.22 or 9 mm P for Culling

[A-R]

158 gr should make a lot of sense. Will have that in my planning. Thanks.

I have never casted bullets myself, do anyone have experience with max weight that can be casted in 9mm?

What can be cast is one thing, I have moulds that throw up to 220gn bullets for .357 caliber. .357 Revolver bullets can readily be sized down to fit a 9mm (.355") barrel. What can safely be loaded is another matter.

The max weight will actually be determined by the bullet and barrel's physical dimensions. Pistols with longer throats (freebore) will be able to accommodate bullets that have the forward edge of the bearing surface seated further out. The catch is, firstly, the typically short nose (ogive) section of the bullets, and secondly, the resulting longer bearing surfaces which tend to protrude very deep into the case, encroaching on the powder space and, more seriously, causing the cases to bulge where the bullet base goes into the part where the case walls start to thicken significantly.

I have managed to shoot 155 gn RNL bullets (from Lee TL150 mould) from a PCC, but I had to let the 'smith cut the freebore 2mm longer to take them. COL is at 29mm.

With 180gn bullets, you may just get stability issues with the typical 1:16 rifling at low velocity. I can also not see where the bullet is going to be seated without being pushed deep into the case taper and getting swaged down to remove the resultant case bulge. Such swaging down reduces the effective bearing surface, which may also contribute to stripping and tumbling.

Also keep in mind the effect of drastically reducing the powder space. This will not accommodate the slower powders needed to keep peak pressure in check. Faster powders may fit, but push up peak pressures even further, which is not good with cast bullets. We are really moving towards the outside of the envelope for safe operation in the 9mm cartridge.

[CorditeCrazy]

I have zero experience with this but will add what I have read; Brian Marsh wrote in his book that he preferred a silenced 22 Hornet for culling (they shot game for an abattoir at a time). He said they could shoot 5-10 antelope before the herd got restless and moved off. He said shot placement was behind the shoulder, the report didn’t spook the game and the target would grunt as if bitten by a horse fly. Then move about, lie down and die a few minutes later. Meat damage was close to zero

[Burner825]

Not nice having the animal die slowly.

[CorditeCrazy]

He said the animals showed no distress. But hay it’s from a time when men were men and women were glad for it. 🤷🏻*♂️

[treeman]

He said the animals showed no distress. But hay it’s from a time when men were men and women were glad for it. 路*♂️

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I can vouch for this as well, some animals shot at below supersonic speeds have often got a fright and then went and stood some where and then lay down and then died - all calmly with out any escape or panic. Like they just suddenly got reeeeal sleepy and then did just that, sleep.

Between the ribs, double lung shots.

Still do not like things to "die", they should be dead in 123>>> done.

[Burner825]

Agreed treeman. I hunt and advocate for it. Just like I don't want to die slowly, neither should an animal.

Sucks when it happens.

[treeman]

Agreed treeman. I hunt and advocate for it. Just like I don't want to die slowly, neither should an animal.

Sucks when it happens.

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Sucks when I do not see it dead there in front of me. Got a call from the lighties I take hunting, all on their 2nd - 3rd and 6th kinda hunts, they just shot the biggest Waterbuck they have ever seen. "Uncle Dave it ran off, we cant find blood, what do we do?"

Turns out they got hold of a .243 somewhere, went hunting and shot the W/Buck full frontal with some bullet?

Going to see the parents saturday night.

[Burner825]

*********************Sucks when I do not see it dead there in front of me. Got a call from the lighties I take hunting, all on their 2nd - 3rd and 6th kinda hunts, they just shot the biggest Waterbuck they have ever seen. "Uncle Dave it ran off, we cant find blood, what do we do?"Turns out they got hold of a .243 somewhere, went hunting and shot the W/Buck full frontal with some bullet?Going to see the parents saturday night.

Shit one. Good luck.

[Adoons]

Especially for culling at night I don't like the "not dead immediately" shots. Side on brain shots is the preferred shot for me. The skull is relatively soft from the side and the bullet will penetrate both brain lobes. Bullet deflection with the slow bullets I have never seen with side on brain shots. With frontal shots it can happen. On frontal shots, at night, through a scope it is also difficult to judge the angle of the head. Are they standing head down or head up. When the chin is lifted a bit, especially on rams, the chance of missing the brain or a bullet running underneath the skin over the skull gets more likely. Rams only get shot side on.

I will never advocate it as the correct thing to do because it is not and was discussed a lot over the years and we all know it is not right, but when I was a youngster and the world were a different place and Bambi had not seen the light of day, I hunted with an uncle I knew. In those days the .303 was only for the Blue Wildebeest and Buffalo. The rest were shot with the "saloon" (.22) He had a silencer on the .22 (homemade with a 1 3/4 inch water pipe and washers welded inside. It was really ugly but really effective). I can recall 2 times when we came upon ram herds in the thickets, crawled to damn close and he shot to the heart. They just milled around with the shot one also milling together with the rest until he dropped dead. During this time on one occasion, 2 others were taken and the other time another 1.

[A-R]

Having animals die slowly and being able to move a few meters from where it was shot may be acceptable on the wide open plains of the central parts of SA. Where I mostly hunt in the Bushveld, an animal could vanish in 2 steps, due to the thickets that we have everywhere. They all know that they have to make a dash into a thicket if hit. This makes a slowly-dying animal a lost animal if there is not a clear blood trail or other means of tracking it. I suspect many coastal areas, KZN and Eastern Cape have very similar conditions. These conditions warrant special consideration when shooting animals with low-powered (subsonic) guns.

Way back when I was pondering these questions, my solution was a suppressed bolt-action rifle in 44 Mag. Since only lever action rifles with 1:38" twist barrels were available at the time, I had to go the custom built route. (More options are available now in factory rifles.) The rifle was built on a Lee Enfield no 4 action and fitted with a Lothar Walther .429" barrel with 1:20" twist. This barrel stabilizes cast lead bullets up to 350 gn, but my chosen load uses a 320gn flat-nosed cast PC bullet at around 1000 fps. It gives enough penetration to exit on most head shots, including cattle, and the hole size is significantly larger than with a .22 or 9mm. Shot placement is still critical, as there is virtually no tissue damage around the wound channel. As someone once said, you can eat right up to the bullet hole. Body shots are not very effective, if bone is not hit.

I have been considering newer subsonic options like the 300BLK, 350 Legend and similar for a while. The 300 BLK has been around for a while and is not too effective in subsonic format in putting game down on the spot. Shot placement is ultra critical. The wound channel is simply too small. I see one manufacturer has designed an expanding bullet that should work at SS velocities. This may help a lot to increase it's deadliness.

In the meantime, my choice is still something with a caliber starting with a 4 or more. There are various options in the .458 caliber with Treeman's 458-2" being a very good choice IMHO.