450Bushmaster.net

suzispapa wrote:Thanks for the response rb. Good info, just what I was looking for. Did ya seat these up to the cannelure? Man, I love this site!!

Actually, they were seated just short of the cannelure, with a slightly more than lite crimp with the Lee factory crimp die.

I don't have the facilities, but, I sure would love to see someone due some gel testing on these bullets.
I know that they will hit hard, 2400 to 2500 fps, and I suspect they will expand like crazy.

MOOSE EARS wrote:225gr FTX are tack drivers. But they don't perform well on game. They are thin jacketed pistol bullets. I love them for general purpose shooting. I probably have a K of them. These copper HP bullets are serious hunting bullets. I will probably use them for muzzleloading. I'm sold on the Barnes 275gr bullets for 450BM hunting loads. They are the most accurate bullets I have found to date.

My sentiment exactly Moose Ears. The 250FTX is super accurate but not the bullet I want to use when hunting whitetail. Yes, they do kill a deer but when I get a shot at a buck, I want something that will do the job quickly, leave a good blood trail, and not fragment upon impact. I shot 2 deer with the 250FTX. I did recover both deer but there was no pass through on 1 deer, there was no blood trail on other deer even though there was an exit hole, which was same size as entrance hole.. 1st deer's heart was mush and deer still traveled over 120 yards. Had to use my dog to find that deer.
After grid search did find the other deer. When I butchered that deer, found that bullet had shed cooper jacket and found numerous lead fragments through out deer.
That's when I decided to switch the solid copper bullets. Very pleased with their performance. Good expansion, amazing exit wound and blood trail.

Hmm. I may have to check those out.

Thom28 wrote:. 1st deer's heart was mush and deer still traveled over 120 yards. Had to use my dog to find that deer.

i'm going to qualify this out front that i have NOTHING against engineered solid copper bullets.

but your experience here had nothing to do with the bullets performance. you could have put the same shot into a deer with *ANY* bullet - copper included - and gotten the same experience. and then you'd hate copper bullets too.

people think deer are wimpy animals - they're not. they're tougher than most hunters give them credit for. way tougher.

i had a similar experience years ago - with my 30-06. shot a standing buck, broadside - right thru the 10 ring. 180gr RN core-lokt. those things hit like a sledgehammer - especially at 65 yds. probably mid 2500 to low 2600 fps impact velocity and damn close to 2700-2800 ft/lbs of impact energy. i watched the deer crumple. *bang* *flop* type of thing. just like the last 3-4 deer i had heart shot with that same load. so i set my gun down, lit a smoke and poured a cup of coffee.

finished my smoke - got up to go gut my prize - wtf? where the hell is my deer? turns out while i had my head turned focusing on that smoke and coffee he hopped up and ran off.

we tracked that deer >300 yds with only bb sized drops of blood every 15 yds or so. found him with his antlers wrapped around a small sapling (3" trunk ish) laying in a bloody mudpuddle.

damn deer had the top 1/3 of his heart missing, the arteries were just hanging there attached too nothing. perfect entrance and exit. bled almost completely internal until he fell over and it all leaked out.


my point is - depending on the animal sometimes pure adrenaline takes over. and then they dont even act like they're hit. and can do some damn amazing things when that occures.

so unless you get a perfect CNS hit (Spine/brain) there's no guarantee that *ANY* bullet in the vitals area is going to be a DRT performance, or guarantee a blood trail thats easily trackable . sometimes mother nature doesnt care what paper statistics say, or gelatin tests show.

I’m going to back up what Plant One just said. I shot a little spike at about 40 yards as he walked almost right up to my stand. Had I not shot he would have walked right under me. I hit him square between the shoulders and the bullet exited his right hindquarter. His heart was gone and the chest cavity was all jello. I was using my 30-06 Browning A Bolt with a custom load 150 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip. On the shot, This little skimpy buck spun and ran through thick cover up a hill over 80 yards before piling up. I heard him crash. I didn’t see him crash. I just followed my ears and guesstimated his final resting place. The blood trail was iffy, and I had more confidence in my ears than my eyes and that blood trail. Had I hit his vertebrae, he would have plopped right there. CNS is the key. It’s your job as the shooter to understand the anatomy of the critter you’re hunting and to deliver the bullet path to suit your desires.

I bought these awhile ago. Tried to reload some ammo, I have reloaded rifle ammo for 50 years. I am reloading for an ar15. The problem I have experienced is bullet movement when chambering a round. New Lee dies with fcd. Also tried hornady taper crimp. Then a modified Lee fcd. Any help? Thanks

CAW wrote:I bought these awhile ago. Tried to reload some ammo, I have reloaded rifle ammo for 50 years. I am reloading for an ar15. The problem I have experienced is bullet movement when chambering a round. New Lee dies with fcd. Also tried hornady taper crimp. Then a modified Lee fcd. Any help? Thanks

Welcome Aboard CAW!

All I have ever loaded for is the original AR 450b platform. You can increase the case's hold on the bullet by seating it just deep enough that the majority of the cannelyre is below the case mouth, with just a little of it peeking out. Then you crimp down into the cannelure to yield an OD at the mouth of .474.

Here's a crude visual of what I mean:



Hoot

Thanks Hoot, I will give it a try.

After all the problems. I kept digging on this site and finally found that Lee precision had a problem with 450bm dies. I contacted them yesterday heard back today. Service area is sending me a new sizing die body. They told me that the dimensions were changed from their first production dies. No arguing, stepped up and going to fix it. I hope this helps. Thanks to everyone who contributes to this site. My father told me along time ago, learn from everyone's mistakes because you can't live long enough to make them all yourself. I would still be looking for a solution without this forum and all of the knowledge here.