Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Copper bullets.

Is there any reason not to use copper bullets for hunting?

yes and no ,i do like Hammer bullets made of copper and do use some , but i have 1,000`s of lead bullets and lead bullets do work well too.

Provided that you keep the impact velocities above that of reliable expansion……nope! memtb

A couple years ago I got a 308 Win, which was a caliber I never owned. Got the reloading components and began playing with loads. Quit playing when I tried the 130 Gr Barnes TTSX over Varget powder:


Loaded up a bunch of ammo and have been hunting with that load for the last 2 seasons. All the game below fell to that load and all were one shot kills.







I see NO reason to use any other bullet. If your rifle shoots all copper bullets well, and mine does, then use them with confidence.

On the opposite side here. After almost 60 years, I have used conventional bullets, except for a few partitions SPS had on sale for $13 a box. I see no extraordinary use for them except to make my wallet lighter. I found that if one uses conventional bullets within the design parameters of what velocity they were made for, they work quite well with just as good accuracy,if not better. I'd rather spend my money else where. I'd bet more animals have been taken with plain Jane CorLoks than all the copper bullets put together.That tells you some thing right there.

Two things made them popular. People who had magnumitus, as I call it, found conventional bullets do not work at higher velocities and they came to believe the magnums could do more.

The other is is the marketing hype of lead core bullets posing significant health concerns which had been debunked many times with blood test comparing hunters vs non hunters. I believe our local scribe Muledeer posted such findings.

I could post as many photos, if not more, of animals taken with conventional cored bullets that were just as dead. The anti's like them because it throws more road blocks in your way. Funny, many bitch about the government telling us what firearms we may own, but not when they tell us what we have to us in them.

The question I pose is why did you start using them? Laws said you had to? You were looking at lead cor bullets coming apart because you pushed them at 3500 fps?

In “standard” velocity cartridges I don’t think they’re as effective as softer lead cored bullets if you stay off the shoulders. Plus I can see no benefit to them on deer sized game from cartridges producing less than 2800fps.

High velocity magnums they’re easier on meat to some extent. Large game like elk, moose, or something along those lines they often give deeper penetration through heavier bones than a lead cored bullet might.

This is true. I loaded some 168 TTSXs for a friend's .308, they were in the 2,500-ish fps range. He shot a nice bull through the heart at about 60 yards and recovered the bullet.

Aside from the plastic tip being gone, it looked almost like I could have re-loaded it an shot it again. I've seen other similar photos, I think Brad has some.

I live in CA, so I’m forced to use CU bullets for hunting. They work ok except for the 22 lr bullets, but are more expensive.

Unfortunately, other states will probably also require all hunting bullets to be CU too.

They are great, but expensive. They are not necessary, unless your state demands it. I have used them with good results, but the critters I shoot have never known when they were shot with a cheaper bullet.

I load lots of TTSX bullets, no complaints

Are they necessarily better than cup and core bullets? No. Is there any reason not to use them? Sure if your rifle doesn't group them or you don't want to pay for them, don't use them. Is there any reason to use them? Sure if they group well and you want to buy them. Am I trying to convince you to use them? Nope, do whatever you want. I'm just answering the question the OP put forth.

I used conventional copper/lead core bullets for over 45 years. In the late '70s when I rechambered my .30-06 to .30 Gibbs I started shooting Nosler Partitions in it because they stood up better with the higher velocity in larger critters like elk and moose, but I kept using and still use conventional cup/core bullets for my other hunting.

Then, in 2004, I booked an African Cape Buffalo hunt, and I bought a .375 RUM for that hunt. From what I read, the traditional thinking for Cape Buffalo was to use a solid for the first shot followed with soft point bullets. I then read an article or maybe a Barnes ad that said with the TSX bullets you don't need to mix a solid and soft points as the TSX would do it all. So I drank the kool aid and worked up a load with 300 grain TSX bullets. They worked great on everything that I shot on that trip from my Chobe Bushbuck to my Buffalo.

In subsequent hunts with that rifle I switched to 270 grain TSX bullets because they shot a little flatter and Buffalo weren't on my menu.

Then a couple of years ago I booked an Alaskan Brown Bear hunt and wanted to use my .375 RUM, but couldn't find any 270 or 300 grain TSX bullets, but was able to buy a couple of boxes of 281 grain Hammer bullets, and worked up a load with them for that trip.

Ever since the late '60s when I started big game hunting, I've admired and wanted a .300 Weatherby rifle. In 2009 I finally fulfilled that dream and bought a Vanguard chambered in .300 Wby. So 'new rifle, new bullets' and because I had had good results with TSX bullets in my .375 RUM, I decided to load them in my .300 Wby.

I started with 165 gr TSX bullets and used them on a few hunts, then tried 165 gr TTSX bullets and found them to be slightly more accurate in my rifle, so I used them on some more hunts.

Then in 2017 I booked a hunt for Dagestan Tur in Azurbaijan and I wanted to use my .300 Wby. I also upgraded my scope on that rifle to a Leupold VX 3i 4.5-14x 40 with their CDS turret system that allowed me to send Leupold the ballistic data for the bullet that I would be using and they would send me a turret specifically for that load. Since I built that .300 Weatherby primarily for elk hunting, and for many years my favorite elk bullet weighed 180 grains, and that Roy Weatherby made the .300 Wby to primarily shoot 180 grain bullets, I decided to work up a load with 180 gr TTSX bullets.

On the next to the last evening of my Tur hunt, 2 rams/billies fed out into the basin that we were in. I ranged them at 327 yards, set my turret to that distance, fired, and when he quit tumbling at the bottom of that valley, the bullet entrance hole was as close to my aim point as if I had set the bullet there.

I continue to shoot cup and core bullets in my other hunting rifles, but I only hunt with mono copper bullets in my .375 RUM and .300 Weatherby rifles.

While we’re sharing experiences……. here’s ours. My wife and I have limited experience with monos, using them exclusively since the early ‘90’s 😉 …..with zero failures. We have both taken game from inside of 30 yards to excess of 400 yards…..that’s pretty good performance!

I have had numerous failures with cup and core bullets on smallish big game animals at far less than 3000 fps. Yes they killed the animals, well all but one…..but the bullets failed to exit (these were medium bore, heavy for caliber bullets) that completely disintegrated inside the animal. Another gave the old textbook “classic” mushroom, recovered under the hide on the offside of a small elk, giving a nice wide frontal area retaining only 60% of it’s original weight. The elk was shot broadside behind the shoulder, hitting only a rib. Yes, the bullet killed…..but time, the bullet was a standard weight bullet fired from a medium bore rifle.

Perhaps I expect more from my bullets than many people. But, if my bullet from a medium bore rifle completely disintegrate or expand yet fail to exit from small to normal sized big game, with broadside hits…..I consider these “FAILED” bullets! memtb

Whitetail deer are only 12” wide through the brisket and the 140 grain TSX from my 7mm-08 made for a tidy carcass with less blood shot than I was seeing with the c&c Core-Lokt or Interlock bullets. A quarter size hole through both lungs instead of the normal lung mush should have warned me that those TSX’s were not expanding well enough and it cost me a lost buck the next season. The tipped TTSX may have solved that problem, but Ballistic Tips have opened faster and resulted in faster humane kills for me.

I use both and prefer conventional even though I killed game with both, in my experience convention cup and core and especially Partitions kill quicker.

I've been impressed so far with the performance of copper bullets on deer. I found some petals from Hammer Hunters, and blue plastic tips from Barnes ttsx or LRX. Never found a core, shank or mushroom from any copper bullet. All the deer had exist wounds and some through both shoulders. So far I never could come up with a reason not to use copper bullets.

You never will find a core because they don't have a core.

It all boils down to what one wants.

I have no experience with the monos, I don't want experience with em either.

Cup n core lead kills very fast for me, I see a lot written on how a mono bullet tends to not put game down as quickly, especially in smaller bores.

No thanks, I want an animal down fast, preferably instant but a 25 yard run is acceptable. When death runs get longer than that I didn't do my part with shot placement.

I don't need to shoot a railroad spike tough bullet on a 250# animal.

Perhaps they don’t work well with “immature” 😁 calibers…..the smallest cartridge we use (wife) is a .338 WM. The .338 has been very effective for her!

Having taken everything from Fox/coyote to moose with my rifle/cartridge, with very (very) few follow-up shots……I’m pretty pleased with the monos performance! memtb

this was my first year shooting animals with copper bullets and i used a 25 caliber bullet at 3680 fps 103 gr. Hammer bullets this bullet worked well and was very accurate . i got a bang flops so far , on purpose at this large whitetail buck at 125 yards right on the shoulder he was standing there i had the rifle on a rest was a bang flop too ,i was unable to find bullet weather condition was a snow blizzard 15 minutes after buck went down ,we got 14 inches of snow that day below zero weather. we plan on using Hammer bullets next year too . but to be honest 100 gr. Nosler Partitions or Swift A-Frames have work as well in the past 20 some years too. i just like loading other types and brand bullets for fun that`s what a Loony does .