Last year we wrote about the new Copper only bullet laws implemented to purportedly protect wild condors. The following is some important follow up information on the ammunition and it’s locally reported performance.
Probably the oldest “all-copper” bullet manufacture in the US is the Barnes bullet Company (http://www.barnesbullets.com/about-us/company ) out of Mona Utah. Owners Randy and Coni Brooks have been operating this business since its’ purchase from Mr. Fred Barnes in 1972. They offer some of the best customer service around. A phone call to one of their readily available, free of charge, bullet technicians will answer any question you may have, (1-800-574-9200). Other manufactures such as Hornady, have now also designed legal copper bullets, such as their GMX bullet line, here are some links to their information; http://www.dfg.ca.gov/wildlife/hunting/condor/certifiedammo.html , http://www.hornady.com/story.php?s=792 .
This writer made the switch last year from traditional lead based bullets to all copper bullets in my hunting rifles, and honestly for awhile it was an experience that ran the gamut from pure frustration, to delight, back to perplexed, and finally too comfortable satisfaction.
I am a hand-loader, and typically load from raw components my own ammunition. This is for the purpose of custom tailoring the ammo to an individual rifle in an effort of achieving perfect bullet performance, stability and accuracy. It is rare that a firearm will perform as well with factory ammunition as it will with carefully and safely loaded specific hand loaded ammunition. There are exceptions, but on average few and far between. You see a bullet is no different than a rocket, airplane, baseball, football, or for that matter of aerodynamic principal theories, a Condor! They are all things that fly. And their “launch pad” (i.e., barrel) has a lot of how they take off and fly.
In the world of bullets the aerodynamic characteristics of a bullet, its accuracy and stability, is commonly referred to as its, ballistics. Every individual, and this is important to remember, individual firearm and its’ related individual ammunition will achieve its maximum potential accuracy different than another rifle of the same make, model and caliber shot right next to it. Meaning you have to test fire different ammunition either factory or custom in your firearm to determine which is more accurate in that “individual” firearm.
Important factors effecting accuracy or stability are that a flying aerodynamic projectile, whether it is a baseball or a bullet, fly’s respective too its immediate environment and “launcher”. One such fact for example is the density of air caused by temperature or altitude will cause a bullet to change its’ impact point or a baseball to fly out of Mile High Stadium and not Dodger stadium when hit by the same force (batter). There are many others laws of ballistics and the math is not unlike what it must be to hit a missile with another missile. However, one of these laws most important to the new copper only bullets is the fact that the spin of a bullet is like the spin of a baseball, it has all to do with the way the thing fly’s! Bullets are measured or categorized both by their diameter and their weight in grains. Because lead weights more than copper the same caliber (diameter) bullet of the same amount of weight will be longer, if measured, in copper than one of lead. This one fact is what causes the difficulty for some to get one bullet size to fly the same way out of different firearms of the same caliber. You see different rifle barrels don’t’ all spin a bullet the same way just like major league pictures don’t all spin a curve ball or fast ball the same way. Spin and speed in the proper proportion and ratio for the length of the bullet is what stabilize and make a bullet accurate. Of course…yes the nut behind the trigger is a factor also, but let’s just assumes you put the firearm in a solid vice to test it for this discussion?
Now this brings us to an important problem; most all guns are designed to spin bullets at a certain rpm by their manufacture and they are not all the same. And because bullets are built in different shapes by their manufactures for the same caliber (bore diameter) firearm… all will not fly the same way with the same spin rate out of the same firearm. Also as the bullet gets further away from the launcher (gun) it slows down and so does its’ rpm, and you guessed it, flies differently! An example of this is a new box of Barnes 22 caliber 50grain bullets has printed on it the instruction to “use in barrels designed to spin the bullet 1 RPM in 10 inches or sooner”(fast) . Lots, if not most, non-custom firearms for this type bullet are at best able to spin this bullet at only 1 RPM in 12 inches…this is too slow and the bullet will probably not stabilize or achieve reasonable accuracy. This fact also shows up in the process of testing and selecting copper (and to a lesser degree lead) bullets for an individual gun and fired at different distances. Remember as they slow, they also slow their spin rpm and a bullet that is stable say at 100 yards from the barrel, may be very unstable at 200 yards and thus way beyond reasonable accuracy! If you hand load or buy factory bullets you should test your individual firearm out to the limits of its “reasonable accuracy”, and then use it to hunt responsibly only to that limit. Buying a Barnes bullet manual was the best thing I did. With it I was able to overcome any of my anxieties by learning how to get the best out of my individual firearm using these Condor safe legal all copper bullets.
Do the copper bullets work? Absolutely yes; I personally saw several animals legally harvested…no strike that…“killed responsibly” this year out to a distance of 415 yards with Barnes bullets! I can tell you these animals were expired quicker than any of the Turkeys I used to see killed every year for the grocery store at Deters’ Turkey farm when I was a kid! You just have to be aware they are a little different and you have to do a little more homework before you head out to hunt. This may be the reason several of my friends had disappointing experiences using the new all copper bullets last year, and had to make several follow up shots to finish the kill. It could make you suspicious of the bullet placement but more suspicious if the target wasn’t too far from the “reasonable accuracy” of that individual firearm? Again we need to do our homework! If you don’t hand load your own ammunition and would like to get a custom bullet loaded for your individual rifle there are custom bullet loading services like “Ultimate Ammunition”. They will take your shipped firearm and work up a load for it, test fire it, and send it back with the sample target and ammunition tailored to your firearm. You can contact them at www.ultimateammunition.com, 1-888-235-3285.
In honesty, some folks unfortunately will find they just can’t get the same past bullet performance and will have to purchase a different fireman, or re-barrel their existing gun. Come to think about it this could be an unintended consequence of the law…people will buy more guns and help the economy!