Bullets: No time for expansion...

So I reached out to the people at Copper Creek about my search for a bullet that will give me better expansion at ranges under 200 yards from my 7mm-08's and 308 Win.

Some may remember my conversation with the tech at Berger stating I needed to slow them down as they do not have a chance to expand.

Well, Alan at Copper Creek stated the same thing. I do not know how a bullet fired from these cartridges (not magnums) at 100 yards do not have time to expand. You guys with magnums must get penciling out to 400 yards! LOL

I'm at a loss....maybe they are onto something....????

Thanks
Steve
If you go back to the old tried and true 150 gr Hornady spire points you won't have that problem.
 
I use Nosler partitions when hunting, and I go in the shop and talk to them every so often. Somewhere on their website it talks about 1300 fps needed for the partitions to expand well, and there is no max velocity. Full metal jackets can leave a small exit hole ...so guess the design of the bullet matters. Mr Nosler built his partition because the copper jackets he was using blew up too easily, on a elk covered in mud, as he says in his book. There is, was an old school of thought that bullets need time to expand, meaning maybe MV of 2700 to 2800.? Some manufacturer's bullets may suffer from this?
I would use Nosler stuff if I could for hunting. And punch holes in paper with the rest.
 
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I use 168gr Barnes TSX in my Rem 700 .308. I also use the 140gr TSX in my M70 in .270 Win. Both have had very good results hunting hogs. I have retrieved bullets that are perfect clover leafs for both calibers.
 
I switched my kids to the Hornady Superformance 150 SST in .308 to increase speed and get more expansion as nearly lost a couple deer in So Tx with bonded bullets trying to make sure we got 2 holes for a blood trail as thick brush and coyotes make a deer disappear quickly.The performance has been exceptional on 5 bucks so far 3 DRT and 2 went 10 yds. Shots ranged from 50-200 yds.
 
Go in a pool. Hold your hand out flat above the water. Slowly lower it into the water. Then repeat the same exact process but as fast as you can.

That's how's bullets work against speed.
 
I call this the "muffler bearing" theory! When someone has no idea what they are talking about they make stuff up. They think that we also don't know what we are talking about so they can tell us anything they want and we won't know the difference.
Don't give these people anymore of your time or money.
Like liberals o_O
 
It seems crazy but there is some truth to it.

My experience in this matter is specifically with bergers, and sierras. Obviously it varies with the particular bullet, the cartridge, the twist and what part of the animal it impacts.

At close range ( 30-200 yds ) on a soft target sometimes the bullet wont have enough time to fully disintegrate its front half before exiting the animal. It will deform and inflict shot but the wound cavity wont be at its maximum. This is obvious as the exit wound is about 1-2".

At medium range ( 300-600 yds) as the bullets slow down a bit now the pieces of the nose have less forward momentum to deviate from, near the same rotational speed, and more time inside the animal, the wound cavity will bee much larger and can sometimes leave exits in the 4-5" range.

At long range ( >500-600 ), and just above the minimum required speed for expansion, now the bullets dont expand as violently because energy has dropped off quite a bit, but rotational speed is still very high. So nearly 100% of the maximum wound cavity is located inside the animal and this will be evident when the exit wound starts dropping back down to 1-3", or you stop getting exits.

Sometimes this makes people uneasy, but its a very effective way to kill and is why cup and core bullets have the following and the skepticism they do.

Those same people like the performance of bonded bullets or solids better, and their performance makes more sense really.

The faster they go the more damage they do. Much more linear, much easier to understand.

A while back there was some ballistic gel test done to simulate how a bullet expands, and the different wound cavities it created at various speeds inside its effective parameters. Except they used various twist barrels to properly simulate the rotational decay of a bullet fired from a typically loaded round. ( A bullets slows down in FPS much faster than it slows down in RPM. So it has to be loaded in a tighter twist barrel as the MV decreases to accurately simulate a round fired at long range. ) When this was done the distance before the bullet fully opened varied anywhere from about 10" down to about 2".

Ill see if I can find the video. It makes more sense when you see it.
 
I shot crow at 150yds. with a 175gr.ELX out of my 7mm practical and it disintegrated it completely one wing helicoptered to the ground [total expansion].I have shot about a 1000 coyotes with 25gr. bergers HPBT.match bullets that totally blew up inside the animal destroying every organ in them. I recovered a 175gr. ELDX out of a elk that was fully expanded no exit.
 
Not sure what the objective is? Expansion, penetration or terminal velocity. Thin skinned projectiles on thin skinned animals sub 300 yds will often take body parts off and ruin most of the meat in its path. Over three hundred they work pretty good - often no exit and bang flop. There are very good low velocity high expansion projectiles that are designed for sub-sonic that will get the job done below 1000 FPS and under 300-400 yds over that not enough energy. High expansion without penetration is often the flaw of thin skin projectiles like ELDMs, and then other match ammo with hardly any expansion like FMJ just pencil through and game just keeps running. There are 50gr projectiles with decent expansion traveling over 4,500 to 5,000 FPS where the high velocity makes up for the size and most game under 300yds bang flop, and penetration less desired. So it's kinda of a "fit for purpose" selection of caliber, weight, velocity and what objective are intended. Killing paper one thing, splat factor and energy on gongs and animals entirely another matter. No one size fits all.
 
As mentioned many times: more velocity= more expansion, but in the same structure. Shoot a real fast bullet through aluminum can and you may see no expansion, shoot it in a deer with skin, bone, tissue and organs and it will be deadly. I shoot my 7-08 under 300 yards and Nosler partitions and accubonds have never failed in all "well placed shots" hornady SST bullets have proven the same. I load them at near max velocity for 140 gr nosler 139 sst.
 
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