Few hunter switch/copper bullets

[Lee Borgersen]

October 28, 2012
 
......Few deer hunters switching to copper bullets.


Most deer hunters have not switched to non-toxic copper bullets despite studies indicating that potentially toxic lead fragments disperse up to 18 inches from the wound channel in firearms-killed deer.


  read why or why not
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/247868/group/Outdoors/

[Onin24Eagle]

I tried all copper bullets last year.  I was excited to try them, but in the end I was a tad dissapointed.

I hunt with a 270WSM.  I purchased this gun back in 2006.  Since the area I hunt (210) had been intensive harvest for quite a while (it's managed this year), I've had the opportunity to take a good number of deer with this gun over the past 5 seasons.  I'd say less than 20 but more than 15.  Only two deer that I've shot with this gun have run anywhere.  One was a doe a few years ago that was only about 10 yards away when I shot.  It was a double lung shot, the bullet went straight through and didn't get a chance to expand and she ran a good 150 yards.  The second deer that ran on me was last year.  He was standing broadside at about 120 yards.  I fired, he lifted his head and stared in my direction.  I fired again.  He just stood there.  I fired a third time and he turned and ran back towards the corner of the field.  Befuddled, I checked to make sure my scope wasn't loose.  There was no way I could have possibly missed unless my scope was off.  Dejected, I decided to wait a half hour or so and go back to my truck and get my backup gun, a Marlin 30-30.  After getting out of my stand, I started to head back to the truck when I thought to myself that I at least should take a look, so I went to the spot where the deer had been standing.  No blood, no hair that I could see.  I glanced toward the corner of the field where the deer had run and lo and behold, there he was.  He had run about 100 yards before going down.  When I dressed the animal I found that I had indeed hit the deer on all three shots, all double lung hits.  The exit wounds were no bigger around than the entry wounds.  The lack of expansion also resulted in a lack of knock down power.  As I mentioned earlier, all of the deer I've shot with this gun have dropped in their tracks.  The only two cases where they didn't was because the bullet didn't have a chance to expand, or couldn't.  I'm open to using all copper bullets but they need to make one that has better expansion properties.  I'll be using lead again in the future until I find a copper bullet that meets that criteria.

I was using 140 grain Barnes XPB bullets last year.  These are supposed to be some of the best all copper bullets for expansion properties you can get, yet they fall well short of what I'd like to see.  Give the technology a little more time to develop and perhaps we may just yet see a shift with hunters.  Don't force it, don't legislate it.  Once a product is put on the market that performs as well or better than lead, then people will want to buy it.

[dakids]

I shoot a .243 and have found the opposite to be the case.  All deer drop in there tracks and the lungs are usually liquified.  My brother reloads them for me.  It isn't new technology, the copper bullets have been around for 20 plus years and we have been using them for about 6 years without any trouble.