Homogenous copper bullets can be inhumane

[Swamplord]

Guess some of us got a bit out of control in the last few threads (guilty)

My apologies to Len and the LRH crew, will tone it down ...

My take on bullets is they don't really fail at all, sometimes we just use them in such a way that produces poor & unwanted results, so we blame the bullets ...
Sometimes it works out better than expected ...

either way, we make sure to tell everyone we can & with the internet word travels fast and gets bloated with incorrect information, good and bad ...

Countless times I've read that this or that bullet is junk for a myriad of reasons, my personal experience with same bullets was at times similar but I was quick to acknowledge my use of that bullet didn't exactly comply with the design features

but most times I found the exact opposite of the claims and was completely satisfied with the results

I like bullets (maybe a little too much) and will always buy some for my own testing before forming an opinion, sometimes the bullets don't meet my requirements but that certainly doesn't mean they won't work for someone else in a different cartridge and hunting scenario

 

[FEENIX]

I want to keep this forum as LRH forum/site as Mr. Len Backus intended and not about Hammer Bullets

Copy that, I do not want to misconstrue your post.

 

[xsn10s]

Guess some of us got a bit out of control in the last few threads (guilty)

My apologies to Len and the LRH crew, will tone it down ...

My take on bullets is they don't really fail at all, sometimes we just use them in such a way that produces poor & unwanted results, so we blame the bullets ...
Sometimes it works out better than expected ...

either way, we make sure to tell everyone we can & with the internet word travels fast and gets bloated with incorrect information, good and bad ...

Countless times I've read that this or that bullet is junk for a myriad of reasons, my personal experience with same bullets was at times similar but I was quick to acknowledge my use of that bullet didn't exactly comply with the design features

but most times I found the exact opposite of the claims and was completely satisfied with the results

I like bullets (maybe a little too much) and will always buy some for my own testing before forming an opinion, sometimes the bullets don't meet my requirements but that certainly doesn't mean they won't work for someone else in a different cartridge and hunting scenario

Most us of have been guilty of it at one time or another. It's far easier these days too. I've tried to control my mouth for a variety of reasons including religious beliefs. I'm not always successful.

 

[TXTrained]

The blanket statements made in this article are simply emotional and uninformed, made by a self important, self proclaimed expert.

I can't speak for other copper or mono bullet manufacturers, but as far as we are concerned, terminal performance is by far the most important reason we got into making bullets. We at Hammer Bullets will never sacrifice terminal performance for anything. Not bc, not price, not production capacity, not anything.

Prior to making bullets Brian and I were those weird guys at the range catching bullets in water jugs to see what they did. Our quest for a better bullet that would make our animals nice and dead without blowing them to pieces lead us to copper bullets. We saw much less meat damage with copper vs lead. We used quite a few diff copper bullets for hunting. In the end they all had some issue that we didn't like. We wound up making our own. With that said we thought if we just purchased the most pure copper available it would make the perfect bullet for hunting. Well, it didn't work that way. If we had known we would have never started this business. We were in to deep at this point with a cnc lathe set up in my garage, that we couldn't afford, and we had to find a raw material that would work. We literally bought thousands of pounds of copper at full price and recycled at less than half price trying to find a copper that would do what we expected throughout the range of velocity required for hunting. In the beginning we used copper that is common in the bullet industry. It did not live up to our standards, but it worked well enough to go to market. We were not satisfied with good enough and continued to try diff copper alloys trying to find our ideal terminal performance. Our ideal bullet was based on this physics study http://www.rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/ballistics/wounding.html, not personal bias and emotions. By the grace of God we found the copper that we use now. It changed everything. We now had a copper that would perform at high or low velocity, predictably, the way we wanted. We have to continually monitor or copper to make sure that it meets our needed formula to work properly as a bullet.

So to throw a blanket statement aimed at non lead bullets from a personal bias without any first hand experience, let alone scientific knowledge of how a permanent wound is created by a bullet, other than " I have killed lots of animals, therefore I am an expert on terminal performance." is irresponsible at best.

For those of you that want to know more about terminal performance, I recommend you take the time to read the physics paper that I linked. Weather you want to use copper or lead bullets makes no difference. Knowledge is good. Wives tales spread falsehoods that are detrimental.

There is no mistaking what @FEENIX is trying to do. Help inform everyone right? So I am sure he will welcome my thoughts and encourage folks to study the science.

I applaud you for trying to name a better bullet. I hope your business does well.
With that said...how to prove that your bullets kill better than any other bullet is just a Hypothetical question.
That's like saying g a bullet kills more than a broadhead arrow.Only the animal knows that answer.
We can make bullets fly better faster and farther. We can make them Pentwater deeper and expand more.
But how do we can that any bul k et kills cleaner or quicker.There is no way to gauge that.

 

[Allen Kitts]

Wow 17 pages. That's a lot of opinions. I did not read every post but what I did read was very entertaining. Thanks guys! My take on this is everyone has to form their own opinion by using the products they choose and basing their opinion on the facts that are present at your eventual kill site. I have used Barnes for years. My first attempt was in 1989 with a Barnes bullet that was moly coated from the factory. Shot a great Caribou in Alaska three times through the boiler room and he never even flinched. I finally had to give him a Texas heart shot, was all I had and he went down. I called Barnes when I got back to Montana and they said that they were experiencing some technical difficulties with their new bullets and the holes in the end were plugging up before expansion started. They sent me some new bullets and I continued using them with respectable results. Maybe I have been extremely lucky but I can honestly say I have not lost a single animal and never had one get out of site from where I shot it while using Barnes bullets. I recently, the last two years switched some of my rifles over to Hammers and again have had zero issues, just bang flop out to 569 yards. I also use Berger bullets in quite a few of my rifles and have had great success out to 851 yards, my farthest actual kill to date. Before that I hunted for 20 plus years with Remington core lokt bullets and had no real issues with them either other than sometimes the jacket separated. I follow the guidelines that are published for the bullets as far a velocity and foot lbs needed for expansion and try to never exceed those ranges. The results speak for themselves. I appreciate the passion and effort the man has put into his article as I appreciate all the help Steve has given me in working up the loads for my Hammer bullets. I also understand Steves issue with the article as i beliee he and his partner have done their due diligence to make a great bullets that IMO perfoms as stated. I believe you have to take in all of the information you can and form your own opinion based on your own real world data. Just because your opinion isn't the next guys opinion as well doesn't make him wrong, just different, that's what makes the world go around and why we have great companies like Hammer, Berger, Hornady, Leupold, Nightforce, etc. they had a different opinion on what was needed and they felt that they could do it better. Have a great day guys and keep up the good work! Of course this is just my opinion and I am definitely not an expert at anything, just a guy who loves to hunt and shoot!

 

[Fishhook805]

Californian two cents lol , here we go, this all started because our Condor was having issues with high lead levels in their system and the boney finger of indignation was pointed at mean hunters leaving gut piles from field dressed bucks, during the beginning of this mess I spent a lot of time at Fort Hunter Liggett and so did 150 plus other guys each weekend, we would gather for the lottery waiting for our number to be called and hope to get access to one 30 zones the base was broke into. the same area had a cleaning station where 20 plus deer could be processed and even a walkin box to store them in for the weekend. these bullets were required and still are today here and throughout Cal. I had many opportunities to hear and discuss the effectiveness of primarily Barnes bullets starting with the X to the triple shock, I played with them before the mandate on Mule deer in Montana it didnt take long for me to learn of their characteristics. here in our Lovely bleeding heart State go into any store find 30 cal. leadfree hunting ammo every round in every box was and mostly still is capped off with 180 grain bullet! our blacktails are not much bigger than an Antelope , would any of you choose to load and shoot an Antelope with a 180 grain bullet? most of these guys take this ammo out in the field and when presented with a shot place the bullet behind the shoulder as they have done for years and touch it off, many of them watching the animal continue to run as if not hit! some of them throwing another round in and let it fly again then have a buddy on the next ridge anchor him with a shot directly to the shoulder breaking bones down he goes, then shocked to walk up and see the deer had been hit multiple times, I have heard this story multiple times and came to a couple personal conclusions #1 these 180's never knew they hit something and basically passed thru like a pencil #2 One size fits all Ammo being sold for Nationwide consumption is a bad idea. #3 I quickly learned before this liberal mandate these copper Barnes bullets are very effective when used to break down an animal put the bullet on bones ! on the Shoulder you will not be able to argue the result , #4 I think copper are meat savers most shoulder shots allow me to recover more of the animal. #5 some of my buddies hate them with a passion but I have found them very accurate on paper. Varmint Grenades ? different story they are trash. #6 these A holes could have avoided this whole bunch of B.S. and mandated we burry our gut piles and fine us for that instead of finning us for non compliance for lead free, dam after all these years of lead free those Condors aren't still testing high and now they are complaining about copper levels. But thers hope ! a New Bullet on the horizon Its the California Bullet it constructed of paper mache in with poppy seed for a more harmonious result . remember what starts in California is coming to a theater near you! I feel the NRA abandoned us bad mistake. just my two cents and may be less to some.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

I have read it, and so as Dr. Fackler's JAMA work. The idea for both seminal work, as well as my post is for readers to keep an open-mind and synthesize themselves and formulate their own decision.

I do not know what you expect me say but I want to keep this forum as LRH forum/site as Mr. Len Backus intended and not about Hammer Bullets. I do not think it is an unreasonable goal or hard to comprehend for all of us to agree upon.

I am sorry that you don't like that our customers are very happy with our product and are willing to share their experience. All we have done is work very hard to make the best bullet possible. We are blessed to have come very close to making exactly what we set out to do. Your intent is noted.

 

[Raudy707]

18 pages. Complete waste of time. Just push ignore and move along. Nothing to see here.

 

[asd9055]

Time to unwatch...no longer educational....

 

[MagnumManiac]

Everytime I hear that guys name mentioned in a thread about bullet performance, I cringe.
He is only credible in his own mind because he believes ENERGY is what kills animals and HOW it is passed into the animals tissues.
His beliefs are just that, beliefs.
The facts are that bullets kill by disrupting tissue and cause rapid bleeding, organ interruption and nerve damage.
Without velocity, the true working aspect of the bullet, these things do not occur.
Hydraulic shock is not really what's happening, it's displacement of fluid, true, but it's not shock. It's more like cavitation waves being driven through tissue.
Anyway, I take what he says with a very large grain of salt.

Cheers.

 

[ButterBean]

Time to unwatch...no longer educational....

I was never about education to start with,

 

[Gibbshooter43]

Whew… 18 and counting. My 2c's which is actually worth less than a penny. After almost 70 years of shooting and hunting, I'm still an amature when it comes to the scientific side of ballistics. As a result I still read those who know and try to determine the difference between obnoxious opinionating and real proven information. Sometimes that process is difficult, but I've learned there are some here whose opinions I trust more than others on a consistent basis. I valued their input. I helps guide my own testing. I've valued the input of some who are no longer with us either as the result of death or rules violation. I will continue to read; trying to sort out the good from the useless; and add to my own knowledge base; while enjoying the successes of others as they apply all this "statistical information" to the 'life choice' we call hunting.

 

[FEENIX]

I am sorry that you don't like that our customers are very happy with our product and are willing to share their experience. All we have done is work very hard to make the best bullet possible. We are blessed to have come very close to making exactly what we set out to do. Your intent is noted.

I am glad they are happy and I am happy for you too. I too am very happy with my choices of bullets but you will never see me inject my bullet preferences on any Hammer bullet thread.

I have Hammer bullets and various mono bullets as well. No where did I say anything bad about Hammer bullets other than I wish the BCs are better, and you are already aware of it from another thread. No one is discounting all of you and Brian's hard work, as noted in #64.

 

[FEENIX]

Time to unwatch...no longer educational....

Whatcha drinking?