Super HARD bullets

[Idaholewis]

I was downstairs earlier this afternoon digging through my bullets and came across 2 Ziplock bags of .50 Cal Lyman Plains bullets i had poured over a year ago, the little tag inside said ‘hard’ I vaguely remember pouring these bullets? And i sure don’t remember the Alloy? I ran upstairs and did a hardness test with my Cabin tree, the dial read .084 :shock: :shock: I thought NO WAY! I Ran down and grabbed 2 more of them to test, .084 and .085, These are some DARN HARD bullets!! That comes out to Lyman #2 Type hardness, which is 15 BHN :shock: I lubed 5 of them VERY well and sized them to 501.5, .502, I Greased 1 up, and Loaded my rifle with 85 Grains of Swiss 2F, a Hard Nitro Card, And proceeded to load my gun, she went down tight, GOOD N TIGHT

I have always said my Stainless 50 Cal 1:28 prefers a Hard bullet (Barrel i got from Dave Anderson, Cayugad) This is FAR FAR harder than anything I have ever tried in it, it’s likely these are WAY to hard? Gonna be an interesting test to see if this rifle will shoot these SUPER HARDS or not? I plan to shoot a group of these SUPER HARDS, and a Group of my Bullshop ‘Copy’ bullet from Certified 40:1 Alloy. Both bullets are proven performers in this rifle, Just not at 15 BHN :lol:

Here they are side by side, Bullshop left, SUPER HARD Lyman Plains on the Right.

 

[Idaholewis]

I figure i will try and dig my Fouler shot (Super Hard Lyman Plains) out of the Sand bank and see how it looks? My barrel was steam cleaned before i put it away last time, i NEVER trust the Cold clean bore shot after a thorough steam cleaning, I will stick the cold clean bore shot in a good spot to dig the bullet out, Then start my Groups :yeah:

 

[bp45cal]

If you have a sizer that is a little smaller it shouldn't be as hard to seat,cuss you don't want it to make it only half way home

 

[Idaholewis]

If you have a sizer that is a little smaller it shouldn't be as hard to seat,cuss you don't want it to make it only half way home

They actually loaded nice at .501.5 to .502, No problems at all getting them down :yeah:

 

[Idaholewis]

It was cold here this morning at daylight but i got my shootin in :yeah: The SUPER HARD Lyman Plains did way better than i thought they would, Targets were shot at 75 Yards, 4 Shot Groups

This is how i set up to shoot, Charges pre weighed in weight Grains on a Beam, I usually have 2 Rangerods, i clean with 1, and seat bullets with my solid brass Rod, Everything layed out and ready. Again, i try and make EVERY SINGLE shot the same as the one before it.

Lyman Plains Target 75 yards, SUPER HARD 15 BHN bullet

Lyman plains bullet collected from frozen sand bank, it shed 129 Grains, probably hit a rock and sheared off? Notice the base is PERFECTLY flat, unlike my 40:1, and pure Lead, they roll back around and make a HUGE Mushroom ball, i have recovered MANY of them from this same sand bank.

40:1 Alloy Bullshop Target, my 3rd shot in was a very slight hangfire? Probably from my Swabbing patch being wet instead of damp, i felt like i had it good n dry? I popped 1 cap straight thru and loaded, Hangfires are super rare in my rifles with my technique, but as they say, $hit happens!

 

[Idaholewis]

Round 2 with the SUPER HARDS, (Lyman Plains bullets at 15 Brinell Hardness) i got a brain storm this morning to hit these bullets with a stiffer powder charge, i went with 100 Weight Grains of Swiss 2F powder, 1/2 of a .510 Nitro Card, and a .54 Cal Wool wad on top of the Nitro, This load BELTS ya hard!! But i was really pleased with the accuracy, my cold clean bore shot was a little high and left, my 3 shot Group was a good true 1” at 75 yards, it was cold here this morning (24 degrees) and foggy, 75-80 yards was about max visibility in the little Sand pit, and even that was tough, i had to spend some time in my Peep sight studying the target before squeezing the shots off.

If i were gonna hunt Africa, this would be my load!!!

 

[Idaholewis]

I tried to recover 1 of these bullets to see how they performed with the 100 Grain powder Charge? No luck finding 1, the bank is soft sand, with just a light frozen crust surface, no telling where they ended up? But my bet is deeeeep, This bank is full of bullets, about everybody in this town and surrounding areas shoot here, i even built a sifting box and have collected lead scrap here before, i kinda gave up on messing with it tho, just a bunch of mixed up alloy. With my Muzzleloaders i want everything the same, 40:1 being my all around preference :yeah:

 

[Harleysboss]

Nice targets there. I just ordered some 40-1 alloy this morning. Hope to get out Wed. and try the 380 grainers that you sent me. They pan lubed great. Those real hard ones would really shine on Elk. That 100 grn load is probably approaching 50-90 sharps levels. No question if the gun went off! LOL :yeah:

 

[Idaholewis]

Nice targets there. I just ordered some 40-1 alloy this morning. Hope to get out Wed. and try the 380 grainers that you sent me. They pan lubed great. Those real hard ones would really shine on Elk. That 100 grn load is probably approaching 50-90 sharps levels. No question if the gun went off! LOL :yeah:

The amazing part is this rifle accurately shooting these bullets at this level of hardness, 15 Brinell is WAAAAAY up there! But I’ve always said that this Stainless barrel ABSOLUTELY requires a harder bullet in order to shoot well, This particular barrel is a Pie Plate shooter at BEST with pure soft lead, it has never shot pure lead worth a hoot? This is rock solid proof that Lead Hardness matters, and can be a HUGE factor depending on your particular barrel. I will say that this Stainless 50 GM LRH is the only barrel out of 15 or so that i own that is like this, my blued barrels are FAR FAR more forgiving, they will shoot either dead soft lead, or hardened, they are not finicky. In my opinion 40:1 Alloy is about as ideal for these Muzzleloaders with Conical bullets as it gets, All of my rifles including this Stainless 50 loves the stuff :yeah:

 

[Idaholewis]

Here is a good example of what my .50 Cal Stainless GM LRH barrel does with pure soft lead.

These are BACO .492 550s, They are pure lead, swaged cupped base PP bullets. I have tried both the 450s and 550s in this barrel and this is what i can expect, this 1:28 Twist barrel should really shoot these well? But fact is it don’t. The little Lyman Plains bullet above at 15 BHN ate these alive :yeah: I would love to try these BACO bullets with some hardness, say 30:1 or 40:1, i would place a large bet that they would shoot lights out good with hardness added

And here is the Target from the above bullets, pretty horribe at best!! It’s been awhile since i did this, but i can remember the 450s were a tiny bit better, but stil not good. These Stainless GM LRH barrels don’t like pure soft lead, at least mine doesn’t, nor Idahoron's