Copper bullets - the limitations

[CarlW]

I was answering your point about ranges rarely extended due to most of FLS deer being shot at night.

FC England don't use Lead bullets and they haven't got any night licenses. They cull quite a lot of deer too.

FC England are not shooting anywhere near the numbers of deer that FLS are, hence - I imagine - why Sharpie cited FLS.

 

[User00040]

I think much of the testing has been done already. The Kiwi's shoot 300m to 600m day in day out, have tested the monolithincs including Barnes extensively and will not touch the them with a barge pole because the terminals are so poor compared with the lead bullets they are already using. Not entirely sure they will perform differently in the UK than they will in NZ, unless of course we don't believe those Antipodean cowboys and we need to do it all for ourselves.

+1

If you need it dead, use lead.

If you want minimal meat damage, then go with copper.

If you want to control (and I don't mean 'manage' for heads and profit) wild deer numbers, meat damage is a secondary consideration.

 

[User00040]

I was answering your point about ranges rarely extended due to most of FLS deer being shot at night.

FC England don't use Lead bullets and they haven't got any night licenses. They cull quite a lot of deer too.

FC England are not shooting anywhere near the numbers of deer that FLS are, hence - I imagine - why Sharpie cited FLS.

Let's have some old yet publicly available data on the table, I know this is an internet forum and things should be left to conjecture and hyperbole but I like to annoy with facts.



From this document: https://forestryandland.gov.scot/im...ement-on-scotlands-national-forest-estate.pdf

 

[StephenToast]

FC England are not shooting anywhere near the numbers of deer that FLS are, hence - I imagine - why Sharpie cited FLS.

I wouldn't know how many but it's bound to be a decent enough amount to be a good sample size surely.

 

[CarlW]

I wouldn't know how many but it's bound to be a decent enough amount to be a good sample size surely.

I have no idea. Not my citation.

 

[CarlW]

Let's have some old yet publicly available data on the table, I know this is an internet forum and things should be left to conjecture and hyperbole but I like to annoy with facts.

View attachment 197161

From this document: https://forestryandland.gov.scot/im...ement-on-scotlands-national-forest-estate.pdf

According to that chart, only approx. 20% were night-shot back then. Happy to be corrected if there are any modern data, but I'll wager it's more than double that now...

 

[User00040]

According to that chart, only approx. 20% were night-shot back then. Happy to be corrected if there are any modern data, but I'll wager it's more than double that now...

Data is there if FOI requests are made, I believe the SGA have made several in the past and someone at their office may even have a figure for you.

 

[CarlW]

Data is there if FOI requests are made, I believe the SGA have made several in the past and someone at their office may even have a figure for you.

There is a reason (other than being Scottish) that all rangers and contractors are so terribly pale...

 

[Sharpie]

According to that chart, only approx. 20% were night-shot back then. Happy to be corrected if there are any modern data, but I'll wager it's more than double that now...

You can't learn anything much from that Scottish data without also knowing what the total number of deer was that they shot. In and out of season, by day and by night. In 2013/14. Which is not there.

If it was you could hazard a guess as to what proportion of the total was shot at night. Which will be rather less than those meaningless percentages.

But who cares. All that we can safely say is that, in 2013/14, the Scots culled 5665 deer at night. of which 60% were Roe. Probably using lead.

Steven Toast says that FCE do not have night licences. Which no one as yet has contradicted.

All rather irrelevant to this thread, and for those of us who do not have night licenses.

 

[CarlW]

You can't learn anything much from that Scottish data without also knowing what the total number of deer was that they shot. In and out of season, by day and by night. In 2013/14. Which is not there.

If it was you could hazard a guess as to what proportion of the total was shot at night. Which will be rather less than those meaningless percentages.

But who cares. All that we can safely say is that, in 2013/14, the Scots culled 5665 deer at night. of which 60% were Roe. Probably using lead.

Steven Toast says that FCE do not have night licences. Which no one as yet has contradicted.

All rather irrelevant to this thread, and for those of us who do not have night licenses.

I didn't get my 20% from those (I agree meaningless) percentages. I took the total shot under the lamp in that chart and approximated it against the total shot on the NFE for the nearest (but not the same) year, for which data appeared inside Caber's attachment.

However, all of those numbers are now hopelessly out of date. Thermal has changed Scottish forestry significantly in the meantime.

 

[Sharpie]

Actually, if you look on page 33 of Caberslash's link, you will see that they reported that 30,111 deer were culled on the NFE in 2013/14. Whether all of those were by FLS people isn't clear. But lets say that they were. That means that the 5,665 shot at night were 19% of the total. So your shot in the dark was spot-on. Maybe that number will be higher nowadays.

Now, how much did they sell the usable carcasses for ?

But what about more recent numbers ?

So I looked at the 2020 publication by the Deer Working group. The management of wild deer in Scotland: Deer Working Group report - gov.scot

Page 41 refers.

For the last data, 2017/18 it was 135,715

Now make a wild guess that FLS were still bagging about 30% of the total cull. That would mean that they were taking 40,552 in 2017/18 That is an awful lot of deer by anyone's standards. Not sure if they were converted to lead-free then, but they are now.

Whoever they get their ammo from, that might be a tempting contract to bid for, even if they are only paying say £1 for each round, that's still about £41,000 in total. I don't think that's an unreasonable figure, considering that HPS can make target ammo with a similarly priced bullet and retail it for £1.10 including VAT.

How much profit could you make supplying that, well probably not very much really. But up the price a bit and it starts to look very interesting. And you could easily fulfil it from your spare room with a basic progressive press, its only 112 rounds/day averaged over a year. Crank up with say a Dillon 750 that might do 500 per hour and you could theoretically complete the order in 82 hours.

Here is a snap. And observe the upward trend in total cull numbers.

 

[Sharpie]

Oh, and here is one of my favourite bullet porn vids of all time, from 2009.

The relevance ? well watch what they were filming at a meelion frames/sec, at about 5.5 minutes in. Now that, clearly is not a lead bullet, perhaps you might even recognise it. Fascinating to see how it opens up in the gelatine.

Buy their latest camera today (pocket money for some on here, perhaps), some intense lighting, and you could film at over two million frames/sec).

Get it here: https://www.kurzzeit.com/v_files/datasheet-photron-fastcam-sa-z-en.pdf

Who were Kurtzheitt doing this lovely filming for, and with such excellently chosen music/lyrics, I wonder. I could hazard a guess that is was not for a civilian customer.

 

[CarlW]

Actually, if you look on page 33 of Caberslash's link, you will see that they reported that 30,111 deer were culled on the NFE in 2013/14. Whether all of those were by FLS people isn't clear. But lets say that they were. That means that the 5,665 shot at night were 19% of the total. So your shot in the dark was spot-on. Maybe that number will be higher nowadays.

Now, how much did they sell the usable carcasses for ?

But what about more recent numbers ?

So I looked at the 2020 publication by the Deer Working group. The management of wild deer in Scotland: Deer Working Group report - gov.scot

Page 41 refers.

For the last data, 2017/18 it was 135,715

Now make a wild guess that FLS were still bagging about 30% of the total cull. That would mean that they were taking 40,552 in 2017/18 That is an awful lot of deer by anyone's standards. Not sure if they were converted to lead-free then, but they are now.

Whoever they get their ammo from, that might be a tempting contract to bid for, even if they are only paying say £1 for each round, that's still about £41,000 in total. I don't think that's an unreasonable figure, considering that HPS can make target ammo with a similarly priced bullet and retail it for £1.10 including VAT.

How much profit could you make supplying that, well probably not very much really. But up the price a bit and it starts to look very interesting. And you could easily fulfil it from your spare room with a basic progressive press, its only 112 rounds/day averaged over a year. Crank up with say a Dillon 750 that might do 500 per hour and you could theoretically complete the order in 82 hours.

Here is a snap. And observe the upward trend in total cull numbers.

View attachment 197171

They have always made a loss (averaged out) on every deer shot, as they paid contractors a fixed price per dead deer, irrespective of species. They then partially mitigated that loss through venison sales. That may now have changed since the contracts were negotiated at an aggregated level, but I don't know.

Anecdotally, night-shooting (therefore short-range and within the copper performance-envelope) has increased significantly over the past decade. I remember first demonstrating an early FLIR thermal to an FLS (then FCS) ranger-manager back then when we were out lamping. A year later and the whole game had changed to TI.

I don't think FLS supply ammunition to contractors (who do the bulk of the heavy-lifting) but they will do to rangers. Your new Scotland Copper Inc. will therefore need to address a more fragmented ( ) market than the numbers indicate on first blush.

Incidentally, your upward trend in total cull numbers is part of the urban SNP's campaign to demonise Scottish deer, undermine the estates, and plant trees and windmills across a newly-rewilded () and free Caledonia.

 

[Foxyboy43]

I couldn’t give a rats arse is they expand at 1600fps I shot 86 animals from a batch of 100 home loads and they all rolled over lovely admittedly 30-06 at sensible ranges up to 200-250 with a sensible speed, I never load hot loads

I load bullets to kill deer in a factory rifle that has constantly shot bug hole groups with what ever I feed it.

ok my experience does not follow the science and all that Horlicks!

worry less about what happens over 350-400 yard and load them up and kill the bloody things.

Amen!

 

[CarlW]

Oh, and here is one of my favourite bullet porn vids of all time, from 2009.

The relevance ? well watch what they were filming at a meelion frames/sec, at about 5.5 minutes in. Now that, clearly is not a lead bullet, perhaps you might even recognise it. Fascinating to see how it opens up in the gelatine.

Buy their latest camera today (pocket money for some on here, perhaps), some intense lighting, and you could film at over two million frames/sec).

Get it here: https://www.kurzzeit.com/v_files/datasheet-photron-fastcam-sa-z-en.pdf

Who were Kurtzheitt doing this lovely filming for, and with such excellently chosen music/lyrics, I wonder. I could hazard a guess that is was not for a civilian customer.

Yes. I have seen that before. It is incredibly beautiful...and slightly melancholic. A ballistic opera.

Incidentally, I remember a client showing me his 'promo-video' for (IIRC) the Spearfish torpedo, developed down near Portsmouth. He appeared to have just strapped a video-camera on to the front of the thing then fired it at a scrap vessel somewhere out in the Atlantic. Still pretty cool though...

 

[JTO]

Wouldn't bismuth or one of the other premium replacements used in shotgun shells do the job? Might be pricey but worth it! Use cheaper stuff for practice and varmints.
I know nothing

Is there a bullet made like a Nosler Partition with a heavier-than-lead material in the back end? TSS material is the one I am thinking about.

 

[CarlW]

Is there a bullet made like a Nosler Partition with a heavier-than-lead material in the back end? TSS material is the one I am thinking about.

If one can get past its hardness (as in matrix shot), like you @JTO, I do keep my fingers crossed that tungsten powder might help us at some point.

 

[JTO]

If one can get past its hardness (as in matrix shot), like you @JTO, I do keep my fingers crossed that tungsten powder might help us at some point.

Would hardness matter? The back end of partition bullets, according to the pictures, stays in one piece. I have never used them!

 

[sauer]

Do the Forestry land Scotland use thermal scopes ?
or just spotters?
If they do use scopes how does they get around legislation ?

Paul

 

[CarlW]

Would hardness matter? The back end of partition bullets, according to the pictures, stays in one piece. I have never used them!

I guess that if they are hard they will behave explosively? But, I don't know.