Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Nosler 55 grain Lead Free Ballistic Tips & 243

Was testing the 55 grain Lead Free Ballistic Tips in my Rem ADL in 243.

5 shots gave me A Cloverleaf at 100 yds. ( sorry didn't have the camera with me, so no pics)....

The load was 45 grains of IMR 4895, which turned out to be 1/2 grain higher than listed in my recently received Nosler Manual from Rifles and Recipes, in Townsend Montana...

Federal primers in Remington Brass chronographed at 4150 fps..
This rifle has always performed best at a hair over max charge or loads that are down around 45,000 Psi or less..

Another thing I like about this lead free ballistic tip is that the bullet is as long as the Hornady 75 grain VMax ( or pretty close to it) definitely much longer than the regular 55 grain Ballistic Tip....

That'll be a killer for sure.

The 243 just keeps getting better with all the new variety of bullets.

Anyone know how these bullets perform w/reduced loads? Will they expand at lower velocities?

They worked pretty well with a reduced load of 15 grains of Blue Dot...

thanks for the report
seems that lead free bullets are becoming increasingly common

I know it is dramatic overkill, but I have to try a few of these on some sage rats and see if there is anything left...

I loved that pic that Hemi Allen posted of that one his buddy shot up against a fence with a 22.250.. the fence as a backdrop really helps...

a sage rat and a fence post would be do'able...

All those Nosler BT Lead Free bullets are accurate.

The .204 32 grain Nosler BT Lead Free works excellently in my .204 Ruger with the same load of Rl-10x I use with the Barnes Varmint Grenade. Right at .250" for 10 shots at 100 yards.

Both the Nosler 40 grain BT Lead Free and Barnes 50 grain Varmint Grenade bullets shoot .5" or better in my completely mad Remington 700 swap barrel chambered for the .22-250 Ackley and the .22-250 Remington.

Nosler's .224 40 grain BT Lead free in my .223 Remington varmint rifle (a Savage Target Action home built) shot the best group ever (photo below) and killed everything ground squirrel like out to 250 yards (as far as the terrain allowed). .206" 10 shots group. Barrel is a polygonal rifled Pac-Nor 1:9" twist.



I haven't worked up a load for the Nosler BT Lead Free .243 55 grain bullet yet, because I have a large supply of Barnes 62 grain Varmint Grenades. That bullet in a .243 WSSM chambered 1:8" twist Brux barrel is spectacularly accurate. However the Barnes bullet and many of the other lead free bullets need a faster twist barrel for maximum accuracy.

My latest project, a bolt action Colt M-4 with a Hart 1:9" twist .204 Ruger barrel shoots the little (I mean short and cute as a bug) Hornady 24 grain .204 NTX Lead Free tipped bullet at 3,900 to 4,100 fps with 24.3 - 25.5 grains of AAC LT-32 powder (my experimental load, do not use until Accurate Arms publishes data for this cartridge). Groups are well under .5".

Across the board these lead free compressed powder metal core bullets are very accurate, often out shooting lead core competition bullets.