09-08-2022, 03:40 PM
Double Naught Spy Wrote:Help me out. I am getting older, memory isn't what it used to be, and I have too many vids/hunts to recall exactly which one. Which video and/or which wound?
For whatever reason(s), copper seems to be harder to work with than lead in terms of bullet expansion and such. The range of velocity between opening up and tearing off the petals is seemingly smaller than for lead. If a copper bullet opens at 1200 fps, would it also shed its petals going through the skin at 2400?
At 300 yards, the 120 gr CX still has over 1000 ft lbs of energy, but is below the 2000 fps threshold. 1000 ft lbs is the minimal velocity need for a bullet for deer/hog-sized game, according to many hunters and for many decades (whether this is right or wrong isn't relevant, just that it is a operational minimum that is commonly held valid.
Moreover, at the 2000 fps threshold, the CX isn't apt to expand very well and maybe not at all. It would be nice of the bullet didn't just start to expand, but expanded well all the way down down to 1000 ft lbs of energy. The bullets I have recovered are expanding okay, but certainly not fully and in the case of the first bullet, that was with impacting with over 1350 ft lbs and 2268 fps. I suspect I might need a contact shot to get actual full expansion and I don't know that would even be enough velocity.
Yeah, for now I will be hunting with home rolled SSTs for deer. I need to have time to put the CX through its paces and see what things look like. What kind of expansion (diameter) did you get with the recovered bullets?
I know for sure the 1000 ft pounds is pretty much bunk, at least for larger calibers. I hit a small doe at 70 yards with a 58 cal round ball that had no more than 500 ft lb at impact and aside from a complete pass through I had bloodshot meat, destroyed hear, damaged lungs, and an animal that made it all of 25 feet from the hit. But with teensy little bullets like a 6.5, we really need expansion to get good performance.