Do you make a 416 mold in 300 gr. weight?

[LFaler]

Looking for a wide meplat hunting bullet to shoot out of an encore pistol.

[Veral]

The WFN is my widest meplat bullet and in 41 or 416 caliber, I make them down to 200 gr.  Understand that I'll cut any weight or diameter bullet a customer asks for, from 22 up to 12 guage, but have listed in my catalog the most popular.

   For your Encore a  crimp groove isn't required.  -  You didn't mention the cartridge your gun is chambered for, but in asking for a 300 gr .416 bullet I assume you have a rifle cartridge, and if so, and if you intend to shoot at velocities over 1600 fps, for hunting purposes, I'd reccomend the LFN profile so it doesn't exceed the optimum displacement velocity as outlined in my book.  (Wounding/killing potential.)  If the gun is a 41 magnum, a 300 gr WFN would be a real good choice if driven at full power, which would probably be around 1700-1800 fps  from the longer barrels.  At any rate, best performance with breakopen guns in my experiance is obtained by seating bullets so they are pressed tightly against the rifling when the action closes.  This improves ignition dramatically if the cartridge is capable of moving upon firing pin impact.  If bullets are pulled when live rounds are extracted adjust seating depth a until bullets don't contact the rifing so hard.

  If you email with any inquires I'll give more specific and personal answers and recomendations on bullet weight etc.

[LFaler]

Thanks Veral.  The cartridge I am shooting is a 416 gnr cartridge (necked down 50 alaskan or necked up 348 whichever you prefer) out of a 14 inch OAL barrel (12 inches rifled plus break).  I have been shooting jacketed 350 mag tips , but wanted to switch to an LBT style cast bullet at a little bit lighter weight to get a little more velocity.  

Thanks,

Lance

[Veral]

I hope it doesn't hurt your feelings any, but bullet cost will drop to the floor with lead, compared to jacketed, and velocity with similar weights will go up at least 100-200 fps, due to lower friction,  IF YOU USE LBT BULLET LUBRICANT.  Some so called cast bullet lubes create as much friction as jacketed, and leading if the gas check shank is too small to hold all the lead scrapings.

  With a gas check LBT bullet and lube you'll get some pretty snappy velocities, AND recoil!

[HHI 812]

Veral,
Would it be better to fill the throat with a heavier bullet, and slower velocity, or go with a lighter bullet, for more velocity and longer jump to rifling? I also have a single shot pistol like LFaler, and a bottleneck case. In your DV formula, bullet weight is not in the equation? Is there a way of figuring a good bullet weight for a particular caliber/cartridge? Just an exaggeration, but an example would be a .50 cal WFN  in 200 grain bullet? Would be like a flat disk. Just wondering if there is a minimum weight for a caliber/cartridge and on the other end say a 800 grainer in a .500" for say a 500 S&W? I've been playing with the numbers of your DV formula and seems like 125 is the ideal target, or was that the upper max?

[Veral]

  Penetration of solid flatnose bullets which do not expand is so efficient that weight can for most practical purposes be selected by what the user wants.  Ideally stay within the normal weights for the cartridge and you'll do fine.  Going extreme with weight isn't smart, the two examples you gave being excellent extremes to illustrate the point.

  I developed a penetration formula at the same time as the DV formula, but found it to be pretty much irrelevant for non expanding bullets across the handgun calibers with normal bullet weights.  Maybe standard bullet weights is a better word.  i.e. 158 for 357,  240 for 44 etc, or heavier.  Don't go heavier than can be pushed up to ideal DV, with is as you have stated  125.  Max is 135,  maybe 140.   100 is deadly as lightening if the bullets are placed with reasonable precision, while 80 is the same if placed through the heart and or major arteries close to it.  Under that and critters quite often think they aren't hit for long enough that they can run  far enough that a poor tracker can lose them.