Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Nickel-plated bullets -is this a good idea?

I've just finished reading an advertisement for this. The ad was for Federal Premium ammo with the new Trophy Bonded Tip bullet.

I've tried tipped bullets, some of them in fact, a long time ago.

One thing I'll say for tipped bullets - expansion is never a problem.

Over-expansion, on the other hand - I have seen from more than one tipped design.

Long before Americans had the chance to try polycarbonate tips. I was using an ammunition brand common in Canada, produced by C.I.L. industries which was called the "Imperial" brand of ammo. The bullets, which were called "Sabertips" were a pretty good bullet - and I liked them - at least on deer. They were sometimes too expanding for my own tastes on larger game though.

I also tried (briefly) Remington Bronze Tips, which were - to my way of thinking - almost "explosive" in their expansion characteristics - and not my cup of tea.

Since then it seems bullet makers have struck a better balance between expansion and penetration with some of the newer tipped bullet designs. I've heard many good things about Hornady Interbonds, Nosler Accubonds and I've been delighted with Barnes new tipped designs.

Now there's a "new kid on the block" - the "Trophy Bonded Tip".I have no problem believing the tip will improve an already good bullet - except for one concern. This new bullet is nickel-plated.

I'm wondering how this will effect barrel wear - and cleaning.Is nickel harder than copper or gilding metal? If it is - will it wear barrels faster? Will it be easy to clean? Is it possible it could cause build-ups of material the way molybdenum can? Will people need to use different brands of cleaners?

I'd like to try this new bullet - but wonder what the rest of you think about my concerns of the nickel-plating and how it might affect things.

Any input, from supposition to actual knowledge - would be appreciated.

I hope it isn't a return to this:


"Cupro-Nickel Metal Fouling Rears Its Ugly Head
http://www.odcmp.org/1101/can.pdf

Almost as soon as the "New Springfield" with the .30-'06 ammunition hit the rifle range, a strange phenomena occurred. The 2700 feet per second was a boon to extreme range, but velocity sometimes is a double-edged sword. It seemed that strange looking lumps began to manifest themselves near the muzzle of the rifles. These lumps proved almost impossible to remove with normal cleaning methods and materials. Vigorous scrubbing with wire brushes and solvent was to no avail! The pesky stuff got worse as you continued to fire the rifle and degraded the accuracy. It was soon discovered that the lumps consisted of small particles of cupro-nickel jacket material. The intense heat and friction generated by the 150-grain .30- '06 bullet traveling at 2700 feet per second were leaving little metallic lumps that, and much like eating bear steak that seems to grow in size the more you chew, the lumps got bigger the more rounds you fired. The initial deposits in the bore continued to gouge the subsequent projectiles fired through the bore shearing off additional deposits of metal - and the problem compounded itself.

Nickel isn't a one size fits all material...It depends on the alloy and how it is applied...pure nickel is slightly harder than copper, but Nickel can be applied as a very hard abrasion resistant coating as well. Gilding metal is harder than copper, that is why it fouls less.

Nickel is a versatile coating. Whatever process they are using would have to be engineered for the specific purpose...probably to reduce fouling of pure copper I would assume...I can't think of any other purpose other than to make it shiny.

If they got it right, no reason why it wouldn't work for what they are trying to achieve. Cleaning/fouling issues would only be known from actual testing results over time to see how they did, and their tested recommendation of compatible bore cleaners.

I think the Nosler E-tip has a lot going for it if you reload and are a 30 cal guy, otherwise the tsx/ttsx is an already tested and proven design available in Federal ammo as well.

TC