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

[Petey308]

The biologists used the endangered condor as a scape goat and said that the left over lead shot in birds and deer were giving the condors lead poisoning and killing them when they scavenged from the carcasses. Complete crap.

That's one example, yes. A lot of the research there has been conducted with bias and overall poor research and more opinion than anything.

 

[fordy]

Gday pet

Could you give me a few specific examples? Please don't take me wrong here. I'm not an expert and I won't claim to be. I have a passion for this stuff though and am always looking to learn more. I truly wish to one day hunt in Africa, but I have not yet and I will fully admit I have not studied extensively on hunting African game and what is required for best results on those kinds of animals.

I did not make this post to try to make myself look good or come off as some guru. I made a post on bullet construction the other day and was asked to share my thoughts on solids, so here it is. It's really that simple. I feel like suddenly though I'm getting ganged up on to try to tear this whole post apart. Hopefully I'm wrong though. I remember your post the other day. I made a comment or two on it. I did see it has since disappeared. I hope you don't think that whatever issue you had with someone else regarding Hammers is carrying over here. That's the impression I'm getting though. I really don't want any part of all that though.

I'm just here sharing my thoughts and experiences like everyone else in the hopes we all become better and have even more success out there. If you can teach me new things, I'm all ears and will welcome it.

Petey I'm not trying to cause problems & I myself am no expert or guru just observant over many animals & many species in australasia & Africa
( you'll love Africa I'm sure )

On solids there are some that produce wider permanent & temporary wound channels & a few brands stand out as the ones others are judged by

The woodleigh hydro is my favourite & cutting edge safari solid
Not far behind

You take these over a round nose solid & the wound channels are visually different

The difference is that hydro design or square flat meplat as it displaces more tissue & the bubble inside the animal ( the bubble we see on impact in gel )
Combine this & the animals are dropped quicker on average now move that to non DG & the same is observed
Yet the only difference is the shape of the meplat

Now you add velocity & I'll take the hydro
375, 300 gr @ 2400 impact
Move that to a 235 gr & 3000 impact & watch the magic happen as long as the triangle is supported

This is where I believe hammers are not your average solid as that meplat is square ( from the 50 plus shanks I've recovered over a lot of velocities 1850 to 4300 )
Now you add the petals & just like the raptors ( basically the safari solid plus petals ) you've entered into a world that no frangible I've seen & used has as many bases of the triangle covered

Your Leigh defence are good but animals run way further than hammers & on my observations the hammers are matching it or surpassing frangible yet are also less effective in areas as well
No holy grail

Then we can enter into your mushroom as yes that's wider but I think it's the not square so tissue rolls around it for a better word & not pushes it outwards from a square meplats like hammer meplat

My thoughts anyway & animals backing it up so far
Cheers

 

[mercerbear]

I'm asking in all sincerity. Can you cite references for your information on the "temporary coma" theory? I have some experience in the field of wound ballistics as a layman and end user but received my information from medical doctors who studied thousands of cases of combat wounds and I've never heard of temporary wound cavity causing that type of CNS reaction consistently. If it were true, the guy that shot himself in the face with a 12 gauge, removing his face from the eyes down, should have "shut down for diagnostics", but made it to the trauma room and was conscious for a couple hours until he died from multiple brain bleeds. There are thousands of cases of people being shot in the thorax and still go on to fight while bleeding out. Shouldn't many of those have gone into "temporary coma" from the "electrical shock wave" traveling through their rib cage to their spine and into their brain?

I shot an elk with a 300 Win Mag at 350 yards with a 200 grain Federal Terminal Ascent.

I thought I hit the boiler room and he went down. When I got to him, about 10 minutes later, he got up to his feet and ran off.

I was able to get another shot off and killed the bull. The first shot that hit him went above the vitals and below the spine.

The shockwave surely knocked him out and then he woke back up. Would that be similar to the effects that the OP is describing?

 

[Petey308]

When exactly did Kalifornia start to outlaw bullets with lead content?

Too much penetration?

If we rely heavily upon hydrostatic shock, ft./lbs. energy transfer, and non exit.....why are wide metplat, hard cast (non or very limited expanding), slow moving bullets so effective at killing game?

Asking for an inquisitive friend! memtb

I don't recall when exactly it was now. Ultimately, they've made claims that lead from bullets is entering the ground water, it's poisoning birds that eat unrecovered animals shot with them, people consuming the meat are poisoning themselves, etc, etc.

Hydrostatic shock isn't the only way to kill. Blood loss is the main way to kill, so any method of creating sufficient blood loss will do the job. Just like arrows, spears, etc kill

Wide meplats and other slower moving bullets kill well due to the wide wounding they create, and thus massive blood loss. Black powder rifles were much slower and used large caliber projectiles to make up for the slower speed and lesser amount of hydraulic shock we see with modern bullets and cartridges. Copper jackets actually came about to lower the amount of lead fouling from the huge increase in speed from the smokeless powders. Bullets got smaller and smaller because they could, and without losing terminal performance.

 

[GLTaylor]

Excellent and respectful dialog. This is wonderful. Thanks to ALL!
I love learning all of this.

I shot cup and core for about 50 yrs. I am now a 100% Hammer convert in all dozen or so of my rifles. However, this is very interesting. I am not a long range shooter. I limit my shots to 400 and in. Not because of bullets chosen. I know MY personal limitations and stay within them.

I tried Hammers and stuck with them due to their on-game performance and lack of destroyed bloodshot meat.
My situation is somewhat unique in that I have depredation permits and shoot very large numbers of deer each year. Consequently I end up with many test subjects. I've seen everything from drt to walking dead deer over the years. Sometimes they didn't get the memo!
I must say that so far, in the last 3 years I've lost no deer and had almost none go over 12 yds. from point of impact. Note that virtually all of my impact velocities are above 3000 fps.

I'd love to see your test results and evaluation if you get to try some Hammers.

Thanks again for very good dialog!

 

[HuntnPack]

Interesting New offering from Winchester
Tipped solid Copper.
"Copper Extreme Point"
Really wide long tip.

 

[CMP70306]

Brittle will mean pieces breaking/fracturing off and simply leaving a shank to pencil through. Wide wounding and massive hydraulic forces come from a wide frontal area to displace a high amount of tissue and fluids. Pieces that break off are going to help shed weight and reduce sectional density and transfer more energy into the animal, but depending on how much wounding those pieces do alone, there still might not be a great deal of overall trauma, especially with a less than ideal shot placement.

What I picture as an optimal design would be something more brittle at the nose/ogive with a large cavity and/or slots to initiate immediate expansion, then they'd breakaway, but leave a softer, more malleable, material on the shank with its own method to still mushroom to create a wider frontal area as it continues to penetrate and displace tissue and fluids. This is what a good cup and core bullet does though, so I'm still not sure how you combine harder and softer lead free metal like that.

Now what would be the terminal performance difference between a rounded nose and a flat nose? As I understand it a flat point will cause more disruption than a rounded point due to the hydrodynamics of the two shapes. However the question would be how much of a larger diameter does the rounded mushroom shape have to be in order to perform better than a flat point of the same base diameter?

It would be interesting to see if anyone here has access to any hydrodynamic programs that could put in some hypothetical shapes to test in a computer model.

When exactly did Kalifornia start to outlaw bullets with lead content?

Too much penetration?

If we rely heavily upon hydrostatic shock, ft./lbs. energy transfer, and non exit.....why are wide metplat, hard cast (non or very limited expanding), slow moving bullets so effective at killing game?

Asking for an inquisitive friend! memtb

The flat point bullets are creating hydraulic shock, they are essentially a pre expanded bullet set for the highest possible energy transfer to the target by way of that flat point for that given velocity. The downside is that the same characteristics that make them good at killing game make them awful at flying through the air because they are creating the same type of shockwaves in the air which quickly robs them of their velocity and subsequent downrange energy.

On the opposite end of the spectrum the high BC Long Range bullets are very efficient at flying through the air which means that without modifying their shape they do very poor damage when entering an animal. However due to their construction they either intentionally or unintentionally modify their shape thereby causing an increase in their terminal performance.

 

[Petey308]

Gday pet

Petey I'm not trying to cause problems & I myself am no expert or guru just observant over many animals & many species in australasia & Africa
( you'll love Africa I'm sure )

On solids there are some that produce wider permanent & temporary wound channels & a few brands stand out as the ones others are judged by

The woodleigh hydro is my favourite & cutting edge safari solid
Not far behind

You take these over a round nose solid & the wound channels are visually different

The difference is that hydro design or square flat meplat as it displaces more tissue & the bubble inside the animal ( the bubble we see on impact in gel )
Combine this & the animals are dropped quicker on average now move that to non DG & the same is observed
Yet the only difference is the shape of the meplat

Now you add velocity & I'll take the hydro
375, 300 gr @ 2400 impact
Move that to a 235 gr & 3000 impact & watch the magic happen as long as the triangle is supported

This is where I believe hammers are not your average solid as that meplat is square ( from the 50 plus shanks I've recovered over a lot of velocities 1850 to 4300 )
Now you add the petals & just like the raptors ( basically the safari solid plus petals ) you've entered into a world that no frangible I've seen & used has as many bases of the triangle covered

Your Leigh defence are good but animals run way further than hammers & on my observations the hammers are matching it or surpassing frangible yet are also less effective in areas as well
No holy grail

Then we can enter into your mushroom as yes that's wider but I think it's the not square so tissue rolls around it for a better word & not pushes it outwards from a square meplats like hammer meplat

My thoughts anyway & animals backing it up so far
Cheers

LeHigh Defense has done wonders at experimenting and trying all kinds of ways to influence terminal performance. That said, I still don't think they've made anything truly remarkable. I just like some of the things they've done.

The woodleigh bullets you mentioned I do believe I've seen. They're a great shorter range option for sure.

As far as the square meplat, I'm assuming you mean squared off perpendicular to the rest of the bullet. Yes, that feature absolutely helps with expansion and tissue/fluid displacement as the bullet travels through the animal. A polymer tipped bullet is the same if you remove the tip, and the tips do dislodge upon impact and reveal that squared meplat.

I understand what you're saying by a squared off shank too rather than a mushroomed, but I'm confident that if you dropped a cube into a pool of water and then a ball of a slightly larger dice, the ball would displace more water. Obviously that wouldn't have the speed attached but I believe the principle would be similar. A squared airfoil, as another example, would result in much more turbulent air going around it rather than a rounded airfoil, but the curved one would create the low pressure area behind the leading edge rather than the squared. Does all this translate to terminal ballistics and what would actually occur in an animal? I'm not certain. I'd love to do the testing though lol.

 

[Petey308]

Now what would be the terminal performance difference between a rounded nose and a flat nose? As I understand it a flat point will cause more disruption than a rounded point due to the hydrodynamics of the two shapes. However the question would be how much of a larger diameter does the rounded mushroom shape have to be in order to perform better than a flat point of the same base diameter?

It would be interesting to see if anyone here has access to any hydrodynamic programs that could put in some hypothetical shapes to test in a computer model.



The flat point bullets are creating hydraulic shock, they are essentially a pre expanded bullet set for the highest possible energy transfer to the target by way of that flat point for that given velocity. The downside is that the same characteristics that make them good at killing game make them awful at flying through the air because they are creating the same type of shockwaves in the air which quickly robs them of their velocity and subsequent downrange energy.

On the opposite end of the spectrum the high BC Long Range bullets are very efficient at flying through the air which means that without modifying their shape they do very poor damage when entering an animal. However due to their construction they either intentionally or unintentionally modify their shape thereby causing an increase in their terminal performance.

I agree, being able to study how those things affect terminal performance would be amazing.

I agree with your other points made as well. Good stuff!

 

[Petey308]

I shot an elk with a 300 Win Mag at 350 yards with a 200 grain Federal Terminal Ascent.

I thought I hit the boiler room and he went down. When I got to him, about 10 minutes later, he got up to his feet and ran off.

I was able to get another shot off and killed the bull. The first shot that hit him went above the vitals and below the spine.

The shockwave surely knocked him out and then he woke back up. Would that be similar to the effects that the OP is describing?

Yes, you achieved sufficient hydrostatic shock to shut down the CNS temporarily, but insufficient wounding and blood loss was produced, so he was able to recover and get back up. Glad you were able to get a second shot and get him home.

Great example of hydrostatic shock and temporary coma.

 

[ButterBean]

Excellent and respectful dialog. This is wonderful. Thanks to ALL!
I love learning all of this.

I shot cup and core for about 50 yrs. I am now a 100% Hammer convert in all dozen or so of my rifles. However, this is very interesting. I am not a long range shooter. I limit my shots to 400 and in. Not because of bullets chosen. I know MY personal limitations and stay within them.

I tried Hammers and stuck with them due to their on-game performance and lack of destroyed bloodshot meat.
My situation is somewhat unique in that I have depredation permits and shoot very large numbers of deer each year. Consequently I end up with many test subjects. I've seen everything from drt to walking dead deer over the years. Sometimes they didn't get the memo!
I must say that so far, in the last 3 years I've lost no deer and had almost none go over 12 yds. from point of impact. Note that virtually all of my impact velocities are above 3000 fps.

I'd love to see your test results and evaluation if you get to try some Hammers.

Thanks again for very good dialog!

x-2

 

[Wolf76]

Really like how this discussion is progressing (civilly).
I can only add that the maker T Rex has been by far the best bullet I've shot from my 45 raptor. It literally crumples deer where they stand or leaves profuse blood trails of <20 yards. Given the bullet diameter is already .452, they all have a substantial meplat to begin with. The composition/construction really shows upon impact.
These conversations remind me there's more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[Petey308]

Really like how this discussion is progressing (civilly).
I can only add that the maker T Rex has been by far the best bullet I've shot from my 45 raptor. It literally crumples deer where they stand or leaves profuse blood trails of <20 yards. Given the bullet diameter is already .452, they all have a substantial meplat to begin with. The composition/construction really shows upon impact.
These conversations remind me there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Absolutely! I've been really impressed with the Maker T-Rex bullets too. And yes, I'm really happy this discussion has remained very civil as well. I'm grateful for that. Obviously a great group of people here.

 

[jakeSCH]

Fascinating, I am enjoying this.

All my real world experience on game is with mono's...I honestly like exit wounds and lots of penetration (allows for more shot angles)

But always willing to hear and learn on how I can improve (outside of CA that is)