Tim Pilbeam Copper Bullet Test Data

[stevenedwards]

I am finding these considered observations very interesting and relevant. Carry on gentlemen.
Careful thought is given to bullet type and construction what about caliber selection. Does the "ideal" caliber need re thinking to get the best out of non lead bullets or do we wait for further developments in projectile design first. Is 6.5 the new 6.0 etc etc ?

 

[Edinburgh Rifles]

Very interesting post @Edinburgh Rifles. A lot of stuff to agree with and some stuff not so much.


This statement brings the @Virtus Precision UK and @Yew Tree Fieldsports fragmenting designs squarely into focus. Is some copper in the carcass really a serious issue? Is this being communicated anywhere important, or a personal opinion?


This is the critical issue for me because all the experience we have gathered to date clearly demonstrates that non-fragmenting, low expansion copper bullets are very poor killers at the ranges we must shoot due to our topography and control obligations.


I’ve shot an awful lot of deer and goats at very very close range with the ELD-X, both 6.5mm and .308, and not one of them has ever taken more than a step! Instant lights out! In saying that I can’t think of a single case where the bullet has exited in those circumstances. Same with the Speer BTSP, ELD-M, A-Max, GameKing. All of these bullets perform equally well at 400m. I use the Speer BTSP as an all purpose bullet in my .308 and have absolute confidence that anything that gets hit by this bullet inside 400m is going to die very quickly.


There seems to be a reluctance amongst a fair proportion of deer stalkers to change their shot placement from the traditional crease / heart shot to the shoulder, primarily for carcass quality considerations. Consequently we read stories of long runners and lost deer with copper bullets. What we have found with Barnes bullets (TSX, TTSX, LRX) on red deer is anything behind the shoulder (broadside) is a high risk of a long runner or lost deer; it’s vital to get full damage in the front of the chest cavity either by a broadside shoulder shot, or a raking shot that passes through the thorax sufficiently well forward. But our favoured quartering away shot is high risk with Barnes at the ranges we are used to shooting, they seemed to be prone to deflection sharply away from the line of flight, which isn’t something I encounter with soft lead bullets.


I’ve never, ever experienced anything other than gaping great big exit wounds with ELD-M or it’s immediate predecessor the A-Max. These bullets are a highly favoured long-range hunting bullet. So I’m not sure what we’re doing different but I can’t agree with this, even rear lung shots are dramatically injurious.


I shoot 143gr ELD-X in 6.5mm at 2,800fps routinely out to 500m. I don’t see anomalies at that range. What I see is reliable terminal performance and a remarkably high percentage of bang flops. The anomalies start at around 650m on a calm day where you can be reasonably sure wind isn’t a factor. So in impact velocity terms, sub 2,000fps. That is specifically with the 6.5 mm.

The flipside to that is that the same bullet design in heavy .30 cal design (200, 212, 220gr) is incredibly effective at much lower impact velocities, tested down to sub 1,600fps impacts from carbine bush rifles. Gaping great big exit holes.


Can’t argue with that logic. But the threshold at which I feel it is necessary for me in my conditions is over double yours. I’m only interested in magnum cartridges for proper long-range shooting, so 600m++. Hence the use of various options available… 28 Nosler, .300 WSM being the current options.


Up until recently I would’ve wholeheartedly agreed with you. All the evidence produced so far for non-lead bullets that claim to be effective at “very long range”, as one of them is named, has been entirely unconvincing. But now we have other options starting to germinate and I think it is only a matter of time before we have fragmenting non-lead bullets with high ballistic coefficient that have the potential to be extremely effective killers at all ranges. This I am sure it will be work in progress over the next year.


Agreed, but it matters an awful lot to the remainder, who take this kind of thing very seriously.


The great thing about this subject is there is a lot of innovation happening behind the scenes to close the gaps in copper bullet performance, cost and availability. You can guarantee someone is going to get it right at some point soon, and the rest will follow. Much of it will depend upon some of the owner/designers that have been around for awhile coming to terms with the competition and realising they need to continue innovating to stay relevant. It’s inevitable there will be some casualties along the way. All very interesting and lots to look forward to.

What is the driver to use non lead in NZ?
Environmental?
How much of what you shoot goes into the retail food chain?

The food standards drive here does mean the copper fragments in a carcase are also a negative.
Retailers don’t want foreign matter in any food products whether it be dirt in vegetables, sand on/in shellfish/seafood, everything grown or caught is rigorously cleaned to within an inch of its life..

The fact that fragments of lead also happen to be a persistent heavy metal and a known toxin don’t help the argument that it must be an essential part of the process of wild meat production.

Just taking the copper chemical characteristics and toxicity as a comparison is not going to give retailers much confidence that it is suddenly less of an issue.

We all know the incidence of loss of brain function/poisoning/death through eating lead shot game/venison is not only going to be a very small number but difficult to prove and largely irrelevant.

But it doesn’t matter. Its a poisin.
There is NO KNOWN SAFE BLOOD level in humans.

But using a known toxin with a tendency to fragment and travel significant distances from the shot site in the carcase is never going to be widely received by processors and retailers.
That statement applies to ANY food and ANY toxin/heavy metal.

If you don’t out them in the food chain and the land owner/operator does not require use of non lead then there really is nothing to get excited about.

 

[User00033]

What is the driver to use non lead in NZ?
Environmental?
How much of what you shoot goes into the retail food chain?

No environmental driver. Simply because this stuff is very interesting. And who knows, if we get more years of Labour / Green, we might get some unenforceable ridiculousness too.

We are not allowed to put any of the animals we shoot into the retail food chain. Only farmed venison is permitted. The pet food processors will accept our carcasses but that has become a fairly onerous proposition over time.

Slight veer off topic. I’ve read a fair bit on here about what’s going on in the Highlands with deer culling, but can’t pretend to know the first thing about the reality of what’s what other than a few weeks of talking to knowledgeable people in Scotland a couple of years ago. Fact is if you fellas came over here now and got onto private land and could see the hordes of red deer marauding over the farms and in and out of the small DOC reserves, you’d be farkin’ flabbergasted. Red deer are totally out of control in the North Island… and it is coming… the big government funded cull. Helicopter gunships, teams of expert indicating dog led ground shooters, incentives to the landowners to fling lead like it’s Operation Desert Sabre.

So blokes like me get to shoot a shed load of deer - much of which is to waste - and there’s room for a bit of experimentation along the way. Filming this is arduous and frankly irritating, but on occasion worthwhile. But filming the fails and then putting them on websites like this, well, are you willing to go there? Deer staggering around and getting away? I could, right now, just to prove a point, but I have a fairly good idea of how the forum owners would receive that. It’s not really on.

In time I am cautiously optimistic that we’ll be able to put together a body of work that can go on YouTube and be informative without creating a massive spazz for all the armchair stalkers and Packhams and the like. But I will say this… Nathan Foster made his point about swaged copper bullets long ago. And he was right. For what we do here, in our local terrain, they are entirely inappropriate, design wise. In the woods nice and close? No problem. But I firmly believe that there is enough know how to do better, maybe that mythical “all ranges” copper bullet design will eventuate? There’s no harm done in finding out, that’s for sure.