Copper bullet report

[Fox]

What did you shoot it in to?

[Terrible_E]

The white stuff is the sand/gravel mixture in my bullet trap. I did this at the ballistic lab I work at. It went 50m through peice of cardboard and then into the bullet trap, it's fairly large and deep so I was only able to recover the one of the five bullets unfortunately.

The bullets are monolithic pure copper according to Barnes and I have zero reasons to doubt them. Also Wipe-out is the bore cleaning solvent I would recommend over all others.

[Gun Nut]

The white stuff is the sand/gravel mixture in my bullet trap. I did this at the ballistic lab I work at. It went 50m through peice of cardboard and then into the bullet trap, it's fairly large and deep so I was only able to recover the one of the five bullets unfortunately.

The bullets are monolithic pure copper according to Barnes and I have zero reasons to doubt them. Also Wipe-out is the bore cleaning solvent I would recommend over all others.

So what you are saying is you dug the bullet out of a wall of sand/gravel after it punched a hole through a piece of cardboard. I'm not sure that would exactly be a testimony to bullet expansion if it miss bone and hits only hind and soft flesh. You may only be looking at a .30 caliber hole in and a .30 caliber exit hole, much like a full metal jacket bullet. At close range, where the bullet hasn't stabilized and retains a bit of a wobble it might tip enough to tumble on entry and produce an effective kill. Further out it may zip straight through the game, and game might just keep on going. I use to take chucks with .303 and full metal jacket bullets under 100 yards, before the bullet stabilized you could hit the chuck anywhere and it would blow it apart, beyond a 100 yards the only way to get any killing effectiveness was with a head shot. It will be interesting to hear how you make out when you try the copper bullets on game.

You don't stop hunting because you grow old. You grow old because you stop hunting.
- Gun Nut

[Terrible_E]

No that's not what I am saying. I didn't dig anything out of any wall. The sand mixture is designed to slow down and capture bullets not destroy them, is exactly what you use to measure expansion.

Sir this is a ballistics lab not a Wendy's.

[Big Jack]

Well guys I use Barnes almost exclusively for big game. I shoot lead but my deer and moose are Barnes monolithic bullets.

I’ve recovered bullets after 42 inches of travel through a deer including shattered femur, pelvis, shoulder, and several inches of spine.

They are just fantastic.

I have yet to see a problem with copper foul and if your barrel is prone to it, cup and core will do the same.

[Sam Menard]

Just curious about the move to copper bullets. Were your old bullets not working for you? I’ve been using Nosler Partition bullets for years with great success and see no reason to switch or experiment with anything else. In fact I’ve reloaded a couple of boxes using Federal Trophy Bonded Tip and Terminal Ascent bullets but can’t bring myself to take them out hunting.

Twenty years ago, I shot a bull moose twice in the chest with Winchester Fail Safe bullets. Both shots passed right through and the bull just stood there. My third shot was a Partition which tipped it over for good. Since then, I’ve been skeptic about copper bullets.

It’s not my intention to trash the OP’s post. Maybe technology has changed so I would be interested in learning more about copper bullets and what makes them a good choice for hunting. Thx.

[Gun Nut]

No that's not what I am saying. I didn't dig anything out of any wall. The sand mixture is designed to slow down and capture bullets not destroy them, is exactly what you use to measure expansion.

Sir this is a ballistics lab not a Wendy's.

I would have thought a ballistic gel would have been a less damaging back stop than sand and gravel, even water would have less of an effective on a bullet than sand and gravel. To check for bullet expansion lining a number of soak catalogue or thick phone books up one behind the other might give a true test, sand and gravel may given you a medium to retrieve the bullets but it heavy enough to create expansion that would not necessarily be achieved in hind and muscle tissue. Again that is only my opinion, I once purchases some Swedish spiral tip jacketed hunting bullet with a lead tip and core to shoot in a 243 Win the copper jacket was so tough, they were like shooting full mental jacketed bullets, that probably why I am so much of a skeptics about your pure copper bullets. I hunt with heavy cast bullet which are 205 grain. I put one right through the boiler room of a deer at 35 to 40 yards, at that range they exploded the animals lungs, they first went through the scapula, appear to have rotated a bit and put an inch square hole through the ribs, past through the lungs, clipping a piece off the heart and exited the floor of the rib cage. I've shot the same rounds into a Linden tree, that backstop my target. The bullets buried themselves 6 to 8 inches into the tree which was 12 to 15 inches in diameter, fungus used the tunnel made by the bullets to invade the tree. Eventually the rot got to the point where the tree broke and fell down. In the break I was able to recover a number of spent bullets there was no real evidence of expansion, some of the bullet exhibited slight bends to their conformation but that was about it. So copper being considerably hard than cast lead I'm not overly optimistic about them showing much expansion if not for the damage done by the medium you retrieve them from. Figurative speaking you were recovering them from a sand and gravel wall.

You don't stop hunting because you grow old. You grow old because you stop hunting.
- Gun Nut

[Big Jack]

Normally we don’t recover any copper bullets.
I can say that textbook broad side puts about 5/8 hole in one side and 1.15-1.5 exit.

They ttsx expand really well.

[Big Jack]

Just curious about the move to copper bullets. Were your old bullets not working for you? I’ve been using Nosler Partition bullets for years with great success and see no reason to switch or experiment with anything else. In fact I’ve reloaded a couple of boxes using Federal Trophy Bonded Tip and Terminal Ascent bullets but can’t bring myself to take them out hunting.

Twenty years ago, I shot a bull moose twice in the chest with Winchester Fail Safe bullets. Both shots passed right through and the bull just stood there. My third shot was a Partition which tipped it over for good. Since then, I’ve been skeptic about copper bullets.

It’s not my intention to trash the OP’s post. Maybe technology has changed so I would be interested in learning more about copper bullets and what makes them a good choice for hunting. Thx.

I gave up using lead because I prefer not to have lead migrate through the animal if I can help it. No problem with lead as they work well.

Not a big fan of fail safe bullets.

Big fan of TTSX.

Having said that, my 6.5 PRC will be shooting 143 ELDX Hornady at 3000 FPS over H1000.
Couldn’t get a TTSX same weight.

The Whelen will be shooting copper though and it is an honest 2 inch at 300 yard gun with that BUT Nosler accubond makes smaller groups and fly flatter a bit.

[Terrible_E]

Just curious about the move to copper bullets. Were your old bullets not working for you? I’ve been using Nosler Partition bullets for years with great success and see no reason to switch or experiment with anything else. In fact I’ve reloaded a couple of boxes using Federal Trophy Bonded Tip and Terminal Ascent bullets but can’t bring myself to take them out hunting.

Twenty years ago, I shot a bull moose twice in the chest with Winchester Fail Safe bullets. Both shots passed right through and the bull just stood there. My third shot was a Partition which tipped it over for good. Since then, I’ve been skeptic about copper bullets.

It’s not my intention to trash the OP’s post. Maybe technology has changed so I would be interested in learning more about copper bullets and what makes them a good choice for hunting. Thx.

I first heard about copper bullets while listening to the Meat Eater podcast. So I read an article or three about the subject. The main take away from what I remember was basically copper is better for you and the animal you shoot it with. The authors had a bunch of arguments that you've probably heard before; copper isn't as toxic as lead, you don't have to cut as far around the wound channel, the bullet retains it's mass, better penetrating power.

I got curious and dug a little deeper and found that this wasn't a new idea and lots of companies have experimented with copper bullets without a lot of success. The exception being Banres bullets. Apperently the design they use doesn't cause fowling and expands well.

First thing I noticed was that the bullets themselves where larger than my 168gr traditional target bullets. So much so that I was not comfortable using my regular powder for .308 (4895) because it would have caused a compressed load. The second interesting thing I discovered was that the hollow point goes about halfway down the bullet, much deeper than the hollow on my Hornady Match bullets. I guess since copper doesn't compress and squish the same way lead does this deep hollow is what allows the copper bullet to expand so large.

For me what it comes down to is lead is toxic and fragments really easy. Copper is a safe alternative that performs just as well if not better.

I don't doubt Winchester made bad ammunition, even 20 years ago.