For deer you don't need anything more than Keith's original design for clean kills, BUT........ depending on where you live or hunt, you may have to take hard quartering angles, either to or away from you, to puncture the boiler room, and maybe break a shoulder joint on the way through before reaching the vitals. That's when a bit more weight comes in handy. We don't all have private land to hunt on and sometimes we have to take less than textbook ideal broadside shots if we want meat in the freezer for the winter. (Not unethical shots, but not ideal either)
For bigger animals, or those about the size of a big deer but much more stoutly built like bear and hogs, a heavier buller makes a lot of sense to ensure good penetration regardless of what bone or muscles are hit.
I think I understand what you're saying, but for clarity, you are NOT saying that Elmer's original load (250gr SWC @ ~1200fps) will NOT penetrate on quartering shots, right? Elmer had too many examples to count of his original, experimental 44 Spl. load w/ his design of 250gr SWC and either 2400 or even the old No.80 powder (which he abandoned only due to pressure issues, not due to lack of penetration), where the bullet completely penetrated through both shoulders. Granted, the bullets must be cast hard enough to accomplish this, but there's NO need for a bullet heavier than 250grs to do this, at least on deer-sized and construction-style game. There's just no need for anything heavier on hogs, deer, or other "small" big game. Go to Moose, caribou/elk, or big bears, and I'd want all the penetration I can get, and would "upgrade" from the Keith, but it's the really large animal that will stop a Keith, but let a WFN keep going through, not a deer.
And the cult of the hardcast was born. They always post reams of pic of dead animals, leading the naive to believe that the critters just dropped dead in their tracks. The cult always claims that penetration is of utmost importance.
Once the cult gets established on a forum, users of jacketed bullets are banished. All posters must praise the holy hard cast. Anyone who posts negative experiences with hard cast hole drillers is denigrated.
Personally, I thought the hard cast cult was inspired by bullet casters looking for a marketing edge. If you have an LBT WFN mould you can charge 2x more than standard jacketed - and guys will pay it.
Nowadays a 240gr bullet is considered insufficient - especially if it is a jacketed hollow point. Doesn't matter than guys are killing deer, bear and pigs with them consistently - the cult of the hard cast has deemed them inferior. And there is no arguing with them.
The cult has dictated that a 44 mag must be loaded with 300gr or better WFN hard cast or it shouldn't be used for anything beyond pigeons.
I agree and disagree. I'm a proud member of Cast Boolits forum and have been casting bullets for around 30 years, and there is what I perceive to be a playful anti-jacketed-bullet attitude over there, but occassionally, they even admit that jacketed has it's place and application.
Also, as far as cast bullet "cults" pushing the heavy bullets, I disagree there as well.
Who really started the heavy-bullet 44 project was J.D. Jones of SSK, who wanted a heavier hunting bullet. Now, he was taking wildcats ("Handcannons") to Africa and shooting BIG (I mean REALLY BIG) critters with them. He wanted to do the same with standard 44 Mag... So, since casting is cheaper and easier to do at home than swaging, and he wanted penetration, which generally comes just as well from hard-cast bullets as from FMJs, he just ordered up some moulds to fit his needs. This started heavy-weight cast bullets. This was in the mid- to late-70s and early 80s.
Then, silhouette shooting came along, and those fellas needed bullets with sufficient momentum that after the velocity had bled off, there's still be enough power to knock over the Rams waaaaayyy out there. The heavy bullets appealed to them for that purpose as well. Again, home casting was the route for expense as well as availability. This was really burgeoning in the 80s to early-90s and lead to the Endurance package on the S&W29 series.
Then, Sierra came out with their 300gr JSP, and several other jacketed bullet companies followed suit over the next few years.
When I started a small bullet-casting company, 300gr 44s weren't even in any other bullet-casting company's catalogs, except for maybe one or two. I looked into offering them, because this is when a lot of articles were getting published about heavy bullets in the 44 (heavy meaning right at 300grs), but there wasn't a demand around here. I never offered them. The heaviest bullet I offered in 44 was 240grs... The bullet casting companies never drove this demand. All bullet casting companies, including the biggest (Bull-X and National Bullet Co., back in the 90s) didn't have the cash to push a market in a certain direction. We always reacted to where the demand was.
As far as there being a "cult of the cast-boolit," I can see where you'd feel that way, and I agree with you that it is silly. Personally, I really liked Robert Milek's writings on this subject. He very clearly pointed out that there is a use/purpose for both bullet styles, and tested them to compare and contrast where they were good and where they were weak.
I really like cast bullets, but I do not shun jacketed. They have their place. I really like cast bullets, because I can be really self-sufficient and cheap. I can make soft HP cast bullets at a fraction of the cost of purchased jacketed, but they're not the greatest choice for a high-velocity or semi-auto HP bullet, because they're soft enough to either lead the bore, or get deformed on (and often jam on) a feed ramp. But for a 38spl. or 44spl. velocity-level revolver load, my cast HPs will work better than the jacketed (whose jacket is sometimes too heavy to allow expansion at those low velocities).
