Hard Cast bullets driven 1400 fps or less do very well in all pistol loads. You can buy "hard cast" or cast them yourself from wheel weights. With the wheel weights, drop them directly into cool water to gain a few points on the hardness scale.
I have had a hard time with the "meplat" concept, whereas the flat portion at the front of the bullet governs the size of the wound channel in game animals. It finaly dawned on me that the explosiveness of quality expanding bullets is due to the rapid expanion of the forward portion of the bullet as it encounters the target material. After the initial expansion, the soft point bullet continues through the target with a flat or nearly flat frontal area. These bullets are constructed to expand at different rates to allow for adequate penetration.
A heavy, hard cast, wide meplat bullet does not expand and therefore carries the wound channel caused by the frontal area, as in the expanded bullet, into and through the target. Because of the lack of energy used for expansion, the hard cast bullets almost always exit the animal. This through and through charcteristic gives a large entry hole, a large exit hole, a good blood trail and minimal extraneous tissue damage.
If you can guarantee that the expansion of the expanding bullet will occur at the right place,ie. lethal area, then it is the better choice. If you cannot guarantee that every game animal will be standing in the proper attitude to allow proper expansion, then the hard cast bullet is the better choice because of its penetration advantage.
Marshall has used .357 hard cast bullets with .280 to .300 meplats for deer sized game with excellent results.
I have used over 4000 primers in .357, .41 Mag, .45 ACP and .44 Mag since December of 2001. Initialy I was very concerned about leading as 99% of my shooting is done with lead bullets.I now shoot 100-200 rounds through whichever gun, run a piece of a brass "ChoreGirl" pad through the barrel a few times and am ready to go again. Not a problem
I have had a hard time with the "meplat" concept, whereas the flat portion at the front of the bullet governs the size of the wound channel in game animals. It finaly dawned on me that the explosiveness of quality expanding bullets is due to the rapid expanion of the forward portion of the bullet as it encounters the target material. After the initial expansion, the soft point bullet continues through the target with a flat or nearly flat frontal area. These bullets are constructed to expand at different rates to allow for adequate penetration.
A heavy, hard cast, wide meplat bullet does not expand and therefore carries the wound channel caused by the frontal area, as in the expanded bullet, into and through the target. Because of the lack of energy used for expansion, the hard cast bullets almost always exit the animal. This through and through charcteristic gives a large entry hole, a large exit hole, a good blood trail and minimal extraneous tissue damage.
If you can guarantee that the expansion of the expanding bullet will occur at the right place,ie. lethal area, then it is the better choice. If you cannot guarantee that every game animal will be standing in the proper attitude to allow proper expansion, then the hard cast bullet is the better choice because of its penetration advantage.
Marshall has used .357 hard cast bullets with .280 to .300 meplats for deer sized game with excellent results.
I have used over 4000 primers in .357, .41 Mag, .45 ACP and .44 Mag since December of 2001. Initialy I was very concerned about leading as 99% of my shooting is done with lead bullets.I now shoot 100-200 rounds through whichever gun, run a piece of a brass "ChoreGirl" pad through the barrel a few times and am ready to go again. Not a problem
