Soft nose bullets in handguns

[MikeR]

Sometime back Ross Seyfried wrote an article in Guns and Ammo about casting and using soft nose bullets in handguns - particularly in the .45 Colt.  He seemed to really like the results he got using them in Australia hunting donkeys and other large varmints.  You recommend soft nose bullets only for use in rifles in the last edition of your book.   Do you still discourage using soft nose bullets in handguns or do see some times when they can be useful?

Thanks,
Mike

[512]

i really like the soft nose concept for 45 colt velocity.
have used them on deer half dozen times and even on a 600 lb buffalo.
mine are wfn 320 gr. and are made the hard way. i find they shoot almost to the same point (read that cant tell the difference) as the bullets made of the harder alloy from the same mold. i dont use many but have never been disappointed. in fact on the buffalo, i was very impressed. bullet stopped under hide after doing more damage to lungs and major vessels than i have ever seen a cast bullet do. the bullet still weighed 315 gr.      the mule deer i shot with one this year died from a lung hit very quickly.
hope this helps, jeff

[MikeR]

Sure does help.  I'm a real fan of the .45 Colt, but I've never cast any soft nose bullets for it.  I've been contemplating doing it and might still give it a try.

Mike

[Veral]

Softnoses make handgun bullets more destructive for sure, and with some hits on some game that might increase the kill speed, and a quick humane kill is our goal.

However, if you'll read my book and study the displacement velocity formula which I developed for flatnosed bullets, you'll see that understanding the relationship between flat frontal area and impact velocity are the keys to quick kills.  I've received litterly thousands of reports about game going down in its track or wobbling only short distence before going down, never getting out of sight, using properly loaded flatnosed LBT bullets.   In twenty years I only remember two reports of slow kills.  One a very poor hit with the deer down in 100 yards, the other about the same run distence, with a 44 WFN driven at 1700 fps, which was too fast for a quick kill, according to my formula.
 Please understand that having LBT on the mold doesn't make its bullet kill better.  The game doesn't know who designed the bullets.  Frontal area, and velocity with adaquate bullet weight are the factors which put game down quick.  It is extremely difficult for a proud manufacture who wants to give only the best he is aware of, to write without sounding braggy or giving the impression that he is the only source.  So give me some breathing room if I sound like my tiny outfit is the hub that the world rotates on.  It ain't.