Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Copper bullets.

Comprehension has nothing to do with my post. Simply put you are full of BS.

I prosecess mine and I kill them with COPPER bullets and your claims do not meet the smell tests.


We have a 6 deer 🦌 limit here and I seldom use Amy bullets that isn't copper

Now I hope your Comprehension can comprehend

TheKid;
Morning sir or at least it's still a foggy morning here in southern BC, regardless I trust you and your fine family are well.

With the understanding that all my comments on monometal bullets are based on results on local whitetail and mulie bucks only, I'd offer some of our observations.

In about 2008 when the girls had just started hunting I'd been experimenting with monometal bullets enough that we switched to them exclusively. We've used Barnes TSX, TTSX and Hornady GMX in a few different rifles. Also as other respondents have stated, we process all our own game so that helps form opinions on what the bullet did inside the animal.

As well as velocity, I believe that the bullet RPM affects how well monometal bullets do or do not open up. We've seen this in a Swede carbine which only pushes a 130gr TSX to 2650fps but we've not had a single buck stop one. A couple were what we'd consider fairly far away, but since we weren't using a range finder all ranges are estimates only.

Apologies for those who've seen this photo before, here are 3 of the 4 monometal bullets we've found. Left to right they are a .257" 80gr TTSX from a .250AI, .277" 130gr GMX from a .270 and a .308" 168gr TSX from a .308 Norma. The 168gr TSX traveled the furthest through the animal.



Somehow I lost a photo of a .277" 130gr TTSX out of the same .270 and it's interesting to note that we found two bullets out of it and that it had a slower than usual twist barrel as well as being a somewhat "slow" barrel so they were maybe 2850fps and slow RPM from it's 11.75" twist barrel.

On perfect broadside shots if one avoids the shoulders, I'd say that a cup and core will kill a buck quicker than a monometal.

If somehow one botches up the first shot and the only shot one has on the wounded animal is either rear facing or quartering away where we'll need to plow through the grass bag first is where the monometal bullets shine.

There's a whole bunch of reasons here where we'll want to stop the animal where its standing, mostly because we're in the cliffs - we're always hunting mountains here but some places obviously are big swamps or valleys. The plus for us is it's all public land so there's typically nothing other than time and the mountain in the way of us tracking down something we hit.

I will admit that sometimes that has been enough that we have not found what has been hit, but where it was hit is impossible to know for sure.

Lastly as you said, they're "easier on meat to some extent" in that there aren't as many secondary wounds that we'll see when lead goes into different places.

I'd say as a broad statement that the wound channel is longer with a monometal but usually smaller in diameter.

Anyways sir, that's been our experience with them thus far - again on whitetail and mulie bucks only.

All the best to you all.

Dwayne

On average a cup and core probably has a slight advantage on straight rib cage shot. But i shot a deer this year with a 180 TTSX straight rib cage and the deer went half a body length. That's rather good in my opinion

Very well written 👍 ! Thanks! memtb

BC30cal is an excellent writer and has accurate info

Dwayne,

In a world that has become increasingly uncivil, especially in regard to differing opinions, I always enjoy reading your posts. They're always based in real world experience and are presented without the intent to provoke offense. You're also not unduly offended when someone disagrees with you.

I hope you have an excellent day and that you and your family are well. I'll look forward to your next post.

Frank

Darn big cat. Congratulations.

Stop it SS.
Although I’m probably more unhappy than you about Colorado being invaded by lifestyle immigrants and their politics, the science behind lead toxicity, the levels of lead toxicity in raptors, and the effect of lead toxicity on raptors, is sound.
No different than the lead shot debate 35+ years ago. Deja Vu all over again…..

Yea your the man........NOT.

Reasons to:
Health concerns
Your gun shoots them well
Your shots stay mostly under 500 ish yards give or take

Reasons not to:
Your rifle lacks the speed needed to make them expand
Lousy BC’s
You shoot/hunt long range
You like lead in your pencil

Maybe raptors and water fowl, but not humans. As far as I know birds grind their food in he gizzards. Not so with humans. Lead dust in your lungs will kill you. Not so much, lead particles ingested and passed thru the intestines. I have stacked tons of lead shot and bricks for radiation shielding and have eaten lead killed rabbits, squirrels, elk deer, antelope, drank water from lead pipes when young. Many cities still deliver water in lead pipes, (Colorado Springs being one of them), many homes still have soldered copper pipe in them. Asbestos is killing me, but not lead. Only have to do a simple search of hunters
using lead bullets to see there is no viable proof. Here is one such article. https://www.themeateater.com/hunt/f...ldlife-separating-science-from-advocacy. Another farce brought on by the anti's, about like gas stoves being dangerous now.

Dwayne,
I too always appreciate your posts!

I have a couple friends who I call “copper loonys” and they have been using copper bullets almost exclusively for more than a decade. Mostly out of SA chamberings. Whenever they can draw a tag they often hunt two or more states each fall.

They have come to like the E Tips for performance on game, although they think the ETips can be a bit more picky when developing loads.

Thanks. 46 inches from nose to the tip of the tail. Biggest bobcat I have ever seen.

For all those saying that copper bullets do not expand I'd like you to look at this photo. That is the exit wound on a pronghorn buck shot with a 130 gr Barnes TTSX loaded with Varget Powder for a velocity of 2896 fps (per the Barnes data) and it cut an exit hole bigger than a 50 cent piece. Bullet hit the lower lungs and the top of the heart. Both lungs were shredded and the heart was completely detached from the arteries and veins at the top. What more can you ask for?

Lol……!

My only reason for not shooting copper full time is the amount & comfort I have for c&c or partitions. If I were starting over I’d go copper 100%

LMAO 😆 , you are the only one claiming that they don't open and don't inflict major damage

As Smokepole referenced, I've had at least three mono failures (by "failure" I mean non-expansion), and combining friends experiences that number goes into the dozens. Mono's do "fail" more consistently than standard bullets. However, as I've gotten older, and hopefully a bit more thoughtful, I've come around to the thinking expressed by Ben and Casey above. The science is "in" and is essentially irrefutable. If you like staring at silica below ground level, go for it - I'll take the science.

Having said all that, all things being equal, I am fairly certain lead/copper bullets kill more quickly and consistently than mono bullets. OTOH, dead is dead even if a dozen yards further. If I were younger and starting out I'd run mono's in everything. Since I have thousand's of lead/copper bullets on hand and am over 60 years old, I doubt I'll change what I do.

Mono's are the future and rightfully so.

Oh really, why don't you PM a member here named Brad, for starters.

I don't need to PM Brad I kill more deer per year, since we a 6 deer limit. I posted that already

How much is needed? Below is a LRX I dug out of the ground after a hundred yard rib shot on a deer. MV was a sedate 2675 fps. Exit wound indicated it expanded before hitting terra firma.