Cal
Ward on Guns (formerly of The Irish Shooters’ Digest)
The
problem of non-expanding lead bullets
This headshot feral ram was taken with a .45
calibre 325 grain Keith bullet with a velocity of around 1200 feet per second –
hardly a “soft” load – and while obviously lethal, the wound channel, clearly
visible after the head has been prepared, shows little evidence of expansion.
The
modern rifle hunter, whether he hopes to kill varmints or large game, goes into
the field with equipment including ammunition that represents several hundred
years of refinement and development. He
uses a bullet, jacketed or unjacketed that is designed to penetrate and expand
on whatever game he is hunting. His
bullet may be a hollowpoint, softpoint, ballistic tip or solid depending on the
quarry. This was not always the case and
two hundred years ago a gentleman on “shooting leave” relied on a muzzle-loading
firearm that fired either shot or round ball from a smooth bore. There was a lot of game back then and the
guns were often by Mr Purdy or Mr Churchill or Messrs Holland & Holland and
were of the finest quality. There are
reports of 200 yard shots on antelope, bear, wolf etc. by officers of the East
India Company who ventured into Persia, Afghanistan the Caucuses, Kashmir and
Punjab. They did a spot of espionage while
they were at it and reported back to their imperial masters on the state of
local defences and the morale of the local military. They took a particular interest in the
Russians who were at that time threatening to invade India. Their baggage always contained several
hundredweight of lead and black powder and gifts, frequently firearms, to
sweeten the local bigwigs. It was an
adventurous, exciting and privileged lifestyle and back home in dear old
England their memoirs were devoured by Victorian society, politicians and
military planners. Of course it was not
without risk and many were murdered, robbed, gang-sodomised or hanged as spies
and some would say not nearly enough of them. They believed unquestioningly in the
superiority of Anglo-Saxon civilization and Empire and the Christian faith and
never doubted they were doing indigenous peoples a favour by civilizing them
even if that process involved massacre, confiscation of land, destruction of
culture and livelihood. They were also
brave, young, excellent shots and superb horsemen and their non-homicidal descendants
today are the likes of David Attenborough and Ranulph Fiennes who embody all the
best and little of the worst traits of the Victorian explorer.
The
lethality of unjacketed lead bullets in rifles like the .45-90 Sharps is beyond
question. Modern high velocity expanding
hunting bullets are, by the same token, even more lethal
But to
return to their favourite hunting ammunition, the round lead ball. The Baker Rifle of the period fired a .625
lead ball of around 350 grains with a greased patch. A modern 12 gauge shotgun ball runs from .69”
to .73” depending on the degree of choke.
Prior to the formation of an Experimental Rifle Corps in 1800, a trial
was held at Woolwich by the British Board of Ordnance on 22 February 1800 in
order to select a standard rifle pattern; the rifle designed by Ezekiel Baker
was chosen. During the trial, of the twelve shots fired, eleven were placed in
a 6-foot circular target at a distance of 300 yards. Muzzle velocity was variable at around 1,000
fps and the projectile developed around 600-700 foot pounds. It was an inefficient projectile and
decelerated quickly downrange but tended to deliver killing power out of
proportion to its energy because it tended to dump all of its energy in the
target without exiting. If the hunter
was a skilled stalker who could get to less than 100 yards from his quarry his
chances of a kill were as high as those of a modern hunter. Because of its construction the round ball
tended to expand on bone and this added to its lethality. It punched above its weight as it gave up
most of its energy within the target. A
lot of people and animals were killed by round balls of lead two hundred years
ago.
After
his gun and his horse and of course food, the adventurer of the 19th century
needed only some black powder, lead shot and balls, and after 1870, brass cases. Thus equipped they ranged from the Caspian
Sea to the Hindu Kush and throughout India and Africa
Time
passed and metallic cartridges replaced percussion muzzleloaders and round
balls gave way to elongated lead bullets and by the time of the American Civil
War rifles like the Sharps were shooting 500+ grain elongated lead bullets with
grease grooves at velocities of up to 1500 feet per second and their effective
range exceeded that of the Baker rifle by several hundred yards with a hugely
increased rate of fire. In many ways
lead is the ideal bullet material. Pure
lead maintains its uniformity and lack of brittleness (molecular cohesion. By swaging the lead, the hidden voids and
uneven core problems of cast lead cores are removed. Swaged lead bullets can be more consistent in
weight than cast counterparts. Pure lead bullets shorten and belly out upon
firing, sealing gases and engaging the rifling.
When they get to the target they retain more energy than lighter
projectiles and under the right conditions will deform and expand. As the old shooters used to say; “lead is
dead”.
Bulletsmithing
the old-fashioned way over an open fire.
Inset: a modern reproduction Pedersoli brass mould
There is
one problem – expansion. Despite what
the experts say, it can be difficult to get a lead bullet to expand. We have all hunted rabbits with hollow point
lead .22 high velocity bullets and these expand nicely on small game. Problems arise when we switch to subsonics
which, because of their lower velocity, do not expand nearly as well. This is why hunters who use subsonics prefer
head shots. It is the same with .45 lead
bullets and it is not at all unusual to see fired .45 heads in the backstop
that could easily be re-loaded and fired again without any preparation. I have done it many times although I have
noticed a fall-off in accuracy. Battered
slugs are less accurate. I have hunted
with .45 calibre rifles and have noticed the wounds, while lethal, showed
little evidence of expansion. .45
calibre 500 grain slugs tend to over-penetrate at 1200 feet per second. A classic case was a large feral ram I killed
with a head shot at 50 yards and by an unbelievable stroke of luck found the
unexpanded bullet where it had struck mud a few feet behind the animal. Lead was dead, but….
A
modern electric Lee lead melter and some shiny new .45 cast bullets
So what
does it take to expand a lead bullet? I
already knew four things from previous experience: (a) soft lead expands better
than hard lead alloy and (b) small calibre hollowpoints expand better than
solids and (c) if you push lead fast enough it will expand on impact and (d)
larger calibres are less likely to expand than smaller calibres. What about a large calibre hollowpoint lead
bullet? The idea had been in the back of
my head for years and I used the occasion of a bout of ‘flu to set up an
experiment. The flu was a nasty dose and
Audrey confined me to barracks (but not to bed) for the duration so I put a
half bag of blocks in the workshop stove and went to work. I decided to cast a bullet that could be
fired from either rifle or pistol and selected a classic mould for the .45
calibre Keith 250 grain semi-wadcutter – a versatile head for the .45 1911 Colt
semi automatic, the older Colt .45 SAA revolver and a whole tribe of .45 lever
guns. Getting hold of hollowpoint cast
bullets for hunting with a large calibre muzzleloader or metallic cartridge
rifle is a little more difficult and the hunter-bulletsmith must somehow
acquire a hollowpoint mould or purchase factory cast bullets from a dealer or
drill out solid bullets to make them hollow.
This last operation is difficult because, while drilling lead is easy;
drilling out exactly the same amount of the stuff every time without making a
tubular fishing weight is harder and precise removal of that last few grains is
downright tricky. The first and most
interesting lesson was that standard cast solids they didn’t do much when fired
from a Colt Peacemaker using a full load of 23 grains of black powder. They came out of the sand rougher, brighter,
cleaner with impressive rifling marks and no distortion or expansion
whatsoever. I felt like writing to Clint
Eastwood about it to question some of those badguy kills he made with Lee van
Cleef and Eli Wallach but thought better of it.
He probably used purer lead and had better black powder or maybe the
badguys were tougher and expanded his bullets better. The same bullet fared little better when
fired from a hunting rifle at medium velocities of 900-1100 feet per
second. At 1300 fps things changed and
some spectacularly flattened slugs were retrieved from the backstop. Hunting hollow points at medium velocities,
when retrieved were found to be stuffed with wood fibre and sand and disappointingly
unexpanded. Obviously 700 – 1,000 fps
was insufficient velocity to expand a lead hollowpoint. 1,300 fps produced a nicely expanded bullet,
however. Accuracy at 25 yards with
hollow points was acceptable if not spectacular.
On the
left an expanded hollowpoint 250 grain hunting bullet fired at 1.300 feet per
second and in the centre, the same bullet fired at 900 feet per second. The vintage photo of an expanded lead ball on
the right is by way of comparison. Lead will expand but only if driven
sufficiently fast. The difference in
expansion between hollow and solid point bullets at lower velocities was not
obvious.
The
trial raises interesting questions. At
the time of its adoption the .45 Colt Peacemaker or Single Action Army was put
through trials by the US Government. One
requirement, it has been reported, was that a cavalry revolver should be
capable of killing a horse at 25 yards.
Even allowing for the fact that early Colt .45 cases had thinner walls
and a larger capacity of 40 grains of high quality black powder as opposed to
my 23 grains of Russian (poor) substitute, the performance falls short of horse
lethality. But then if the unfortunate
beasts killed in trials were shot in the ear, perhaps they died quickly. I’ve often wondered how the US Army organised
horses to test the lethality of bullets.
Did they shoot only sick or old ones?
Military trials, then as now, were often accompanied by lavish
“hospitality” and judgements were thereby influenced. Whatever the truth of it, a lot of people
have put their faith in this bullet in both rifle and pistol for over 150
years.
Happy
is the hunter…. A frequently overlooked
fact is that the Muzzleloader rifle of the seventeenth and eighteenth century,
while inefficient compared to modern firearms WAS powerful and provided it was
of sufficiently robust construction could handle large loads of 150+ grains of
black powder and large bullets of 500+ grains capable of taking the largest
game
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And
what of the ethics of hunting with large calibre cast bullets, both expanding
and non-expanding? As I see it, the only
difference is range. A round ball or
large calibre elongated bullet will kill cleanly and a modern small-calibre
high velocity expanding hunting bullet will do the same thing at greater
range. It is worth remembering that
hunting with 12 gauge shotgun balls and slugs is mandatory in some areas
where deer populations are high in areas close to population centres. That the same projectile is considered
inhumane and dangerous in other areas is somewhat hypocritical and shows what
happens when the ballistically ignorant become legislators
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