Today a customer ordered several 30 cal 185 gr SP1R molds, and when talking over the details a memory of another customers success with this bullet on game came to mind.
About 12 years ago, the customer had me fit his well used rifle with the above bullet, which he he said he wanted so he could shoot cheap and not wear the barrel out. He used my normal fitting procedure, providing a throat slug, and the bullet that fit his rifles throat came out at about 190 gr. His first loads were with 4831, mild velocities to keep recoil down, and produced just a little over 2100 fps, using air cooled WW bullets. Accuracy at 100 yards was a consistent 1 inch.
I haven't spread this story much, because of the following reasons, but this forum is about cast bullets, and the account is good in that respect. -- He was a 'Native american' tribal hunter, which is what he decided to use the bullet for, after shooting a few groups. (I'm not proud of that, and know there aren't many hunters, including me, who think so called Native americans should be able to shoot all the game they want. My notion is, that anyone born on american soil is native, regardless of mongrel or straight bloodlines. Most of us are mongrel including this hunter, myself and a high percentage of so called 'Native Americans'. None of us deserve more privelege than his neighbor.) His hunting score the first summer, was 6 elk plus several deer. He claimed ranges were out to 300 yards, which seems to far to get expansion, so I'm not saying I believe that yardage. Yet I'm comfortable believing he shot out to 200 yards at least. I'd be a fool not to believe that he shot the amount of game which he claimed. He just wasn't one to ever expand a story. He said that he never needed more than one shot, and as I recall, he only recovered one bullet, which he brought over and showed me, saying he shot the elk it killed at 200 yards, with a steep quartering shot through the chest. It was nicely expanded, and was recovered from under the off side skin. He used that one bullet and load for several years with complete success, stating that he would never shoot another jacketed bullet.
In my book I explain how to test your loads for effectiveness on game, often called expansion testing, which he did before hunting with those bullets. The key to his super success, even though starting velocities were far lower than one would think necessary to get expansion, was the very high B.C, of the relitively heavy SP1R. Because it loses speed slowly and impact velocity required to expand air cooled wheel weights is only about 1400 fps, performance was faultless.
As you scramble through our current political arena, to find good hunting bullets, remember this account. The same is possible with most rifle cartridges from 6.5 caliber and larger, if the throating will allow maximum cast bullet weights which equal maximum jacketed weights for the cartridge. With shorter ranges, cast bullets with poor ballistic coefficient's can be just as effective, especially for game of 400 pounds and less, so long as impact velocity is high enough to expand them. Of coarse, as you'll read through out this forum, when the caliber is large enough and the bullet meplat is wide enough to produce an adaquate Displacement Velocity, no expansion is needed, nor desirable in my opinion.
