Best BHN for hunting handgun?

[Dusty Miller]

I've been told that a BHN of 15 is about perfect for a handgun hunting round.  Does anybody here have enough experience to speak authoritatively on this matter.

[Lloyd Smale]

Anything from 9-20 will work fine my favorite alloy for hunting bullets is 5050 ww/lyno and it tests about 16-17 but in all reality its harder then needed for thin skinned and light boned game. I use it more for the accuracy i get out of it then the hardness.

[LAH]

Dusty let me say up front, I'm not an expert or do I play one on TV.

We sold thousands of bullets while operating Dry Creek Bullet Works. While we weren't Beartooth or Cast Performance there was a fair amount of game killed with our bullets ranging from deer to American Bison. We had no bullet failures brought to our attention.

Our standard bullet tested 15 BHN. IMHO this is harder than needed for what I consider idea sixgun velocities of 1200 fps. At this speed I mostly use straight wheelweights or 1-20. These test 9 and 10 BHN and work great.

Above this speed for rifles at 1600-1800 fps I like 15 BHN. It is soft enough not to shatter. It's ok for a cast bullet to deform somewhat but it should stay together and drive straight. The harder alloy at speeds above this are just to brittle IMO.

A call came this week from a former customer who had bullet failure across the water using a 22 BHN bullet. Not once but twice this happened on diferent animals using a direct shoulder shot with the PH calling each shot. Velocity was 1850 or so.

In a word, 15 BHN is plenty hard for anything I'll do with a sixgun.

God Bless
Creeker

[Lloyd Smale]

take what creeker says to the bank he knows what hes talking about

[LAH]

Feel the need to add to my above post. I mentioned Beartooth and Cast Performance. The context in which I use them is this:

No.1 Dry Creek was no where near the size of either.

No.2 Their bullets have killed more game than ours ever will.

In the above post I used their names simply to put Dry Creek Bullet Works in context size wise and in production numbers, not to be critical of their products. Both Kelly and Marshall are fine gentlemen.

Enuf said...........Lynn