Author Topic: Cast Performance Bullets for hunting. (Read 2822 times)

BrianU · « **on:** July 11, 2005, 12:07:56 PM »

I bought a Ruger Bisley .45 last spring and plan to use it as my primary hunting revolver. I have been looking at Cast Performance Bullet Company's 300 flatpoint with a gascheck. Anyone have any experience with these bullets? Any recommendations for other makes of bullets of similar weight and type?

Brian

Redhawk1 · « **Reply #1 on:** July 11, 2005, 12:41:03 PM »

Now I like a hard cast bullet for the tougher animals such as hogs and bear. But for deer and thin skinned animals I like a good soft point or a barnes bullet. I use cast bullets a lot for practice as well as hunting and they are great bullets. Now they will work on deer, but you won't get any expansion.

Catfish · « **Reply #2 on:** July 11, 2005, 01:26:02 PM »

I`ve hunted deer for years with a handgun, mostly with a .44 mag., and like Red I like the jacketed HP`s or soft points. I like the Serria bullets best as they have given me the best combo of accuracy and terminal prefermorance in most of my guns. I do however used the Hornady`d in the .357 max. as the Serrias fail on hard bone at max. velosities.
I do have a supply of Cast Performancy bullets that I have plaied with and found them to be of excellant quality. I have pushed their 243 grn. .41 cal. bullets to abt. 2,700 fps with no leading. When I get the time to play with my .411 Hawk some more I`ll push them on up and see where they start to lead. I think I can get them up to abt 3,200 fps, and I`m sure they`ll start leading befor that. They are also very accurate, at least in the limited testing I`ve done.

Castaway · « **Reply #3 on:** July 11, 2005, 02:07:41 PM »

See if you can get a sample box before you buy a few hundred of them. My Black Hawk prints 300 grainers 15" high at 50 yards with the rear sight bottomed out.

crawfish · « **Reply #4 on:** July 11, 2005, 05:06:36 PM »

I have hunted exclusively with a hand since 1989. I have used CPBT or BearTooth hard cast stuff exclusively since 2000. I shoot a 250g or 265g .41 caliber. My granddaughter, both sons, my wife and a sons wife all hunt using handguns. We kill lots of deer, sheep/goats, and pigs every season all with handguns. We do two things religiously when we hunt. First is to set up like bow hunters; shots within 30 yards and always shoot to break BOTH front shoulders of the animal. Using those two things we dont have to look for animals that ran off not knowing they were dead. FWIW I think that a hard cast lead bullet is the perfect bullet for handgun hunting.

BrianU · « **Reply #5 on:** July 11, 2005, 08:47:10 PM »

I appreciate all the information. All the different opinions on what works definately proves that what matters most is still the person pulling the trigger. I have an OM SBH .44 that I have been carrying around for about 16 years. I have used quite an assortment of loads over the years, but for the last couple of years I have pretty much settled on the Speer 270 grain Gold Dot flat point as my standard load. Shoots extremely well out of that old Ruger. As much as I like this pistol, I have been wanting a Bisley for some time. The Bisley grip fits my hand very well and I wanted something a little easier to carry on the hip than the 7.5" SBH. I also wanted a .45 because I have heard great things about it as a hunting round as well as just adding a .45 to my Ruger collection. The Accusport Bisley pretty much fills all those requirements, although the stainless is not as nice looking as the polished bluing on my old model.
Now a days, you are just as likely to find me hunting pigs in Texas, as hunting whitetails in Oklahoma. This is why I am leaning towards a somewhat heavy hard cast bullet. If my buddy in Texas calls and says "Hey, Joe and I are heading to the ranch next weekend, can you get a kitchen pass?" I do not want to worry about the load I was using last weekend for whitetails not being suitable for pigs and then trying to find the time to reload, get to the range and re-sight for something different at the last minute. And like crawfish pointed out, a bullet that consistently makes an exit hole and does damage, while not as impressive as some of the jacketed hollow points out there but works the same way every single time, sounds pretty hard to beat.

Castaway, was this a new or old model Blackhawk and how stiff were those loads? I had the same problem with some 300 grain LBTs that a friend let me try in my SBH. They shot fine out of his Super Redhawk and were accurate in my SBH as well, but like your problem, they shot a foot high at 50 yards with the sight all the way down in my gun. I figured it was because at the time my SBH was built, a 240 grain bullet was the heavy load and the front sight was not tall enough. Anyone else have this problem on the newer guns?

Brian

Lloyd Smale · « **Reply #6 on:** July 12, 2005, 12:12:57 AM »

cast performance makes a top shelf bullet. IMO cast is the only way to go in a handgun for everything. Your ruger will probably need a taller sight to use 300 grain cast.

Castaway · « **Reply #7 on:** July 12, 2005, 01:31:45 AM »

Forget the particular load, but it was on the stiff side.

Sverre A. · « **Reply #8 on:** July 12, 2005, 10:37:27 AM »

I prefer hard cast bullets - and why? I have shot about 60 animals with calibers from .357 Meg. - 375 JDJ, and :oops: have done some bad shots. Twice I have experienced that the expansion bullets stopped before they hit deadly parts of the animal. The bad shots with the hard cast - continued the penetrating until/trough the killing zone.

Leadlum · « **Reply #9 on:** July 12, 2005, 11:10:37 AM »

I did have the same problem as you with my Blackhawks shooting a foot high at 50 yards with my cast handloads. That was with 240gr cast 44 spl loads if I remember right? I ran out of adj. I was shooting one day at the range; and my front sight blasted off. Leaving just the drift pin, and a little piece of the sight under the pin. I went home and made a new sight that was a little taller.

jar-wv · « **Reply #10 on:** July 16, 2005, 01:03:10 PM »

Am I missing something here? Are all Blackhawks set up to change front sights? I was running into problems with my .45 shooting heavy bullets to high and it didn't appear to me that the front sight was removable without a gunsmith doing it.

jar

Lloyd Smale · « **Reply #11 on:** July 16, 2005, 01:31:49 PM »

just the stainless ones have the pinned sight. But i believe ruger will install one on a blued gun for ya.

daddywpb · « **Reply #12 on:** July 17, 2005, 01:32:03 AM »

BrianU,

I use the CP 300 gr LFNGC in my Ruger Bisley .45 also. Great bullet. I have had too many JSP's fail to do their job over the years, so I use only cast bullets to hunt. I load them over 15.5 grains of 2400. I have yet to recover one from game since they always pass through, but I dug a couple out of sand at the range. Not much expansion, but they aren't made to expand.

P.S. - I have not had any problems using the factory sight blade.

Redhawk1 · « **Reply #13 on:** July 17, 2005, 06:30:08 AM »

Quote from: BrianU

I bought a Ruger Bisley .45 last spring and plan to use it as my primary hunting revolver. I have been looking at Cast Performance Bullet Company's 300 flatpoint with a gascheck. Anyone have any experience with these bullets? Any recommendations for other makes of bullets of similar weight and type?

Brian

If you want a good hard cast bullet, just as good or better than Cast Performance at about half the price, try http://montanabulletworks.com./

I use them all the time.

Tusker · « **Reply #14 on:** July 17, 2005, 08:25:05 AM »

This little darling came to me from Texas a couple years ago. I added the Elephant Ivory, but the front sight was there already. I am thinking this was done for a heavier bullet, but haven't really had time to work with it. Interesting though. I was a very nice job, whoever did it.

Redhawk1 · « **Reply #15 on:** July 17, 2005, 10:19:44 AM »

Nice looking gun there Tusker.

crawfish · « **Reply #16 on:** July 22, 2005, 06:04:48 PM »

Redhawk1 that bullet website is something. I'll give them a ring next week. Think I can work with them for my .41s.

Tusker fine looking Ruger. Are those the same grips I saw for sale on another site???

oso45-70 · « **Reply #17 on:** July 22, 2005, 07:38:21 PM »

Tusker,

That Makes my droll flow, Nice looking rig. There is some thing about a blue pistol with ivory grips that just gets to me. Regards....Joe......

Redhawk1 · « **Reply #18 on:** July 23, 2005, 01:47:04 AM »

Quote from: crawfish

Redhawk1 that bullet website is something. I'll give them a ring next week. Think I can work with them for my .41s.

Tusker fine looking Ruger. Are those the same grips I saw for sale on another site???

crawfish, I have been using his bullets for about 4 years now. They are top quality.

Steve 48 · « **Reply #19 on:** November 09, 2005, 06:11:02 AM »

I use the cast bullets from Leadheads and they are great. Corbon also uses all their bullets for their cast factory loadings. Their web site is at www.proshootpro.com Steve48

riddleofsteel · « **Reply #20 on:** November 09, 2005, 12:12:34 PM »

I personally love the 270 grain hardcast Keith style SWC from Leadhead Bullets. Out of my 7.5" .45 Colt Blackhawk it gives great accuracy and it will penetrate any game animal in North America at just over 1100 FPS. For deer I like the Nosler 250 grain SJHP or the Hornady 250 grain XTP HP. These perform like gang busters on lung shots. If I am in an area where I know I will have to break a front shoulder to prevent a deer from getting back into a swamp or across a river I go back to the 270 grain SWC.

wyocarp · « **Reply #21 on:** November 09, 2005, 02:45:19 PM »

montanabulletworks seems like they have pretty good prices on bullets. I don't see how these places sell bullets as cheap as they do. I still prefer casting my own though. I'm not sure in the smaller calibers, but in a .500, a hard cast bullet drops a deer like they got hit by a train.

daddywpb · « **Reply #22 on:** November 19, 2005, 01:21:26 AM »

I use the Cast Performance 300 grain LFNGC in my Ruger Bisley. Mine did not need a higher front sight. It shoots 300 grainers just fine with factory irons. I also use Hornady 300 grain XTP's. They shoot to the same POI as the CP's. It's nice to have a choice.