, boar had walked right up behind him, his shot went in the left shoulder, shattered the joint, six inches of the left femur, went through both lungs, cut the heart in half, and lodged under the right side plate, making a golf ball size bulge. The boar turned right and ran 30 yards before dropping.....so much for the broken shoulder stories on DG, this event was totally backwards of the stories. I was just off my friends left side within an arms length, when he fired, so saw, heard and watched the entire event.
My advice is do not rely on the broken bones theory, best to rely on the dead, shot.

[barnetmill]

Ou..............
My preferred hog rifle is one of my two 358 MGP AR-15 guns, with 200 grain RCBS plain base flat nose 200 grain hard cast, double powder coated in five 10 round magazines. The 358 cal 200 gr at 2,500 fps, does a real job on a hog of any size. This is my hog rifle, the recoil pad is no joke, that little AR gets lively at 2,500 fps with a 200. I use my match alloy of 70-20-10% water dropped, double powdr coated, sized the the groove diameter. A custom built AR with custom built magazines that shoots sub 1/2" inch at 100.

A friend using, one of my bullets, in his DW 8" 357 Super Mag gun, shot a 400 pound wild boar south of Perry in a palmetto swamp at about 20 feet, boar had walked right up behind him, his shot went in the left shoulder, shattered the joint, six inches of the left femur, went through both lungs, cut the heart in half, and lodged under the right side plate, making a golf ball size bulge. The boar turned right and ran 30 yards before dropping.....so much for the broken shoulder stories on DG, this event was totally backwards of the stories. I was just off my friends left side within an arms length, when he fired, so saw, heard and watched the entire event.
My advice is do not rely on the broken bones theory, best to rely on the dead, shot.

358 MPG sounds like an impressive cartridge in an AR-15 and firing cast coated bullets.

It is a shortened 30 remington case (6.8 is a modified 30 rem, 0.422 base.). The 35 rem runs at 34k psi. The 6.8 runs at 55k psi, and thus the

My question is if there any lead or coating plastic buildup in the gas tube or bolt carrier?

Relative to the 'DW 8" 357 Super Mag gun', sounds more in the realm of Elmer Keith revolver ballistics of a very hard bullet being used to punch deep into the vitals of a large animal.

[MT Gianni]

A friend using, one of my bullets, in his DW 8" 357 Super Mag gun, shot a 400 pound wild boar south of Perry in a palmetto swamp at about 20 feet, boar had walked right up behind him, his shot went in the left shoulder, shattered the joint, six inches of the left femur, went through both lungs, cut the heart in half, and lodged under the right side plate, making a golf ball size bulge. The boar turned right and ran 30 yards before dropping.....so much for the broken shoulder stories on DG, this event was totally backwards of the stories. I was just off my friends left side within an arms length, when he fired, so saw, heard and watched the entire event.

IME, heart shot animals do weird things. I have had whitetail run over 200 yards with their heart loose in their chests. I had an elk drop with it's heart split and another run in a 30 foot circle making several laps. One antelope dropped like a stone. I believe heart shot animal have a lot of adrenaline release and are totally unpredictable, dead but unpredictable.