Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting School me on lead-free bullets

I am probably suffering a little bit of paranoia from getting older, but I am kicking around switching to lead-free bullets. I'm primarily a bow hunter but still like to rifle hunt for mule deer and antelope. Most of my shots are less than 500 yards and so I am thinking of switching over to lead-free bullets. What are the best ones for reaching out to 500 yards? I have looked into Barnes TTSX, Nosler e-Tips, Hornady GMX and Hammer bullets. But like trying to compare anything on the internet, there really isn't a front runner that I can find. I'd like to hear some first hand experience from guys who have used these bullets. Thanks.

All the copper and copper alloy lead-free bullets I know of will expanse very well at IMPACT speeds of 2000 and faster. NONE I have used, tested or seen used will expand very much at lower speeds, and most don't open up at all at impacts lower then 1750. They are not the best for very long ranges unless you start them out REAL fast.

So the best bullet is one that will come from your rifle and IMPACT at 2000 FPS or faster. You need to tell us what you call long range.
I don't use them all that much, but I have had very good results when I have.

That as good as anyone is going to able to advise you, because you told us nothing about the rifle and caliber you are going to use.

I shoot to 1200 yards for fun quite often. I can shoot to 450 yards from my front door, and if I go down on the neighbors land (he's told me I can any time I like) I can fire to 900. To shoot past 900 I need to drive about 15 minutes.
So I have some degree of skill at hitting targets that are quite a ways out.
BUT I refuse to shoot at game past 500 meters.
Why?
There is no reason to. But I can think of about 10 reasons not to.
I can EASILY get within 500 meters. Anyone that can call themselves a hunter can too.

And to address your vary 1st point:
I would say I believe you are correct about the possibility of getting a bit paranoid. The lead scare is about politics and marketing. I read some paper about how a deer shot with a lead bullet had traces of lead in it's hams when it was hit in the chest.
I am the former CEO of Cast Performance Bullet Co. I had ALL my employees do regular blood testing when I ran the company. ALL people and nearly ALL mammals have traces of lead in the blood and that is normal. Our employees were shown to have LESS then the national average. NONE of my employees had ever been shot.
Another point that is hard for them to justify is this:
Some of the frozen Mammoths found in Canada and Alaska had their flesh analyzed and they also had lead in trace amounts in their blood and meat too.
Hummmmmmmmmm........was that the fault of the "child hating, earth hating, goat-roping, gun-loving, Bible-believing hicks who just will not listen to the real experts" too?

You see, the people that are trying to convince you that lead bullets are "bad" are knowingly misleading you.

#1 For anti-Gun politics. (make ammo VARY expensive by any means they can. Tax and materials, as well as new shipping regs, and who know what else they are cooking up)
#2 And those that see an opportunity to capitalize on this attack against our freedoms are going to try to cut a fat hog before the end. They believe all shooters in the USA are to become the victims of this lie, and that outlawing of lead is inevitable.
So in their minds, they may as well make some money on it before it all goes south.

Speaking only for myself, I am not willing to surrender just because a communist liberal wants me to and go along with them because it makes them feel better.

There is no honest reason to fear using lead core bullets at all.

Here is some background to my question. I just sold my old Remington Model 700 300 H&H Magnum rifle and bought a new Browning XBolt 300 H&H. The old rifle was bought in 1995 and the load I shot out of it was developed in 1995. I used to shoot a 180 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip. For the last 25 years, I shot the old rifle with the old load and had no problems killing deer, elk, antelope, sheep and moose. I just thought I would poke around a little bit now that I have a new rifle, new scope, new stock, etc and look for a new bullet. It's funny because now that I research the BT's I have been shooting for the last 25 years, I find that it isn't supposed to be used on thick-skinned animals. So, my next choice of bullet was going to be the Accubond. Then I started looking at the long range bullets and then today, I started researching the lead-free bullets. I like to shoot rocks out to 1000 yards, but I will not shoot an elk past 600 yards and a deer past 700 yards. My H&H doesn't produce enough speed and FT/LB's beyond those yardages to effectively kill elk and mule deer, so I won't attempt a shot further than that. In all honesty, most of my kills with my old H&H are around 100 yards. I am just about to start load development with my new rifle and wanted to know the deal with lead-free bullets. Chances are, I will either stick with the ole' Ballistic Tips or try the Accubonds.

California has been lead free for several years now. I've used barnes, e-tips, hornady gmx and mono flex on deer, pigs , coyotes and elk. Few things to know:
For the most part they seem to work best when loaded hot.

Bullet depth matters by bullet. I.e. Barnes 30-70 thousands off the LANS. GMX not so much. You can pretty much develop with SSTs then switch out for GMX. Not so much with Barnes due to seating depths.

Buy copper solvent.

Performance wise, I can tell you I've had different experiences with Barnes by caliber. Never had an issue with my 25-05,30-06, 270 or 300 win. with the TTSX. The regular TSX didn't seem to be as accurate. And both sucked in the 243 for some reason. Expansion has been excellent out to 400 yards. Couldn't say how they are past that as I've never had to shoot past that.

The Barnes don't seem to expand well with deer I've shot with a muzzleloader. The deer act like they haven't been hit, walk then drop. Even straight through the heart.

Gmx on the other hand....are like grenades. I think nosler accubonds and ballistic tips caused less meat damage back when we could use them. But they do hold together.

E-tips seem to be a balance between Barnes and gmx as far as expansion. The only thing I can say is that I've found them hard to indicate seating depths but they are no different than accubonds or ballistic tips I suppose.

I will try to post a few pictures later.

I switched from Barnes to Hammer. They seem to expand better and go straighter. I like the Sledge Hammer model. Some like the more pointy Hunter model.

They used to recommend 1 bullet weight lighter, at least Barnes did. Faster the better.

Google Cutting Edge Bullets. I like their Raptor. It’s designed to frag on impact. Works not too unlike a Partition. And they’re very accurate.

If you are limited to non lead and are concerned about monos not expanding enough, check these out.

DF

I agree with szihn about impact speeds above 2,000fps.

We started using Barnes TTSX as soon as they came out and used the discontinued Barnes MRX (also tipped) before that. We've taken antelope, mule deer and elk with them using a .257 through .308 calibers using different cartridges. So far we have never recovered one and have had them drive lengthwise through mule deer on two occasions. We are right at 50% straight-down DRT results with them, with no animal going more than a few yards. Do we like them? Yup. And we plan to keep using them.

That said we also use Swift Scirocco II, Nosler AccuBond, North Fork SS and HP, Federal Trophy Bonded and Speer Grand Slam bullets in our bolt rifles. I also use Hornady 95g SST in my .243 Win because I haven't had time to develop any other loads for it. Can't say that any of these have been more effective than the Barnes TTSX.

Scroll down a bit and look at the expansion at various impact velocities from Noslers site

Accubond

https://www.nosler.com/accubond-bullet

Lead free E tip.

https://www.nosler.com/e-tip-lead-free-bullet

Ballistic tip

https://www.nosler.com/ballistic-tip-bullet

By all accounts the copper bullets are devastating if they impact fast enough. And for a variety of reasons even the lighter bullets will penetrate much deeper than traditional bullets so there is no need to shoot the heavies even on bigger game. But below 2000-2200 fps expansion is poor.

Based on an external ballistics program I use, I can keep the velocity of a 180 grain e-Tip above 2000 fps out to 500 yards. That is if the advertised BC of the e-Tip is accurate. There have been quite a few claims that Nosler's BC's are over estimated. I can always try to chrono the bullet at 500 yards to check and try not hitting the chrono. I can live with keeping my shots on big game under 500 yards.

Without reading all the post, just the last one, why would you want the speed at 500? Shoot the paper, let the paper tell you the impact? BC really doesn't matter that much IE if its exact or not, especially in hunting, it has to be repeatable and then you have to shoot paper to get drops, that can tell you how close the BC numbers are, but I never rely on anything other than paper to get zero's.

Couple of comments, I've seen TSX expand at under 2000 on my caribou, I have no real clue how slow they were but 225 338 win mag and shot was 802 yards. Both shots. Both had expansion. Caliber entry, appx dime size exits.

These days I can and will run mono up close and bergers out far. Just because the odds are better that way.

And as to getting closer, NO you can not always get within 500 yards. That said long shots on game the conditions have to be just right for me to pull the trigger. I'm 100% on that too because of how picky I am. Had access to 600 in TX out the door. Have access here not quite as far out the door but a short drive can access public and whatever distance you wish. I've done a fair bit of shooting on out there.

That said you are exactly right on how quickly things could be wrong on a longer shot. And exactly right on lead bullet issues. Lead issue is about like the lead shot issue in most waters, stupid,.

I've had little success finding a copper bullet that shoots well in my rifles but I haven't tried them all... I guess I'm lucky in that our state isn't a lead free state (yet)...

One of the issues I've considered with lead free bullets is that for the weight involved, the bullets need to be long for caliber and are almost always a hollow point design. The length issue creates a situation where twist may become an issue so must be considered in loading and possibly in purchasing/building your chosen rifle. The bullet design issue of the hollow point design has never impressed me as a good or reliable design for expansion on impact on all surfaces. At least not to the extent that C&C bullets are.... I've always heard the old "you can eat right up to the hole" stories about Barnes and other copper bullets, but this just tells me there is little damage going in/coming out so how reliable can they be for taking game or tracking for that matter? My thought process has always been that a bullet that doesn't open a large enough wound can't leave much of a blood trail to follow and even with C&C bullets sometimes that can be an iffy proposition.....

So, what are the experiences of those who shoot copper bullets exclusively (or alternately) with these issues? Someday soon I may be forced to deal with these bullets and I would like to know what to expect....

Bob

A few things to point out:
It's false that an unexpanded rifle bullet will always make a bore sized exit. Bullets nearly always turn backwards or sideways after they impact even in about half the cases when they do expand first.

So a 338 leaving an exit of about dime size doesn't show it's expanding. It may have a bit but without recovering the bullets you really can't know for sure.

As the former CEO of Cast Performance Bullet Co, I can speak with some authority on this subject. I have fired many thousands of bullets in testing, the ones we made AND every other bullet we could get, to make comparisons. I have burned powder by the pallet load and bullets by the ton in these kind of tests.

When a bullet gets large enough it has a good tendency to kill well, even when it doesn't expand at all. Nearly all muzzle-loader/Black power shooters know this from experience. 58 caland larger bullets kill extremely well when they are only going the speed of a 22 LR, or as slow as a 45 ACP. A trash-can shaped 58 Cal Modern Minie bullet kills very well, when it impacts deer or elk at only 750 FPS, because it's 58 cal to start with, and it's also 500-600 grains.

Anyway, all this is just a side note. The kind of thing shooters often find interesting.


And my counter point about NEVER needing to shoot past 500 meters is something I can say for sure and for certain in MY life. Not ever. Not once. I have over 50 years of experience too.
Have I shot farther? Yup. And plenty of times. But I guess I grew up some.
I am speaking of un-wounded game here, not trying to anchor one that is getting away.

The key here is the word "need". I have seen MANY times hunters could not easily get closer to their game then 500 meters, but I have never seen a single time in 50+ years it was not possible. Not once. Not ever.

That includes hunting in 5 countries and 9 states.

So those that say they "can't" and that they "had to" may be in some very very very small minority, but as for me (and I did say it was my experience, not all experience) I have killed more game then I can count........ and was beyond counting that number about 30 years ago.

A true need to shoot past 500 meters has NEVER happened to me.

I use the Barnes TTSX in several rifles. I like them.

I think the LRX is either 1800 or even 1600 fps, don't remember which. Only used them on game, haven't yet recovered one.

My son shot a cow elk with a 127 LRX, out of a .260, at a little over 500 yards last fall. Impact velocity would have been about 2200 fps. The bullet entered at the last rib, angled forward trough the chest cavity, and exited the neck just in front of the off shoulder leaving about a golf ball sized exit wound. The elk went down immediately. I don’t know if there was “expansion” or not.... as the bullet went through about 4’ of elk... and may still be in low-earth orbit. Either way... it was a very dead elk, very quickly.

That same rifle/bullet combo flattened a nice mule deer buck, and an antelope buck last fall as well... they went down immediately too.

I’m impressed with the 127 LRX enough, that I’d shoot it at just about anything out to 500-600 yards or so.... when launched at Creed/.260/Swede velocities.

Would that require a muzzle velocity of 3000+ fps?

2900 fps out of the 20” barrel.... 5000’ asl.

As mentioned above, I've used the discontinued MRX and TTSX and the rest of my hunting party has used TTSX for a lot of our hunting. The last couple years I have also used the newer LRX. Took a nice mulie buck with a 175g LRX and my .300WM two years ago. Can't remember the exact range but it was in the neighborhood of 360-380 yards. MV was around 3000fps, elevation 7,000 feet, give or take a few. Calculated impact velocity at 370 yards would have been 2465fps. The buck dropped like a stone, bullet not recovered.

Still have the rack but the buck tested positive for CWD. Double-bagged the meat and sent it to the dump per Parks and Wildlife instructions. First animal I've had that tested positive. (This was north of Meeker, south of Hamilton.)