Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Lead free bullet 7mm

Looking for a lead free bullet for my 7mm mashburn. Has to work for deer to maybe even moose sized game. Most commonly elk sized game. I’m thinking that I’d like to stay between 145 and 168 grains. What is your pick.

Get some140 or 150 Barnes TTSX. They work really well in my 7 mags and 7mm ultra mag.

www.hammerbullets.com

Great product and guys there. Call and ask for Steve.

Check out Cutting Edge Bullets for their Raptor line. Those are expensive but work well.

Agree with TTSX, also look at E-Tip and GMX.

DF

Barnes TSX or GSCustom. In my experience and opinion the GMA is OK, but they lose their petals and the exists I’ve gotten with them have been smaller than what I normally get with TSX or TTSX. The GSCustom Bullets in the lighter weights driven fast enough will also blow the petals off.

The current thinking with those manufacturers is to design the bullets that way...with a more fragile front end to enable more consistent expansion over a wider velocity range, and with intentional petal loss to increase internal damage as it travels through the body cavity and with a resultant smaller frontal area to better insure complete penetration... it works...it's all good.

I haven’t been impressed with damage caused by loosing the petals, in fact I haven’t seen any real indication that they add anything.

You are not among that group then...

Velocity and range are important factors, and also the nature of the intended game. A more fragile front end tends to be more fragile at higher impact speeds. At a lower velocity, too tough or too slow and they won't open at all.

The point is to insure that the bullet expands...as long as the combination of factors enable any of the monos to expand the end result should be ok.

I’ll leave all the petal shedding bullets for you. I’ve found petals at the entrance hole, I mean right at th3 hole. Right at the impact area.

Chest shot hogs usually run.

I chest shot this young sow (on purpose) with a 135 gr. Raptor out of a .308. Not 7mm, but the concept is the same. The bullet missed the spine, but the petals tore it up. DRT. And those bullets are accurate.

DF

Entrance and exit, I get that with TTSX and TSX bullets and a lot of DRT with chest hits. I don’t see the big deal, nor the so called damage by the losss of petals. Color me unimpressed.

Well that doesn't sound good...but assuming you examined the wound on a dead animal...things could be worse.

Hammer now makes three different lines with different degrees of terminal weight retention characteristics to accommodate folks with different ideas about what works best with the round they are shooting.

So I'm not 100% in that group either, but I think it's great to have more choices available to be able to dial in terminal performance to the range and caliber you are shooting.

I always check wound channels and depth penetration. TSX or TTSX bullets leave wound channels through the vitals that look like a ledger went through them in my experience

Speed kills, as they say.

TTSX plus speed can be devastating. Here's a pig hit by a 120 E-Tip (very similar to TTSX) out of a 26 Nosler at 3,450 fps.

I like to try balancing bullet design with velocity. Monos reportedly don't have a velocity ceiling. But, I've had less than good results on WT's with low S.D. TTSX at hyper-velocity. Probably OK on 'yotes, etc.

I don't like to use monos with a S.D. below .200 in high velocity rounds, such as the 80 gr. TTSX at 3,600 fps out of a .240 Wby. So, in practical application, I think monos do have a functional velocity ceiling on WT's, etc., which is S.D. sensitive.

DF