Cheap practice bullets?

[Ray B]

Not wanting to shoot costly and sometimes irreplaceable bullets for practice but wanting to get in large amounts of range time, have any of you found standard or even cast bullets that could be loaded to approximate the performance of the hunting bullets? There are a bunch of such bullet available in .375" but I'm interested in the over .40" bullets.

 

[meigsbucks]

In .375 I use some 270 gr Hornady’s I purchased in the 1980’s, but have also used 235 gr Speers. In .458, the 400 gr Speers work well for practice.

 

[Mike Van Horn]

I shoot a lot of 22LR, .204 Ruger, 6.5-284, and a few thru my hunting rifles before the hunting season, to get adjusted to that rifle.

 

[Wyatt Smith]

In a 458 win load 405 grain lead 45-70 bullets with Trail Boss. My buddies load gives 1100 FPS and kicks like a popgun.

 

[cmk]

Apart from casting bullets (which I have started doing), I also got the idea to use pistol brass as jackets for 404J bullets. The idea as such is not new, and certainly not mine. From what I understand, 22LR brass can easily be made into .224 bullets, and that this is somewhat popular.

Anyway I looked into it, and found that 40 S&W or 10 mm Auto cases would be the best candidates, as the dimensions are really close to the needed .422"-.423". However, lacking any mechanical skills or tooling, it took until I made contact with a fellow having both, and also a healthy interest in reloading and the will to figure things out and make them work. Also, due to corona quarantine, he had some time to spare. Thus my ideas started materializing.

He built a the tools needed for core seating and nose forming and sizing, and sent me a small test batch to try out. They ended up at around a fairly light 320gr, as the 40S&W case is a bit shortish. Here seen next to a 400gr A-Frame, and a 450gr Woodleigh.

Using the GRT internal ballistics simulator (a bit like QuickLoad), I figured out two different loads. 74.5 gr Norma 202 and 78 gr Norma 203B (same as RL-15) were chosen. As the bullets are filled with pure, soft lead the seater die made its mark on them.

Nevertheless, the results were quite satisfactory for a first test; the N203B load produced a group of about 37mm (~1.5"), and the N202 load about twice that. Chronographed velocity was 763 m/s and 756 m/s, respectively (2500 and 2480 fps). All shots from a bench, 100m (110 yd), and scope set at 6x.

Now awaiting the next batch to be delivered. The first batch was only 10 or 11 bullets, this should be closer to 90. Should be able to actually test a few more different loads. But in all honesty, I am more than happy with 35-40 mm with homemade bullets.

/cmk

 

[Wyatt Smith]

Apart from casting bullets (which I have started doing), I also got the idea to use pistol brass as jackets for 404J bullets. The idea as such is not new, and certainly not mine. From what I understand, 22LR brass can easily be made into .224 bullets, and that this is somewhat popular.

Anyway I looked into it, and found that 40 S&W or 10 mm Auto cases would be the best candidates, as the dimensions are really close to the needed .422"-.423". However, lacking any mechanical skills or tooling, it took until I made contact with a fellow having both, and also a healthy interest in reloading and the will to figure things out and make them work. Also, due to corona quarantine, he had some time to spare. Thus my ideas started materializing.

He built a the tools needed for core seating and nose forming and sizing, and sent me a small test batch to try out. They ended up at around a fairly light 320gr, as the 40S&W case is a bit shortish. Here seen next to a 400gr A-Frame, and a 450gr Woodleigh.

View attachment 340548
Using the GRT internal ballistics simulator (a bit like QuickLoad), I figured out two different loads. 74.5 gr Norma 202 and 78 gr Norma 203B (same as RL-15) were chosen. As the bullets are filled with pure, soft lead the seater die made its mark on them.

View attachment 340550
Nevertheless, the results were quite satisfactory for a first test; the N203B load produced a group of about 37mm (~1.5"), and the N202 load about twice that. Chronographed velocity was 763 m/s and 756 m/s, respectively (2500 and 2480 fps). All shots from a bench, 100m (110 yd), and scope set at 6x.

View attachment 340551
Now awaiting the next batch to be delivered. The first batch was only 10 or 11 bullets, this should be closer to 90. Should be able to actually test a few more different loads. But in all honesty, I am more than happy with 35-40 mm with homemade bullets.

/cmk

Very cool.

 

[TNDave]

Speer HotCor are relatively inexpensive, I use them quite a lot for practice and even hunting white tail deer.

 

[Ray B]

So the .423" bullets are made by inserting a lead slug into a 40 S&W jacket, then forming the point?

 

[cmk]

So the .423" bullets are made by inserting a lead slug into a 40 S&W jacket, then forming the point?

In short, yes. There are a few more steps to it, such as annealing the case/jacket to make it softer and sizing to the correct diameter. Prior to bonding, this is how all jacketed bullets were made (though with a bit more thought given to jacket thickness, expansion, mechanical locking of core to jacket etc).

 

[Ray B]

Great. My son has a 40 S&W so I'll collect some on his used cases and see what I can do. Have you tried machining out the case web?

 

[cmk]

Great. My son has a 40 S&W so I'll collect some on his used cases and see what I can do. Have you tried machining out the case web?

No machining. Annealing the brass/jacket properly (way beyond what you would do for the brass you reload), will make it dead soft - I held mine in the flame until bright orange in daylight. This makes the case walls rather susceptible to bulging and crumbling up during core seating and nose forming.

You'll need to size it down to .422 or .423, and it does not take much force if the brass is softened this way. There are a lot of videos on bullet swaging on youtube.

I also tried pouring molten lead into a softened case and then forming sort-of a nose by pushing it into a 6.5 die. This forms the nose on the shoulder part of the die, in a sort of truncated cone/flat point. Don't push too hard, though, as the bullet/jacket will bulge out considerably (the one I tried went from .422 to .436).

 

[Ray B]

I have a .423" sizing die designed for lead bullets. It should work on softened brass. Also a swaging die for .429" should be close enough to give the bullets some ogive. My son lives about a hundred miles away so all this will have to wait until the virus thing is lifted and I can get out of town.

 

[cmk]

I have a .423" sizing die designed for lead bullets. It should work on softened brass. Also a swaging die for .429" should be close enough to give the bullets some ogive. My son lives about a hundred miles away so all this will have to wait until the virus thing is lifted and I can get out of town.

Great - sounds like you have most of what you need then.

Please note that I only started toying with this because I was interested to see if it would work. I'm certainly no expert. Your experience might different.

 

[Rob404]

I have some practice bullets in 404J I can part with

 

[Bert the Turtle]

I have a die to reduce 429 XTPs down to 423. They kind of suck on feeding but they shoot fine. Cheap and easy practice over Trail Boss.
Paper patch bullets are on my to-try list once my son leaves for college and I have nothing but time on my hands.