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Lots of research has been done on this, and grass can ignite in a few seconds at ~900°F, meaning, you don't need a spark.
As you can see, I made the same claims to the USFS as you did above, but learned something myself.
You beat me to it. I was going to post the same reference.
In the study the only copper jacketed lead bullet to start a fire was a Nosler Partition. Standard cup and core lead bullets are not much of a fire danger. The shock of the metal going from 3000-2500 fps to a complete stop when impacting a rock or steel plate turns a solid into super heated molten slag. The reason that copper solids are the worst is because the ductile nature of copper and its higher melting point. When copper transitions from a solid to molten slag it first has a higher temperature than the lead and the copper solids throw of bigger chunks of heated slag. The cup and core lead bullets splatter into smaller pieces and the pieces of a shattered lead bullet are smaller and cooler than a copper solid. The small pieces of the copper jacket that splatter off a cup and core bullet impact are so small they cool off faster than the copper clumps that come off a solid or a partition. Also keep in mind that the tougher thicker copper jackets on some bullets are not what I would consider a standard cup and core bullet. I would expect a premium thicker copper jacketed bullet to be an equal fire danger as a Partition.
Very good point 73driver; reminds me that when we first moved into our CO place Ms LRNut sent back her kettle to boil water because it would not shut off when she hit "start" and "212." The second one did the same thing, and then I said, "Look, you have a master's in Chem E - you should have realized both kettles were working fine - the problem is they never reach 212 degrees before they boil because we are at 8750 feet!"
Exactly!
Just don't shoot APITs!
Yes. We have seen this during night time live fire training with M193 ammo.
