My thoughts on solid copper bullets and in comparison to other bullet types.

[ButterBean]

I like i

Not a big game bullet but a Berger 55 gr Match Target at 583 yards. Some gave me a lot of grief when I posted about using that bullet for chucks. I worked just fine. View attachment 379228

I like it myself

 

[xsn10s]

I like i

I like it myself

The only bullet left that would shoot sub moa out of that burned out barrel.

 

[Muddyboots]

So here are my thoughts on bullet comparisons. No test can duplicate real world scenarios. Velocity, animal mass, bone density, angles of shots, animal behavior, animal condition, animal sex, animal sexual behavior (e.g. rut), weather conditions, altitude ad nauseam. A buck shot placidly eating may be DRT, same buck in full blown rut eyes glazed chasing doe may go 200-300 yards with same kill shot. I don't want to hear its the bullet. The animal contribution is SIGNIFICANT to the end result. We can AGREE to DISAGREE on this premise.

All hunting bullets will kill, "efficiency" of the kill is somewhat dependent upon bullet construction but is also influenced immensely by the above factors.

I, along with gazillion other hunters, have killed a gazillion animals with CoreLoks, Interloks, Partitions, Accubonds, Hot Cors, Grand Slams.
I started adding monos into my loads and have found they kill as well. Duh.

Every bullet has limitations. PERIOD. I have found that monos like Barnes, Hammers and Cutting Edge all shoot extremely well primarily due to much better consistency bullet to bullet IMO. Velocities will differ from bullet to bullet on common weights which is no different with CnC bullets. All bullets have a velocity minimal threshold published by the manufacturer. A responsible loader and hunter will know it and shoot accordingly.

It is our responsibility to select a bullet that is appropriate for the game we are hunting in their environmental scenario.

I will bet most on LRH has sufficient loading and hunting experience under many different scenarios to select a bullet appropriate for their hunt. I know what I like in a bullet and I know what bullet performance I may need for the animal I am hunting. I err on the conservative side to select a bullet because I prefer to be prepared for any possible condition and have the bullet that will perform in the manner I expect.

I don't need to see somebody's gel test. Do you really think bullet manufacturer's haven't tested the living out of the bullet they are selling? How many tons of gel has been blasted? How many hunts do you think their bullet was tested on prior to release? Are we that arrogant to believe a our backyard testing is better?

MNF: C'mon man!

 

[xsn10s]

The consistency from bullet to bullet will depend on the machinery and the operator. It won't matter if they are ran on swiss, cnc, or 120 year old presses. The reason being is when cnc or swiss machines run they'll need attention to change offsets as the tooling wears or even when the temperature changes throughout the day. Computers are theoretically more accurate, but they cannot always tell if they are putting out a good product. So it will always depend on the quality control of the operator. As far as testing on animals that won't be the end all be all either. But it's a good indicator on terminal performance. Some animals just have a greater will to live. But if harvested and the guy behind the knife is knowledgeable we can get a good idea on terminal trauma. It's a blend of art and science. I'm glad we have a lot of choices.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

The consistency from bullet to bullet will depend on the machinery and the operator. It won't matter if they are ran on swiss, cnc, or 120 year old presses. The reason being is when cnc or swiss machines run they'll need attention to change offsets as the tooling wears or even when the temperature changes throughout the day. Computers are theoretically more accurate, but they cannot always tell if they are putting out a good product. So it will always depend on the quality control of the operator. As far as testing on animals that won't be the end all be all either. But it's a good indicator on terminal performance. Some animals just have a greater will to live. But if harvested and the guy behind the knife is knowledgeable we can get a good idea on terminal trauma. It's a blend of art and science. I'm glad we have a lot of choices.

There is no substitute for animal testing! I want to make a bumper sticker to that effect. I think we can all agree with that. Lol

 

[xsn10s]

If the animal gets away there is no data. So you can't tell if the shot was poor or the bullet failed.

 

[xsn10s]

I test on animals prior to hunting. But it's only one of several tests I do.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Why are you so sure of all of this? Good grief…

Because much of what you say is simply wrong. Much of what you say is correct. Non of what you say seems to come from your personal experience. I would have much more respect for your input if I could tell you actually do this stuff. The longer you go on the less sure I am that you do.

Good grief...

 

[xsn10s]

I'll make a suggestion for what it's worth. Rather than making personal attacks on character or experience limit the discussion to specific issues. For instance if someone has an issues with terminal performance and their interpretation of that performance then stick to that.

 

[nralifer]

Here's how I see it, and I realize this will likely offend a few people, and that is 100% not my intent, so I’m sorry in advance. I'm only sharing my continued thoughts, on my own post by the way, regarding the subject.

My personal philosophy, experience, and preferences do not agree that the nose coming off (petals shedding completely) and leaving just the shank produces better performance than a properly selected mushrooming lead core bullet.

I understand many believe that a caliber size flat and squared-off surface produces more displacement than a more rounded surface. I mean, I can get the idea and thought process that a perpendicular surface will displace fluids out more than a rounded surface.

For example, you can flip over a bucket and pour water onto it and watch that water splatter outward everywhere, right? Now pour water over a basketball from the same height and intensity and watch a lot of the water cling to the ball and run over it. There’s a difference, right?

The problem with that though is that's not how it works ballistically. You're not throwing the animal at the bullet. The bullet has to travel through the animal, and is not supported when doing so, like the bucket and basketball are by the ground in my example.

A copper bullet that loses its petals and is left with only a caliber size shank with a flat frontal area is going to typically experience tumbling as the rear of the bullet tries to overtake the front. That's basic physics. The center of pressure will immediately move closer to the center of gravity. The Nosler Partition can behave similarly too when the ogive section meets more resistance than it can handle and only the base of the bullet remains.

A mushrooming bullet has the surface area up front to resist the rear of the bullet coming around and causing tumbling, as well as a better profile for continuing on a straight path (not that it always will). That increased surface area also displaces more tissues as well even though it's more rounded. With a sufficient amount of starting sectional density, there will be plenty of mass still to keep the momentum moving forward and allow for adequate penetration as it produces wounding. An insufficient amount of starting sectional density would result in not enough penetration with the softer/frangible style bullets. That's the main culprit when you see certain lead core bullets fail to penetrate deep enough and over-expand. This is what I mean by properly selecting the right lead core bullet for your particular hunt. Knowing how bullets are constructed and behave helps you to pick the right version and weight for success.

Many hunters don't understand the limitations with lead core bullets and how to increase performance and properly balance expansion versus penetration with them. They don't understand how the different types of construction/composition of them produce, or result in, different limitations and that selecting a heavier or lighter version changes the sectional density and how it behaves upon impact.

Many hunters have simply concluded that you can't get reliability with lead core bullets because so far they haven't, and many others that they talk to, that also don't understand those things, haven't either.

Several bullet manufacturers, perhaps those such as Cutting Edge and Hammer, took that and decided to make their own bullets, and ultimately went with copper to create a bullet that stays together and doesn't over-expand and result in shallow penetration and poor performance (or so their logic tells him).

Like has been shared, evidently what was found and decided, through whatever type of testing, was that the typical copper hunting bullet barely deforms and expands below around 2200fps (some below that), and they in turn don't create much wounding, particularly wide wounding, and thus they kill much slower. This I agree with.

So some manufacturers, such a CE and Hammer, decided to make their bullets hard and brittle (perhaps some more than others) so that the petals would simply break off and that you'd at least have a caliber size surface to create tissue displacement.

Sure, in theory that's better than the minimal expansion you see with other copper bullets that don't even expand to caliber diameter under certain impact velocities, but in my humble and experienced opinion it's not better than a well-constructed lead core bullet, properly selected for the task, and properly placed, and within it's particular limits (sounds like a lot to get right, but it's actually not hard to do).

They think they've made a bullet that's “in a class of its own” and performs superior to anything else, but it just doesn't (again, not in my opinion). It relies almost completely on rapid displacement of tissue and fluid, and that itself is dependent upon adequate velocity versus surface area of the projectile. There's not a lot of surface area with that type of bullet and performance, so velocity needs to be high in order to actually produce adequate tissue and fluid displacement.

While petals may or may not still shed down to 1800fps, or lower, that's still not a lot of velocity left for a good deal of tissue and fluid displacement. Now you're left with the requirement of needing to be more dependent upon great shot placement in that scenario, not actual terminal performance of the bullet. It becomes less forgiving to shot placement errors.

Pretty good discussion about bullets expanding. One has to consider the alloys the lead an copper bullets are made of, and how the bullet’s hollow point cavity is engineered. Thin jacketed bullets with a softer lead alloy will not withstand as well the impact forces as will a bullet with a harder lead alloy, so a “soft” bullet will tend to over expand sooner and not penetrate and at a high impact velocity (IV) will splatter and penetrate poorly if at all. The Nosler accubond has a progressive thickening jacket towards the boat tail which limits the ultimate expansion that occurs at the front of the bullet. Also the lead core bonding to the jacket Helps keep the bullet together.

Lathe turned copper bullets are quite different in that greater consideration of the forces involved in expansion needs to be given, as well as to the ductility of the copper alloys used. Free machining copper is harder and forms shorter chips than C110 full hard copper which forms longer string like chips. However, the ductility of the C110 copper is greater than the free machining copper and therefore much less brittle, so it will withand bending forces better without breaking. Given this, the shape of the hollow in the ogive is very important in determining the ease of expansion and petaling, as well as the retention of petals. The shape of the ogive also plays an important role. We believe that petalling also contributes to ease of penetration in that the petals themselves are sharp, and take advantage of the rotational force of the bullet imparted to it by the rifling, liquifying the tissue as the bullet moves through. Petal retention clearly contributes to wound channel length.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

I'll make a suggestion for what it's worth. Rather than making personal attacks on character or experience limit the discussion to specific issues. For instance if someone has an issues with terminal performance and their interpretation of that performance then stick to that.

Lumping my product into generalities is a personal attack on me. It is the reason this thread was started. There is no doubt on that.

 

[FEENIX]

Pretty good discussion about bullets expanding. One has to consider the alloys the lead an copper bullets are made of, and how the bullet’s hollow point cavity is engineered. Thin jacketed bullets with a softer lead alloy will not withstand as well the impact forces as will a bullet with a harder lead alloy, so a “soft” bullet will tend to over expand sooner and not penetrate and at a high impact velocity (IV) will splatter and penetrate poorly if at all. The Nosler accubond has a progressive thickening jacket towards the boat tail which limits the ultimate expansion that occurs at the front of the bullet. Also the lead core bonding to the jacket Helps keep the bullet together.

Lathe turned copper bullets are quite different in that greater consideration of the forces involved in expansion needs to be given, as well as to the ductility of the copper alloys used. Free machining copper is harder and forms shorter chips than C110 full hard copper which forms longer string like chips. However, the ductility of the C110 copper is greater than the free machining copper and therefore much less brittle, so it will withand bending forces better without breaking. Given this, the shape of the hollow in the ogive is very important in determining the ease of expansion and petaling, as well as the retention of petals. The shape of the ogive also plays an important role. We believe that petalling also contributes to ease of penetration in that the petals themselves are sharp, and take advantage of the rotational force of the bullet imparted to it by the rifling, liquifying the tissue as the bullet moves through. Petal retention clearly contributes to wound channel length.

Thank you, Sir, for your input and for keeping it professional and educational. It is always nice to see it from another perspective, esp. from a bullet maker/site Sponsor like yourself.

Ed

 

[xsn10s]

Lumping my product into generalities is a personal attack on me. It is the reason this thread was started. There is no doubt on that.

If you want to take it that way that's your prerogative. Or you can take on a specific issue listed on your product. IMO there is a difference between the product and the person. But I can understand you wanting to protect your product and business. I just feel you'd be better off taking on the issue rather than taking it personal. Just my opinion.

 

[Petey308]

So here are my thoughts on bullet comparisons. No test can duplicate real world scenarios. Velocity, animal mass, bone density, angles of shots, animal behavior, animal condition, animal sex, animal sexual behavior (e.g. rut), weather conditions, altitude ad nauseam. A buck shot placidly eating may be DRT, same buck in full blown rut eyes glazed chasing doe may go 200-300 yards with same kill shot. I don't want to hear its the bullet. The animal contribution is SIGNIFICANT to the end result. We can AGREE to DISAGREE on this premise.

All hunting bullets will kill, "efficiency" of the kill is somewhat dependent upon bullet construction but is also influenced immensely by the above factors.

I, along with gazillion other hunters, have killed a gazillion animals with CoreLoks, Interloks, Partitions, Accubonds, Hot Cors, Grand Slams.
I started adding monos into my loads and have found they kill as well. Duh.

Every bullet has limitations. PERIOD. I have found that monos like Barnes, Hammers and Cutting Edge all shoot extremely well primarily due to much better consistency bullet to bullet IMO. Velocities will differ from bullet to bullet on common weights which is no different with CnC bullets. All bullets have a velocity minimal threshold published by the manufacturer. A responsible loader and hunter will know it and shoot accordingly.

It is our responsibility to select a bullet that is appropriate for the game we are hunting in their environmental scenario.

I will bet most on LRH has sufficient loading and hunting experience under many different scenarios to select a bullet appropriate for their hunt. I know what I like in a bullet and I know what bullet performance I may need for the animal I am hunting. I err on the conservative side to select a bullet because I prefer to be prepared for any possible condition and have the bullet that will perform in the manner I expect.

I don't need to see somebody's gel test. Do you really think bullet manufacturer's haven't tested the living out of the bullet they are selling? How many tons of gel has been blasted? How many hunts do you think their bullet was tested on prior to release? Are we that arrogant to believe a our backyard testing is better?

MNF: C'mon man!

Nothing wrong with knowledge, research, sharing stories, discussion, etc. People can take it or leave, or argue about it.

I for one do not do backyard testing. Most all of my testing on actual bullet terminal performance comes from live media, whether deer, coyote, or larger game. Gel, to me, is best served as a way to compare bullets to one another to get an idea of how they compare and contrast and their potential, but real world results on live animals has no substitute. Like you said, there are many factors that come into play regarding the animal. Being in rut or not, contracted versus relaxed muscles, quartering shots, etc, etc all affect the outcome. Gel just sits there, without bones, tissues, blood, guts, fur, hide, etc.

Every bullet kills- absolutely. They all have their particular limits too. That’s been my main point for many posts and comments here. I 100% agree that we as hunters have the responsibility of not only knowing how to select the proper bullet, but knowing it’s limitations and ensuring shots are executed that will fall within those limitations. We also have a responsibility to ensure the ammo we’re using is accurate in our rifle, properly zeroed before the hunt, and we know our drop/drift for the load to make applicable adjustments.

The fact is, as much as you’d THINK we all should know and be experienced here, not everyone is very experienced or actually understands all the ins and outs. Mistakes happen every year- preventable mistakes. How many animals still get maimed every year? How many animals are lost on hunts still every year?

I encourage everyone to do their own testing and experimenting. Nothing compares to first hand knowledge and experience. And it shouldn’t be because you think you’re better or know better than the manufacturer. I for one am not on some mission to discredit any manufacturer or prove anyone wrong. I just want to see things for myself and not rely on marketing alone. What’s the harm in that? What’s the harm in discussing it? What really should we be doing on forums like this, just post pictures and buy/sell/trade?

I appreciate your insight and your opinion on the matter, genuinely. I’ll bet nothing will change though, ultimately.