Monolithic Ammunition

[Top Spanish Hunting]

There is only one 120gr 30cal Barnes, and that is the "black tip" designed for 300 Blackout. Of course you can use it in 308, but it's designed for BLK. The BC is actually marginally better than 130gr TTSX.

In 110gr there are blacktip and TTSX, both having similar BC but designed to expand at different velocities. Since you mentioned the 120gr I made the assumption that 110gr was also blacktip.

Sorry my fault, meant the black tip yes. the cavity is bigger for better expansion at low velocities as you mentioned. Great bullet for short barrell rifles with supressors like its the case in many 308 rifles.

 

[Heym SR20]

What I struggle to understand is that folk haven’t yet realised that just like with traditional bullet designs there is now huge variation between different monolithic bullet designs.

There is also a huge variation in the animals we hunt. In the UK the smallest we will use a centrefire rifles are crows, rabbits etc., biggest will be large lowland Red Stags weighing 150kgs plus. And we are shooting at all sorts of distances.

A light for calibre bullet will always have a low BC. Short barrelled rifles will only get high muzzle velocities if you dramatically improve speed of powder burn and / raise pressures.

A long for calibre bullet will always have a higher BC, but a ling streamlined shape will always be better that a flat nose. Long bullets will always require a faster twist rate to stabilise. And bullet mass and density is just one factor of its BC and its ability to retain energy.

Terminal performance and whether or not bullet expands on impact to cause sufficient damage is a function of both the design of the bullet, its impact velocity, the toughness of the animal and where it hits the animal.

Coming back to bullet density. Copper is about 80% the density of lead. But a lead cored bulled is very far from being 100% lead. A typical hunting bullet is probably at least 25% copper and in bullets such as partitions, substantially more. In practice a monolithic copper bullet is probably 90% the density of a lead one. The shape of the bullet will have more effect on how it sheds velocity than its density.

Jacketed bullets came about because lead is too soft a material to withstand being shot out of a high velocity rifle. And when it impacted at high velocities it just fragmented.

We very quickly put steel and copper jackets to get penetration. By the 1920’s we had tough multi part bullets with thick copper jackets.

And monolithic bullets have been around since the 1980’s if not before.

 

[Top Spanish Hunting]

What I struggle to understand is that folk haven’t yet realised that just like with traditional bullet designs there is now huge variation between different monolithic bullet designs.

There is also a huge variation in the animals we hunt. In the UK the smallest we will use a centrefire rifles are crows, rabbits etc., biggest will be large lowland Red Stags weighing 150kgs plus. And we are shooting at all sorts of distances.

A light for calibre bullet will always have a low BC. Short barrelled rifles will only get high muzzle velocities if you dramatically improve speed of powder burn and / raise pressures.

A long for calibre bullet will always have a higher BC, but a ling streamlined shape will always be better that a flat nose. Long bullets will always require a faster twist rate to stabilise. And bullet mass and density is just one factor of its BC and its ability to retain energy.

Terminal performance and whether or not bullet expands on impact to cause sufficient damage is a function of both the design of the bullet, its impact velocity, the toughness of the animal and where it hits the animal.

Coming back to bullet density. Copper is about 80% the density of lead. But a lead cored bulled is very far from being 100% lead. A typical hunting bullet is probably at least 25% copper and in bullets such as partitions, substantially more. In practice a monolithic copper bullet is probably 90% the density of a lead one. The shape of the bullet will have more effect on how it sheds velocity than its density.

Jacketed bullets came about because lead is too soft a material to withstand being shot out of a high velocity rifle. And when it impacted at high velocities it just fragmented.

We very quickly put steel and copper jackets to get penetration. By the 1920’s we had tough multi part bullets with thick copper jackets.

And monolithic bullets have been around since the 1980’s if not before.

I suscribe every word of your post. Its true that lead bullets where to soft for some speeds and animals but thats why theres also bonded bullets. the chemical attachment between the lead and copper makes it conserve nearly the same bullet mass after impact with very similar performance (i will say gretaer expansion in bonded and a bit more penetration in monolythic) but the good thing with bonded bullets is that you can play with the width of the jacket and the amount of copper and lead to get bulllets that perfom great at long distances. this with the Monolythic is not possible. i ve seen the guys from ovini shoot with the barnes Long Range (lower density coppper9 at high distances but nothing in compare to the long shoots you can take with bonded lead bullets like the Accubond Long Range. Talking about this bullet great performance and impressive BC I think one of the highest in the market shot them a lot in the 270wsm and took lots of stags with it great performance.
it s important also to say that the coppper bullets are bigger than the lead ones (as lead is heavier) so you need different twist rates to move them appropiately. A 130 grains Barnes may be as big as a 150 grains Lead bullet. Sorry for my English if i make spellling mistakes.

 

[Heym SR20]

I suscribe every word of your post. Its true that lead bullets where to soft for some speeds and animals but thats why theres also bonded bullets. the chemical attachment between the lead and copper makes it conserve nearly the same bullet mass after impact with very similar performance (i will say gretaer expansion in bonded and a bit more penetration in monolythic) but the good thing with bonded bullets is that you can play with the width of the jacket and the amount of copper and lead to get bulllets that perfom great at long distances. this with the Monolythic is not possible. i ve seen the guys from ovini shoot with the barnes Long Range (lower density coppper9 at high distances but nothing in compare to the long shoots you can take with bonded lead bullets like the Accubond Long Range. Talking about this bullet great performance and impressive BC I think one of the highest in the market shot them a lot in the 270wsm and took lots of stags with it great performance.
it s important also to say that the coppper bullets are bigger than the lead ones (as lead is heavier) so you need different twist rates to move them appropiately. A 130 grains Barnes may be as big as a 150 grains Lead bullet. Sorry for my English if i make spellling mistakes.

Have a watch of this video. Plenty of the monolithic bullets work well at long range. The Peregrine Plainmaster is designed to expand at 1600 fps. Personally I have shot to 300m, but prefer under 200m. But with the right cartridge, the right bullet longer, a good rifle and optics longer ranges are perfectly doable. And to tune a monolithic bullet to work well at longer distances is really a matter of a slightly softer material and / or a deeper and wider hole and expansion plug. No need to change any machinery etc. just a few tweeks to the drawings and CNC machine setup.

 

[Rutland lad]

I too found that Barnes had poor expansion at longer range and I now shoot yew tree tlr with one shot kills out to around 500m easily achieved (red and roe deer) in 6.5

I’m fairly sure that any Barnes needs 1500 fps to expand, and I know that in my 300 Winmag that’s around 350m. That’s handy, as I’ve never shot beyond 300m at an animal anyway !

 

[Top Spanish Hunting]

Have a watch of this video. Plenty of the monolithic bullets work well at long range. The Peregrine Plainmaster is designed to expand at 1600 fps. Personally I have shot to 300m, but prefer under 200m. But with the right cartridge, the right bullet longer, a good rifle and optics longer ranges are perfectly doable. And to tune a monolithic bullet to work well at longer distances is really a matter of a slightly softer material and / or a deeper and wider hole and expansion plug. No need to change any machinery etc. just a few tweeks to the drawings and CNC machine setup.

What do you call long range? for me its above 400/500 meters depending on the animal you are shooting. I dont think monolitics work well above those distances, there may be some that "work" and kind of do the job, but even I doubt it...

 

[Heym SR20]

I’m fairly sure that any Barnes needs 1500 fps to expand, and I know that in my 300 Winmag that’s around 350m. That’s handy, as I’ve never shot beyond 300m at an animal anyway !

That’s my challenge with long range shooting, no matter what you use velocities and energy drop away as you get down range. Most would say that a 22 hornet is very marginal on deer even at close range, but by the time you are out to 5 or 600 yards the energy and velocities are down to those sorts of levels. Shot placement is everything, but at those sorts of range natural dispersion of a bullet, wind and minor errors in range estimation and drop or windage compensation can easily take bullet off the vitals. And no bullet, whatever its made from, will the energy to set up a wide shock wave to do organ / blood vessel damage much beyond the path of the bullet.

In other words, at normal ranges the shock wave will mean organs, nerves and blood vessels will damaged both directly by the bullet and by the shock wave - temporary wound cavity which is three or four inches either side. But impact at 600 yards your wound cavity will only be slightly bigger than the diameter of the expanded bullet.

Take an accurate rifle with a good shooter behind it in perfect conditions. It will do a 2cm group at 100. More likely with 10 shots group size will be more 4cm. That’s the natural variability.

Move out to 600, a 2 cm group is now 12cm, a 4cm group is 24cm. Assume your point of aim is middle of vitals, just natural variation in grouping can put your bullet 6 to 12 cm away from point of aim. That’s with perfect conditions, no wind drift, no drop mistakes etc. And flight of bullet a few tenths of a second. An animal can easily move quite a bit during time of flight. And at impact velocities of sub 2,000 fps and 1,000 ft lbs of energy expansion and shock wave is much less than at 2,500fps and 2,000 + ft lbs which you have at 200 yards or metres with most cartridges.

 

[Rutland lad]

I’m sure there’s people who will disagree with me or point out that they ‘have to shoot at 400m+’ and I respect that.
But all of my shooting has been less than 300m, so that’s my personal limit. Could I hit a deer beyond that range ? Probably, but not with certainty. Therefore I wouldn’t chance it. And that’s without even thinking about down range power and if the bullet would still expand etc etc.

 

[Heym SR20]

I’m sure there’s people who will disagree with me or point out that they ‘have to shoot at 400m+’ and I respect that.
But all of my shooting has been less than 300m, so that’s my personal limit. Could I hit a deer beyond that range ? Probably, but not with certainty. Therefore I wouldn’t chance it. And that’s without even thinking about down range power and if the bullet would still expand etc etc.

I am very much with you on this. My personal limit is about 200 and a bit. Fundamentally I don’t want to have to think about adjusting point of aim to compensate for distance etc.

 

[Utectok]

I’m fairly sure that any Barnes needs 1500 fps to expand, and I know that in my 300 Winmag that’s around 350m. That’s handy, as I’ve never shot beyond 300m at an animal anyway !

I looked into this and Barnes no longer quote a terminal velocity for expansion. Most people would say well north of 2000fps to be safe although lrx may work at lower speeds. Yewtree expand/partially fragment at a guaranteed 2000fps which makes my little 6.5x55 lethal to 500m and I’ve killed animals at 450m on occasion. Who needs a win mag lol straight shooting

 

[jthyttin]

Some time ago I put few pics in this thread, what happens with 30cal light Barnes bullets at the expansion threshold and 10% over it:

Cutting down 308

My concern was that of impact velocity. If I am not doing 1,800fps when I hit the deer with a Barnes ttsx 130gn I understand that it potentially will not open. So I need to work out what is the maximum range I can shoot at. That’s when I wonder if my 18” 308 barrel with a 1:11 twist was a mistake.

www.thestalkingdirectory.co.uk

 

[Rutland lad]

I looked into this and Barnes no longer quote a terminal velocity for expansion. Most people would say well north of 2000fps to be safe although lrx may work at lower speeds. Yewtree expand/partially fragment at a guaranteed 2000fps which makes my little 6.5x55 lethal to 500m and I’ve killed animals at 450m on occasion. Who needs a win mag lol straight shooting

I’m interested in that figure for my 6.5x55, but do the Yewtree fragment in normal use? If so then they’re not for me.

 

[Utectok]

I’m interested in that figure for my 6.5x55, but do the Yewtree fragment in normal use? If so then they’re not for me.

The “petals” of yew tree break off and create a large wound channel and the main part of the bullet goes on through. I have never found this a problem. Basically that’s what makes them so great at killing stuff. And three chunky petals of copper usually come out with the gralloch although with a poor shot I have occasionally found one in muscle or bone but always because of a poorly placed shot.

 

[Rutland lad]

The “petals” of yew tree break off and create a large wound channel and the main part of the bullet goes on through. I have never found this a problem. Basically that’s what makes them so great at killing stuff. And three chunky petals of copper usually come out with the gralloch although with a poor shot I have occasionally found one in muscle or bone but always because of a poorly placed shot.

Thanks for that information

 

[Top Spanish Hunting]

That’s my challenge with long range shooting, no matter what you use velocities and energy drop away as you get down range. Most would say that a 22 hornet is very marginal on deer even at close range, but by the time you are out to 5 or 600 yards the energy and velocities are down to those sorts of levels. Shot placement is everything, but at those sorts of range natural dispersion of a bullet, wind and minor errors in range estimation and drop or windage compensation can easily take bullet off the vitals. And no bullet, whatever its made from, will the energy to set up a wide shock wave to do organ / blood vessel damage much beyond the path of the bullet.

In other words, at normal ranges the shock wave will mean organs, nerves and blood vessels will damaged both directly by the bullet and by the shock wave - temporary wound cavity which is three or four inches either side. But impact at 600 yards your wound cavity will only be slightly bigger than the diameter of the expanded bullet.

Take an accurate rifle with a good shooter behind it in perfect conditions. It will do a 2cm group at 100. More likely with 10 shots group size will be more 4cm. That’s the natural variability.

Move out to 600, a 2 cm group is now 12cm, a 4cm group is 24cm. Assume your point of aim is middle of vitals, just natural variation in grouping can put your bullet 6 to 12 cm away from point of aim. That’s with perfect conditions, no wind drift, no drop mistakes etc. And flight of bullet a few tenths of a second. An animal can easily move quite a bit during time of flight. And at impact velocities of sub 2,000 fps and 1,000 ft lbs of energy expansion and shock wave is much less than at 2,500fps and 2,000 + ft lbs which you have at 200 yards or metres with most cartridges.

ia gree to this, but theres hunts where you have to take the shot at 380 meters imagine at an Argali, a very expensive animal ar you using lead or copper? Copper are great bullets for 90% occasions, but for those special hunts lead is my choice without a doubt.

 

[Top Spanish Hunting]

I looked into this and Barnes no longer quote a terminal velocity for expansion. Most people would say well north of 2000fps to be safe although lrx may work at lower speeds. Yewtree expand/partially fragment at a guaranteed 2000fps which makes my little 6.5x55 lethal to 500m and I’ve killed animals at 450m on occasion. Who needs a win mag lol straight shooting

Here in Spain they do say a minimun velocity

 

[ValleyPursuits]

My general rule-of-thumb for minimum effective impact velocity for different type / construction hunting bullets is:
Copper - 2200fps
Bonded lead - 2000fps
Cup n Core lead - 1800 fps
So far it’s worked well for me. Obviously shot placement is critical.
I love Peregrines and shoot them in my 30-06 but I don’t believe that they expand effectively at 1600fps. Likewise Accubond Long Range.
Just as (if not more) important is what happens at high impact velocities - where copper and bonded bullets definitely hold together better and make less of a mess. I would guess that these are the ranges we shoot at 90% of the time (say 200m or less).

 

[Heym SR20]

ia gree to this, but theres hunts where you have to take the shot at 380 meters imagine at an Argali, a very expensive animal ar you using lead or copper? Copper are great bullets for 90% occasions, but for those special hunts lead is my choice without a doubt.

I simply would not take a shot at that range. As I have said earlier, I have taken shots at 300 on live animals, but I really don’t like doing it, and will not do so again. If a guide or outfitter was saying the only way I could shoot an Argali was a 380 metre shot, i would go elsewhere.

 

[Top Spanish Hunting]

My general rule-of-thumb for minimum effective impact velocity for different type / construction hunting bullets is:
Copper - 2200fps
Bonded lead - 2000fps
Cup n Core lead - 1800 fps
So far it’s worked well for me. Obviously shot placement is critical.
I love Peregrines and shoot them in my 30-06 but I don’t believe that they expand effectively at 1600fps. Likewise Accubond Long Range.
Just as (if not more) important is what happens at high impact velocities - where copper and bonded bullets definitely hold together better and make less of a mess. I would guess that these are the ranges we shoot at 90% of the time (say 200m or less).

Totally agree with these. hen you need to play with velocity (caliber & grains).

 

[Top Spanish Hunting]

I simply would not take a shot at that range. As I have said earlier, I have taken shots at 300 on live animals, but I really don’t like doing it, and will not do so again. If a guide or outfitter was saying the only way I could shoot an Argali was a 380 metre shot, i would go elsewhere.

is not that you have to take it, no one forces you. But some animals only appear once and give that one chance, take it or not. Totally respectfull both decisions from my point of view. But in my experience if you go for it, you need lead.