Learn To Reload - Choosing Bullets

Everything rides on the bullet – the success of a hunt, a tight cluster in the bull’s-eye of a target or the clang of a steel plate at long distance. Before a bullet is sent on its flight to meet those expectations, a handloader must ensure it’s correct for the job and handloaded properly so it can perform its intended job.

- John Haviland

Bullet Types

To obtain the best performance from a bullet, handloaders must consider its composition, shape, weight, caliber and structure.

Lead has been the principal metal of bullets since the beginning of firearms due to its high density and relatively low cost. Bullets made of plain lead remain an economical choice for low-velocity handgun loads. These swaged-lead bullets are coated with lubricant to reduce lead fouling. But at velocities much above 750 fps, streaks of lead accumulate in a handgun’s forcing cone and bore, and removing it requires a considerable amount of scrubbing with a brush.

Swaged-lead bullets and cast bullets are not the same. Bullets could be cast out of plain molten lead. However, lead flows poorly and produces incompletely formed bullets, and they would have the same soft Brinell Hardness Number (BHN) of 5 as swaged-lead bullets. Correctly cast bullets made with lead alloyed with tin increase the flow of the molten lead alloy to produce fully formed bullets, and antimony is used to increase bullet hardness.

Companies that describe their bullets as “hard cast” could be referring to anything cast of lead alloy. It’s better to look for the BHN of bullets. Missouri Bullet Company’s cast lead rifle and Action Series handgun bullets have a BHN of 18 while its Cowboy Series bullets have a BHN of 12.

Plain base bullets with a BHN of about 12 can be fired up to around 1,300 fps with good accuracy and little to no leading. One evening this past spring I shot a hundred .30-30 Winchester cartridges through a Winchester Model 94. The cartridges were loaded with 150-grain plainbase bullets cast of lead alloy with a BHN of 13 and a muzzle velocity of 1,250 fps. The few streaks of lead clinging here and there on the rifling lands were easily brushed out.