Bullet weight

I might not be the best guy to answer this based on my experience with big guns but here it goes. I hate getting beaten to death but I tend to shoot heavy bullets for caliber, MOST of the time. I all but refuse to draw and shoot my M107 rifles because I hate the blast, recoil, and fact that these is a non-existent need for the gun. The future is the .338 Lapua. That puts me in a Catch 22 because you are trying to get a lighter gun with same range but you get a faster, punchier recoil that is just as uncomfortable as the blast and slower recoil of the .50BMG. The gun that works best as far as manageable weight, recoil, and adequate performance is the .300 Win Mag with 190gn bullets.

I worked for a large gun shop and range for years. We sold a lot of rifles to elk hunters and guys going to Africa (we had a partner who ran a large hunting operation in Namibia but lots of guys were going to South Africa also and a few of the well to do were going to Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana). Despite what we told them over and over again I would say the most popular rifles for plains game and elk were the .300 WIN/WSM/WBY/RUM and .338 WIN/RUM. We also sold a few .375 H&H/RUM and a couple of Merkel .470 NE every year. Anytime we sold complete rifles we put them together and sighted them in gratis (they only incurred the cost of ammo). Most double rifles are so tight when new they would be dangerous to hunt with because you could not reload them quickly if you needed to so we also shot them until they loosened up if the owner did not wish to; myself and another guy would shoot two rounds per day through them until they loosened up. All in all I shot between 100 and 200 rifles a year due to sight in services. Discounting gun design (like pump, lever, auto with lots of stock drop or bolts with butt plate not pad) there isn't much of anything under .30-06 that is uncomfortable (sort of like a .40 SML or .45 SML with 250BE). The 7mm and 300 Magnums are not bad until you get into full-length Holland cases or RUM cases and heavy bullets (like .45 SML with 327MH). The most vicious guns in the world in regard to raw recoil energy and velocity are full-length magnums from .338 to .416; nothing is more uncomfortable than a standard weight .338RUM/.340Wby or .375RUM/WBY and the .416WBY is just not ok, period. There are no light weight loads in those guns for good reason since you are smashing large mammals or destroying material. Once you get up to the big bores like the .458 Win to .470 NE the recoil velocity slows, in general, and while the recoil is heavy it is more like a healthy shove than the Mike Tyson sucker punch of the fast medium-bores. The .458 Lott and .460 WBY get you right back into fast and violent while pushing a 500gn bullet.

Apply that to the SML and I think we shed some light on bullet choice. There is no reason for the 500gn bullet in a .45 SML because these are for deer or paper not 600# to 1 ton game. Also, unless you seek the opportunity and shape the situation there is a very slim chance that you will need to shoot past 300yds. While you will have more drop and drift with bullets like 275gn MH, 300gn MH, 195gn BX, etc they get the job done for 99% of shooting and allow for very manageable recoiil from standard weight guns in .50, .45, and various .40s. Now, if you are a guy who wants to see how far you can hit steel or paper or feels the need to shoot at animals as far as you can possibly arrange then you need different bullets which puts me back in a Catch 22.

Most guys want as high a BC as possible but don't want to shoot a heavy bullet. There is no free lunch. With a light bullet in the .45 SML you have some constraints on bullet design and it is something I struggled with when I started this bullet making venture. You cannot make a high BC, lightweight bullet for the .45 SML. You can make pointy bullets that look good but they won't have high BC (ie BE) however are very stable. You can also make a very pointy bullet with better BC (275 MH or my 300gn bullet) that is probably borderline for stability but may work fine. These low drag designs like the 275MH or my 300gn don't have, in my opinion, enough bullet shank to insure good balance between center of mass and center of pressure much less a good chance to size and load really straight. I'm not saying they can't shoot well but they are not ideal and I don't like them. I think the best bet in the .45 is going to be something like the 327MH, 335APB, and hopefully my 340BOMB. All of those should be a good balance of blast/recoil (cost) to performance (benefit) and have adequate mass to make for a well designed and balanced bullet. The 412gn and 450gn BOMB are very much experimental for guys like Josh who apparently doesn't mind taking a beating in the pursuit of long range perfection. His guns are also long and heavy BR type setups, designed for shooting from a fixed position with a sled, and all wear breaks. If you can handle pushing them to 2300-2400fps then you will (hopefully) see some (great) increase in long range performance but only time will tell.

The long and short of it is there are lots of good hunting bullets for the short game than nearly everyone shoots. I almost didn't even offer a 300gn bullet, and won't if it fails to perform, because there are plenty of alternatives. What there aren't a lot of is the mid weights 330-400gn bullets for LR work since most bullets are lighter for things like the 458 SOCOM or 400-500gn bullets that are heavy construction RN/FN or monos of the same profile designed for driving stem to stern on large and dangerous animals. What I'm after is a niche market of shooters who already own a heavy .45SML and want to shoot long with good performance but don't want to build a .416 or .375 (remember what I said about the most vicious guns in the world). I'll never get rich doing it but I think these bullets will be the answer for that pursuit.

Any new bullets we can shoot in our guns will be a plus.

The more choices we have the better, while most like the lighter pills there are some of us fools that like the heavy stuff.

Keep that press rolling Keith!

Those Plains Master bullets look good in the .458. If you get some is like to hear how they shoot since I apply for some hunts that require non-toxic bullets.