The statement was set up to appear insightful while actually biased.
We are striking a solid sloping target? The copper bullet has of course mushroomed while the fmj has only distorted minimally. Really?
Well if the copper bullet does not impact directly on the nose why should is necessarily mushroom? These things are as hard as hell so why does an impact on the side cause anything other than similar distortion to the fmj which is made predominantly of a much softer metal? The fmj has clearly suffered only a glancing impact or it would have vaporised.
Same conditions please.
Maybe what is described is what happens, maybe the nose construction means it does distort more, but it is not as intuitively obvious as was suggest, there is the question of how exactly does a monolith distort in the event of striking a solid sloping target.
He may need help getting his Landy out of reverse
A couple of further thoughts.
1) on the the range we have had plenty of monolithic bullets hit hardox plate targets. The bullets appear to splatter - admittedly they have hit at close to right angles.
2) hunting bullets, whether lead or mono are designed to expand on impact. Most monolithics have a good sized holopoint which will likely deform even hitting a sloping target.
3) monolithics are made from similar materials to jackets on target or military ammo. A lot of military ammo is steel cored. With many they are designed not to deform.
4) the Danger area for military ranges and those such as Bisley are worked out on the basis of military or target ammo and the safe area in the event of a ricochet or a round going above the backstop through negligence
5) as many constantly say, copper is less dense than lead, so for a same velocity it will carry less energy. This means the bullet with less energy will be slowed more by drag of the air and thus will travel less far.
6) add to the above that a hollow nosed bullet likely will deform to greater extent, even if off a sloping surface, than an equivalent solid target type bullet, it will Be less aerodynamically effecient and thus more affected by drag from the air and thus will fly less far.
I don’t really see how monolithic hunting, or indeed target bullets can be considered any less or more safe than any other type of bullet. Any bullet if fired at a hard sloping surface will ricochet where there is no control over where it goes.
But any bullet can easily enough be captured in a decent sand trap, earth bund or decent soft ground.
