Hi OP, i cast my own bullets and can make a hard cast bullet. They’re generally used in revolvers. I load a 255 grain cast for my 45 colt and i used to cast a 400 grain bullet for a 480 Ruger i had. The profile of a fmj is more rounded whereas the hardcast bullets usually have a wide frontal area or meplat. The hardcast bullet can be driven to velocities well over 1000 fps without leading providing throat and bore are not oversized. Hardcast bullets sre designed to penetrate and break bone and as such are best for hunting not self defense.

 

View attachment 632830 Hi OP, i cast my own bullets and can make a hard cast bullet. They’re generally used in revolvers. I load a 255 grain cast for my 45 colt and i used to cast a 400 grain bullet for a 480 Ruger i had. The profile of a fmj is more rounded whereas the hardcast bullets usually have a wide frontal area or meplat. The hardcast bullet can be driven to velocities well over 1000 fps without leading providing throat and bore are not oversized. Hardcast bullets sre designed to penetrate and break bone are as such are best for hunting not self defense.

^THIS

 

Hard cast swc, and lbt bullets tend to have wider noses that cut wadcutter permanent leaky holes in stuff that will not close.
The sharper shoulders will tend to catch more on blood vessels, bones and rip and tear. Bone frags become secondary missiles in the animal, doing their own separate damage.
FMJ is made to be slick for autos.
I do know of one PH I hunt with in TX that is not all that fond of hardcast.
Every hog I've killed in TX has been a heavy 45 Colt, 250 XTP, on one, and two with 44mag 240 XTP.
Heavy bones and skin requrie a tougher bullet to hold together. Like hunting elephants with a 44. Its been done, but is more of a stunt, and not the perview of the timid, or average pistol hunter.
I have also heard it said, that if I want to eat it, I use a HP. If it wants to eat me, I use a hardcast.
The debate lingers like the odor of cat piss in carpet. For what I hunt in TX, the XTP hp will do it all.
With the recent addition of a G20, this site has pointed me to 10.5 Blue Dot, under a 180 XTP. Maybe Longshot.
I practice before a hunt, standing on my hind legs, at 40-50 yds, offhand, keeping shots with in a 6-8 inch cicrle.
Were I hunt, I'll be at 25-30yds away. Makes easy.
That what I got. With my limited experience.

 

The debate lingers like the odor of cat piss in carpet.

The internet has just been won today

 

My understanding is that hard cast bullets are designed not to deform and therefore penetrate more deeply.

Not merely 'penetrate more deeply' but doing so in straight-line fashion. Compare the round nose of an FMJ vs. the wide meplat (for crushing) and sharp cutting edge of the HC bullet you see in jeep's photo above. Soft, round nose will deform and deflect...but could still penetrate deeply but just not in the intended direction. Deformation/separation means energy is now being absorbed by the bullet...bullet gets fat/fragments, won't penetrate as much. HC stacks the deck in your favor when the chips are down.

 

Not to mention that cast lead bullets (in whatever hardness) are easier to make and generally more economical than jacketed rounds.

Hardcast are generally preferred on thick skinned, heavily built dangerous animals.

 

Jacketed usually have a very soft lead core. They would flatten if they hit hard bone.

 

Hard cast was cool 30-years ago. Personally I favor all-copper Barnes X-type bullets. You get both expansion and penetration. Of course it's more expensive than hard cast lead, although factory loaded hard cast lead ammo ain't exactly cheap.

http://www.doubletapammo.net/index.php?route=product/product&path=125_195&product_id=400

 

What you're missing is the bullet profile of hardcast VS FMJ's. Most FMJ's are either roundnose or truncated cone with a relatively small Meplat which is the flat area on the front of the bullet. Additionally FMJ's are generally rounded and smooth to aid in feeding in semi-autos.

Hardcast bullets intended for woods defense have a larger Meplat than FMJ's, which allows the bullet to not only penetrate but to displace tissue outward creating a larger wound channel. this is why full wadcutters make an excellent defensive projectile in cartridges like the 38 Special which lack the velocity to reliably create expansion with hollowpoints.

Here's what the Garrett Ammunition company has to say about Meplat:

The meplat is the frontal circular flat of a flatnose bullet that first comes into contact with game. The size or diameter of the meplat effects the performance of a cast bullet in a number of important ways. Among these are terminal stability, bullet length and subsequent power generation efficiency, wound channel diameter, rate of incapacitation, aerodynamics, and, in lever-action rifles, magazine safety. We take the view, common to experienced users of large caliber cast bullets, that a large frontal flat or meplat is essential in producing quick and humane kills on big game.

Terminal Stability
Terminal stability refers to a bullet's impact characteristics. Upon impact, a bullet can be expected to penetrate the game animal. However, a bullet's path through game tissue, whether it is straight, deep, or angular, is largely determined by its construction and design characteristics. Primary among those characteristics is the weight carrying capacity of the front of the bullet. Bullets with less weight in the forward half of the bullet, as compared to the rear half, tend to be less terminally stable and tend to exhibit characteristics such as yaw which reduce penetration depth, than bullets that carry similar amounts of weight in the front and rear. Since bullets with wider or broader meplats tend to carry more weight up front than bullets with smaller meplats, they tend to be more terminally stable and, as a consequence, produce deeper and straighter penetration channels.

Wound Channel Diameter
The diameter of the wound channel produced by a proper hard-cast bullet is far more a product of the diameter of the meplat than the diameter of the bullet. This is of critical importance. As a consequence of this, wound channel diameter and the resulting speed of incapacitation can be substantially increased through the use of hard-cast bullets with broad meplats. This is readily observable through wet newspaper penetration testing, or by the careful postmortem examination of big game animals. Interestingly, as can be verified by testing, relatively small increases in meplat diameter produce relatively large increases in wound channel diameter.

 

HC lead will go faster for the pressure vs FMJ, too. That can be important when slinging really long heavy bullets in a short barrel.

 

9mm FMJ: ~26 inches pen
9mm hardcast: ~63+ inches pen

Varies on bullet weight, barrel length, pressure and so on

 

This helps. Thanks guys!

 

I generally run lead bullets at about 11-15 BHN and haven't had one bounce off a critter or squash out on the hide like chewed gum. I do favor bullets with a healthy meplat like the Lee 452-255-RF at left, MO Bullet 255 SWC next and the RCBS #82083 at right.

 

I see a lot of references to hard cast bullets on here by some in bear defense threads. My understanding is that hard cast bullets are designed not to deform and therefore penetrate more deeply.

I've never seen a FMJ with significant deformation that didn't strike a steel plate or something similar. I can't imagine any soft target (like a living creature) is going to deform a FMJ.

So why do some talk about hard cast bullets like they are death rays? Clearly I'm missing something.

This is a misnomer. Hard cast bullets are as bad as soft cast bullets.
What everyone's after is properly cast bullets. It's all dependent on speed, fit and rifling.
You'll have to do some research 'cuz I ain't no teachin guy.

 

http://www.garrettcartridges.com/defensive.html

 

http://www.barnesbullets.com/bullets/buster/

 

Everything repeated about hard cast is wrong.

Remember, in general, the "harder" a metal becomes, the more brittle it becomes.

Like you said, have you ever heard of a copper (copper being harder than lead, generally) FMJ deforming? No. In fact, while hiking, I've come across FMJ that could be reloaded.

The Kel Tec Forum had an interesting test of FMJ through meat with bones. Conversely to what you hear about hard cast, the hard cast bullets shattered on the bone and the FMJ when through. If that is the typical case, everything claimed about hard cast is totally and utterly wrong. Including the benefits. At that point, a hollow point does a better job.

 

Everything repeated about hard cast is wrong.

Remember, in general, the "harder" a metal becomes, the more brittle it becomes.

Like you said, have you ever heard of a copper (copper being harder than lead, generally) FMJ deforming? No. In fact, while hiking, I've come across FMJ that could be reloaded.

The Kel Tec Forum had an interesting test of FMJ through meat with bones. Conversely to what you hear about hard cast, the hard cast bullets shattered on the bone and the FMJ when through. If that is the typical case, everything claimed about hard cast is totally and utterly wrong. Including the benefits. At that point, a hollow point does a better job.

"The Kel Tec Forum had an interesting test of FMJ through meat with bones. Conversely to what you hear about hard cast, the hard cast bullets shattered on the bone and the FMJ when through. If that is the typical case, everything claimed about hard cast is totally and utterly wrong. Including the benefits. At that point, a hollow point does a better job."

Everything you hear about hard cast projectiles on the Kel Tec Forum is totally and utterly and absolutely wrong.

 

A lot of what's written on FMJ is wrong, too.

A UMC .40/180 FMJ that went through two gallon water jugs and buried an inch into a catalog behind. And I've been seeing similar deformation from this load, off and on, over 15 years.

 

Everything repeated about hard cast is wrong.

Remember, in general, the "harder" a metal becomes, the more brittle it becomes.

Like you said, have you ever heard of a copper (copper being harder than lead, generally) FMJ deforming? No. In fact, while hiking, I've come across FMJ that could be reloaded.

The Kel Tec Forum had an interesting test of FMJ through meat with bones. Conversely to what you hear about hard cast, the hard cast bullets shattered on the bone and the FMJ when through. If that is the typical case, everything claimed about hard cast is totally and utterly wrong. Including the benefits. At that point, a hollow point does a better job.

That's because the hard cast was likely a very high brinell hardness target bullet, and not the typically lower hardness hunting bullet.

Adding too much tin, mercury, or antimony will result in a bullet that's too brittle. Done correctly, you'll have a bullet you can shoot through an elephant, recover and damn near reuse.

 

Hard cast was cool 30-years ago. Personally I favor all-copper Barnes X-type bullets. You get both expansion and penetration. Of course it's more expensive than hard cast lead, although factory loaded hard cast lead ammo ain't exactly cheap.

http://www.doubletapammo.net/index.php?route=product/product&path=125_195&product_id=400

I really like them in my rifles, to the point that I almost don't shoot animals with any other bullet. But I've been a tad underwhelmed with them in pistols.


With revolvers, if you can seat them out enough to still drive them to speed they work ok, but I can't see a reason to justify the price, given the extremely similar performance to conventional bullets.

 

Glock says "no lead bullets". Many shooters I know shoot exclusively hand loaded hard cast bullets for target use with no issues.