Few aspects of description that need clarity…
On a train for 4hrs and bored so you a getting it all now!!
Copper is a metal, not a bullet construction, design or class of bullet.
Any more than lead is.
Full Metal Jackets are usually lead but make for a poor choice of hunting bullet.
Non lead hunting bullets are simply that.
Whether they are designed to fragment, expand, not expand or have pre-cut meplats that open like helicopter rotors!!
The drive towards non lead in the UK is almost exclusively a food standards one.
AGHEs are under pressure from retailers and overseas buyers to guarantee a metal and more specifically, lead free carcase.
Doesn’t matter if you use depleted uranium, if it holds together and exits the carcase or can be removed in a single mass them your resulting carcase is largely metal free.
If your carcase is full of bits of tin, copper, steel or lead ….that component is class 2 waste and can not be used for pet food, fertiliser or any other protein based product.
Its a cost to the processor.
Choosing a bullet for your specific application and hardware choice is not rocket science.
Unfortunately a lot of reports online draw conclusions from single digit data sets with no significance apportioned to the numerous variables involved in terminal ballistics on game.
A lot of people who are being told to use non lead against their will suffer from confirmation bias when evaluating their results…
“I don’t want to use them….they must be ****!”
Nobody likes being told what to do
Anyone who has shot for a while and seen a bit will be able to give you numerous examples of lead bullet anomalies on game.
No expansion, over expansion, deflection/non linear pass through, Carcase damage, etc etc.
I switched from one brand of lead on the strength of three consecutive shots turning left on impact and coming out the haunches, spine, kidneys….
That particular bullet remains one of the most popular ones made by a huge company that are still in existence…
When we shoot something with any bullet, we are not “transferring energy”.
Its not a ****ing battery!
We need to get over the idea that a bullet needs to break up, slow down, “dump energy”, etc etc
The way an expanding Monolithic works is built around the fact that by NOT breaking up and slowing down as it passes through the carcase much quicker than a frangible or fragmenting bullet.
You are not relying on fragments to cut and break a wound channel.
You are using a huge wave of pressure, a cavitation “bubble”, both in front and behind the bullet as it passes through.
The bullet itself might expand to only 1.5x calibre and be effective in cutting a wound channel.
Watch the video here and look at the size of the bubble created around the bullet and the velocity it carries through the gel:
Now imagine that wave/bubble going through the lungs/liver/heart/blood vessels from the inside out.
This is one of the reasons you usualy see smaller entry and exits on the skin/rib cage with non fragmenting non lead, but the wound channel internally through soft tissue and organs is massive. (See attached and my post on field results on non leg/chest shots here:
Peregrine VLR4 non lead terminal performance field update )
I will find a picture of a red stag liver that has to all intents and purposes “shattered”.
It looks like a pumpkin that has been dropped from a height with clean fracture/splits from the wave of pressure that has blown it apart from the inside out as the bullet passes through.
If this wave didn’t work as described then non expanding non lead bullets like Red Moose Tarvas and Woodleigh Hydrostatically Stabilised bullets wouldn’t work and account for thousands of clean kills
For every animal i have chosen to shoot high shoulder with a wound channel specifically designed to pass through both shoulder blades and ideally just under the spine, there are plenty I have shot in a textbook heart/lung through one or both legs, lung - missing legs altogether, HILAR, head, neck
Among them the **** ups, the quartering shots that turned through rumen, the scope windage cock ups that went further back, the elevation misjudgments that clipped sternums.
They all happen.
But none of them were down to the choice of metal in the bullets I use…
Those that were executed perfectly have demonstrated the benefits of an expanding non lead bullet that retains 99.5% of its mass.
Less carcase damage than a like for like shot placement with a lead bullet deisgned to lose 40-60% of it’s mass through abrasion of the lead core when opened up, or a fragmenting bullet designed to break up through material choice or features in design.
Less subcutaneous blood clots and froth.
Less intramuscular bloodclots and bruising (unless you shoot roe deer with a 300wsm….)
Less secondary wound channel damage from fragments doing their own thing.
Less bone fragmentation and splintering causing secondary wound channels.
Less edible carcase damage.
Bone hit with a non fragmenting non lead bullet tends to be pulverised rather than splitter into big chunks that have more momentum to cause damage.
Do you need to use CNS disruption to kill animals cleanly without running with non lead?
No (see link above!)
Does it help with shorter recovery distances and ensure you have no running AT ALL?
Yes..
Is there a negative to pinning shoulders with non lead?
Not to me there isn’t, no.
The last picture is a 130gr .30cal GMX recovered from the neck of a Sika stag shot face on at 66m
Dropped to shot. (not a shock)
Didnt exit. (Mild shock given distance!)
Did it fail to do its job because it didnt exit?
No.
Not my favourite non lead bullet as I have seen and experienced first hand anomalies.
It is still one of the most popular non lead bullets in the world produced in their millions.
Are my 5-10 anomalies relevant?
They are to me.
I found a bullet that worked better for my application.
You don’t need to blow things to bits to get a non lead bullet to work effectively.
If you are guiding anyone I would argue it is the guide’s responsibility to ensure that the shot placement is relevant the range, experience and more importantly, capabilities of the shooter AND the bullet/cartridge/rifle being used.
Anomalies of GMX in the field are well documented.
I wouldn’t be trying to save meat on a shot on a stag that has arguably been paid for by the very nature of you guiding a customer onto it…
To the original question:
Just buy a bullet/round you can find reliably, shoots well in your rifle, go shoot some deer and make your own decisions on whether shooting to drop the animal in its tracks is a better option.
130-150gr in a 30-06 is more than enough to flatten anything in the UK
Chest shooting roe deer avoiding bones will flatten them.
They are not made of Kevlar!
If you have species that have a reputation for not knowing they are dead, shoot them to drop them and regale in the neat clean holes and lack of edible carcase damage.
If it doesnt work once don’t automatically assume its the bullet.
Have the self awareness to look at the other variables.
Look at the internal organs (assuming you haven’t lost the animal!) and deduce what has happened.
Gather a “reasonable” data set before you draw wild conclusions that can be easily refuted by studies involving much larger data sets by organisations who use expanding non lead bullets in their thousands on sox species of UK game before you go overseas and look at 20-25yrs of voluntary use of non lead on game in South Africa …..
Maybe it was you…
I am old enough and ugly enough to put my hand up and say I ****ed up when things go wrong.
I know when its me and when something else went wrong,
which if went far enough back in the process could probably still be attributed to me…
.
