Bullets

bruce moulds

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when i started shooting in australia, the most common firearm collection for a keen hunter was a 22 rimfire, a 12 gauge shotgun, and a lee enfield 303.
the 303 would be sporterized for the keener guys.
ammo was most likely 303 mk7, as it was cheap, and no one thought of termonal performance, other than to use either hollow point or solid in 22 rimfire.
there was also an elite in hunters, who had either a 22 hornet or a 303/25.
the hornet guys tended to shoot factory ici ammunition, believing reloading to be dangerous.
303/25 shooters used commercially reloaded soft point ammo made fron necked down 303 cases fired by school cadets and the military.
slowly the 243 and the 222 took over, wuth major 243 ammo being reloaded military 308 brass necked down.
this was much cheaper than american ammo.
with these cartridges came reloading and better american and european front locking action rifles.
the old 303 full metal jacket ammo was now juxtapositioned against soft point handloads.
people started to realize that hunting bullets are better than military ones for killing game humanely.
of course people being people had to go the opposite, and decided that best bullet performance is opposite, so the ultimat bullet performance is "bullet blowup".
these people still exist in australia.
i will never forget reading an article by ross seyfried where he introduced swift, barnes, and the bullet that federal now loads in modified form.
australians still resist spending money on better bullets, but those who have learned to match bullet to game never look back.
this is not to denigrate sierra, speer and hornady conventional bullets for situations that suit them.
i sometimes wonder if this story has a paralell in europe or america.
i can well see a lot of deer being shot in usa with 30/06 or 30/40 fmj bullets in years gone by.
bruce.
 
I remember those days but have reloaded since the 70s. I used standard Bullets but then again I was only hunting soft skinned animals, wild pigs, and deer,
I used a 303/25 for while but soon went for the 243 and 222.
Nostalgia!
 
I’m an Aussie, at he ripe old age of 46 &11+ months I do remember all the things you mentioned.
I have been around firearms nearly 40 years. I have read many things and believe some.
I believe that we form an opinion then read what we we want to believe to validate what we wanted to hear to support the thing we had already settled on.
Yes, we do resist spending money but things are more affordable now, research is cheap via the Internet, we can source the batboy price quickly using the right keywords to find the particular components we already decided we need that will outperform all others for our purpose. Till we change our mind.
See, a Howa Australian Mountaineer .222 cost more 30+ years ago than some Howa rifles would cost today. Access to suppliers, trade volume, freight, and whatever other factors affect this.
Quality projectiles are readily available,
When I turned 18 and became licensed the Chinese Norinco JW15 .22rf rifles were readily available on a budget. Stirling bullets , Nikko Stirling Scopes.
The SKS and SKK were affordable and the bullets cheap, we knew they did not have the best terminal performance but military surplus .303, .308, 6.5x55 or 7.62x39 or Carcano or any other military load are all designed with full metal jacket projectiles. None of these military surplus are for hunting.
We now know better and the majority probably at least opt for a regular soft point projectile for hunting.
Your point is valid, these trends may well have happened all over the world where hunting is a legitimate recreational activity where we contribute to pest management or hunting and gathering as a way of life and mil surplus was once common. That era is over,
I’m no expert on Africa but I believe the .303 British round has some history there.
Interesting,the .303 and it’s prodig may we’ll have accounted for more game in Australia than many others but times are changing in and some
of these modern cartridges have been around a while and are here to stay.
The .223 is very versatile and widely used.
The .308 is common and is used widely on pigs and large game,
Some favour the Yankee favourite the Thirty Ought, Six. The .30-06
 
Interesting Australian arms history from you guys! Thanks!
 
I don't personally know of anyone who used FMJ bullets on game but, Elmer Keith wrote of using the '06 M1 military bullet which he had filed the jacket nose back to the lead to make it a soft point. I believe his dislike of the .30'06 resulted from this action.
 
Not so much talk of bullets when I was younger (born in '61), but more so of cartridges.......remember my grandfather and uncles talking (over Pabst Blue ribbon beer) about how some cartridges, such as the .30-06, where "too powerful" for deer (whitetails). Deer cartridges needed heavy, slow moving bullets that "busted brush".......cartridges such as the .30/30. .32 Special, etc. In our family, there was a Winchester 94 in .32 Special, a Marlin 336 in .35 Remington, and two .30/30's (a Marlin 336 and a Savage 99). Ammo consisted of whatever the local sporting goods store had available.....back then, the choices were either Winchester, Remington, or Federal.
Later, my grandfather and two uncles went to the "too powerful" .30-06; one of the gun magazines did articles on the Benoit's out of Maine (IIRC) and so my granddad and one uncle went with the Remington 760, while my other uncle went with a Winchester 670. My Uncle always refered to his 760 as "a cannon" and always said he felt it needed wheels because it was so heavy............
I guess the deer got tougher over the years.....................:rolleyes::D
 
Started reloading in '63 and am only going by deer hunting history. Post WW2, I saw a lot of 30-30s, 32 Specials, sporterized '06 Springfields, .303 Enfields, and a smattering of other milsurp rifles like the 6.5 Carcano. Mid '60s we discovered those cartridges weren't killing deer dead enough so we wandered off to overkill land, big magnums in the 7mm to 30 caliber plus cartridges, 7mm Remington Mags, the short mags, the Win mags and the Weatherbys. Bullet wise for the milsurp cartridges, I rarely saw hunters using ball ammo, mostly the cheapest off the shelf stuff they could get and they killed a lot of deer.
 
I had an uncle who had a Swede '94 carbine in 6.5x55. In the late 50's ammo for such was lacking, the main stuff available was military surplus. He would get the FMJ round nose bullets and machine off about an eighth inch from the nose. The jacket was a tube as the base was open, so he left enough jacket on the front of the bullet to keep it together in the bore. He used these bullets to hunt deer on the Oregon coast, where they rarely got much larger than 100 pounds, so such bullets when placed in the lungs resulted in a dead deer. Very few deer went more than 50 yards after being so struck. In the early 60s when I was hunting with a 308 factory ammo from Norma was available with Nosler Partition bullets. I considered these strictly for elk and larger, using conventional bullets for the easy-to-kill deer.
 
Here in NZ during the Deer Wars days the government cullers used the 303 Lee Enfield and surplus mil ammo. Some would have a par of sidecutters as part of their gear and snip the noses to make them more effective. These guys were paid for ears and so they didnt want to be traipsing all over the bush tracking them. Literally 10's of thousands of deer were killed with the old 303 and the ex mil ammo untill it gradually changed with many going to the 222 with simple soft point ammo. When the chopper hooting came in it was the semi auto 308 that ruled the roost
 
I’m an Aussie, at he ripe old age of 46 &11+ months I do remember all the things you mentioned.
I have been around firearms nearly 40 years. I have read many things and believe some.
I believe that we form an opinion then read what we we want to believe to validate what we wanted to hear to support the thing we had already settled on.
Yes, we do resist spending money but things are more affordable now, research is cheap via the Internet, we can source the batboy price quickly using the right keywords to find the particular components we already decided we need that will outperform all others for our purpose. Till we change our mind.
See, a Howa Australian Mountaineer .222 cost more 30+ years ago than some Howa rifles would cost today. Access to suppliers, trade volume, freight, and whatever other factors affect this.
Quality projectiles are readily available,
When I turned 18 and became licensed the Chinese Norinco JW15 .22rf rifles were readily available on a budget. Stirling bullets , Nikko Stirling Scopes.
The SKS and SKK were affordable and the bullets cheap, we knew they did not have the best terminal performance but military surplus .303, .308, 6.5x55 or 7.62x39 or Carcano or any other military load are all designed with full metal jacket projectiles. None of these military surplus are for hunting.
We now know better and the majority probably at least opt for a regular soft point projectile for hunting.
Your point is valid, these trends may well have happened all over the world where hunting is a legitimate recreational activity where we contribute to pest management or hunting and gathering as a way of life and mil surplus was once common. That era is over,
I’m no expert on Africa but I believe the .303 British round has some history there.
Interesting,the .303 and it’s prodig may we’ll have accounted for more game in Australia than many others but times are changing in and some
of these modern cartridges have been around a while and are here to stay.
The .223 is very versatile and widely used.
The .308 is common and is used widely on pigs and large game,
Some favour the Yankee favourite the Thirty Ought, Six. The .30-06

You are certainly refreshing my memory / seems like yesterday. I think the 308 is the most popular cartridge in Oz. Personally I prefer the 270 over the 308 but that is not denigrating the 308 - just my personal preference and I used the 30/06 for many years.
 
Here in the continuous Western USA States, mule deer, pronghorn and elk were the primary hooved game during my youthful days (born in the 1950’s), and I suppose still are the primary hooved game here, through today.
In Texas, perhaps some other western USA locations however, feral pigs seem to be almost trying to take over now.
In the also western state of Alaska, moose, caribou and Sitka blacktail deer were and still are the primary hooved game.

Hand loading has been around as long as I can remember.
People, including myself primarily used live military surplus ammunition, for informal target practice and also occasionally for pest control, back when .30-06, .303 and 8x57 military ammunition was cheap and plentiful.

Non-expanding military style bullets have never been popular here for much of anything else, at least not where I have lived.
Also, it’s generally unlawful to use them here on game animals.
As far as I know it is however perfectly acceptable to use on rodents and predators, not counting bears, as expanding bullets are required for them, as far as I know.

Lately, large quantities of 5.56 NATO, 7.62x39 Russian, 7.62x54R Russian, and 7.62 NATO calibers seem to be available on the surplus market here.
Or perhaps it is new ammunition that is packaged to look like military issue.
Nonetheless, it is full metal jacket or “solids” of the typical military style bullet, common with military ammunition.

I talk too much.
Cheers.
 
back in the day in the northern territory, professional buffalo hunters worked fro horseback, riding next to a running buff, and shooting it in the spine.
horses had to learn to jump sideways at the sound of the shot in order not to tangle up with the falling buff, or you were dead.
a good book describing this is "hell west and crooked".
the guy preferred a shortened martini 303 with mk 6 ammo, which was a round nose fmj of over 200 gns.
i have often surmized that this ammo was what made the 303 popular in africa.
likewise the 175? gn rn fmj in the 7x57.
these heavy for calibre round nosed solids in cheap affordable rifles would have suited many a budget, wile being making the small calibre rifles capable of taking the generally bigger african animals where soft points would have been hopeless in any but much larger calibres.
bruce.
 
Military FMJs are not cool on game, they do work but things get hectic.

However, the 220 grain Woodleigh FMJ with its round nose really is something else on buffalo out of the .300H&H.
 
when i started shooting in australia, the most common firearm collection for a keen hunter was a 22 rimfire, a 12 gauge shotgun, and a lee enfield 303.
the 303 would be sporterized for the keener guys.
ammo was most likely 303 mk7, as it was cheap, and no one thought of termonal performance, other than to use either hollow point or solid in 22 rimfire.
there was also an elite in hunters, who had either a 22 hornet or a 303/25.
the hornet guys tended to shoot factory ici ammunition, believing reloading to be dangerous.
303/25 shooters used commercially reloaded soft point ammo made fron necked down 303 cases fired by school cadets and the military.
slowly the 243 and the 222 took over, wuth major 243 ammo being reloaded military 308 brass necked down.
this was much cheaper than american ammo.
with these cartridges came reloading and better american and european front locking action rifles.
the old 303 full metal jacket ammo was now juxtapositioned against soft point handloads.
people started to realize that hunting bullets are better than military ones for killing game humanely.
of course people being people had to go the opposite, and decided that best bullet performance is opposite, so the ultimat bullet performance is "bullet blowup".
these people still exist in australia.
i will never forget reading an article by ross seyfried where he introduced swift, barnes, and the bullet that federal now loads in modified form.
australians still resist spending money on better bullets, but those who have learned to match bullet to game never look back.
this is not to denigrate sierra, speer and hornady conventional bullets for situations that suit them.
i sometimes wonder if this story has a paralell in europe or america.
i can well see a lot of deer being shot in usa with 30/06 or 30/40 fmj bullets in years gone by.
bruce.
Bruce and Dr Ray
We must be getting old.i remember many an hour spent with a hydraulic decapper for the old 303 cases and necking them down in a simplex vice die an reloading with an old Australian version of a Lee loader for both the 25 and the 303.
Tipan bullets were the go to.
Also used to load my 410 shot gun with a Lee loader.
A powder measure was a cut off case with a brass rod soldered to it.
Oh how times have changed.
Cheers mate Bob
 
I used taipan Bullets in my 22:250
But they couldn’t make the 200 yard targets.
At 100 they gave reasonable groups though.
 
taipans were too expensive for me.
I used riverbrand, and they all shot well, especially from the .222.
bruce.
 
I used rivett and in 308
 
I did see a lot of old military .303 ammo being used by some old farmers here in South Africa. I think this was a relic of the "Commando" or Military reserve system.
.303's were used for training and a lot of ammo found its way home. I would say the same for 7.62x51.

Most used the brown box PMP ammo for hunting; it was readily available and quite cheap.

Musgrave released the 303/6mm as the 6mm Musgrave with a 100gr SP. I have nostalgic feelings over this even though the .243 is better in every way. I shot a Martini-Enfield converted to 6mm Musgrave and would take this on my next Springbok hunt without a second thought. It does not have to be about pure performance or ballistics all the time.

The modern SA bullet revolution basically started with Gerard Shultz and GS Custom and then Kobus van der Westhuizen with Rhino bullets a little after that. This lead on to Peregrine and Impala bullets later on.
I like the Rhinos a lot but prefer heavy bonded bullets for my own use over all the mono bullets around these days.
 
ray,
those 150 gn riverbrand 308 bullets were the same bullet loaded in the 303 by them, even though bore and groove diameters differed greatly.
they were a good bullet for goats, pigs, deer up to reds, and anything in between in the 308.
I remember going on a goat cull with 3000 rounds and bringing home 7.
times have changed.
bruce.
 

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