“Does having to use lube on your bullets drive you crazy?” Lehigh Defense asks. “Throw away that tube of lube, you don’t need it anymore!” Far be it for me to make any kind of comment on what is a perfectly legitimate question for consumers who reload. So to speak.
Here’s the 411 [via ammoland.com] on Lehigh Defense’s solid copper monolithic wide flat nose bullets, which offer “bone crushing deep penetration.” I swear this stuff writes itself . . .
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Are you looking for a Wide Flat Nose Bullet that guarantees better performance than a Lead or Hardcast WFN bullet? Look no further. At the request of our valued customers, Lehigh Defense is introducing a line of Wide Flat Nose (WFN) Bullets. Why would you choose a WFN bullet from Lehigh Defense?
The Solid Copper Construction makes the bullet a bone crushing deep penetrating bullet that will not fragment. It eliminates lead fouling in the barrel while eliminating the need for a gas check. Our WFN Product Family eliminates lead thus making them user and environmentally friendly.
We know that there is nothing flashy or exotic about our WFN bullets, but our customers wanted to improve the performance of their lead and Hardcast WFN bullets so we gave them a Lehigh Quality Bullet. Our current product offering includes two calibers, the .452 and the .475, with more to come.
Click here for additional information on our WFN bullets. Click here for more information about Lehigh Defense.
This bullet shape is ideal for bear defense against big browns, when the ideal hit will shatter a shoulder blade on a charging bear and cause them to tumble, sending bone shrapnel into the vitals along with the bullet. Not sure about copper vs lead though. I do remember that there was a local Alaskan ammo maker selling these flat nosed all copper bullets back in the 90’s, so it’s not a new concept.
If Underwood starts loading these in 10mm Auto I’d consider it for sure, but on the other hand I’m not convinced I’d choose it over hard cast lead, even if it were cheaper (and I’d expect it would actually be more expensive by a decent margin). Especially considering the HCL is undoubtedly heavier for caliber, and the heaviest slug possible is typically the goal in this kind of projectile (I currently carry their 220 grain HCL in 10mm for Yogi and Boo-Boo). Copper plated HCL would get my attention. Or this same projectile with a tungsten core 😛
Tungsten core would likely be considered AP, and in a handgun round, probably ‘verboten’…
(I’m waiting for depleted uranium core ammo, and I will probably be waiting for that until the Sun depletes its Hydrogen fusion fuel…)
It’s also handy if Cecil escapes from the zoo. 🙂
I believe that the old “solids” used on African game since the early 20th century, were solid copper. The hunters wanted a bullet that held together and penetrated.
Copper fouls. You just have to drive it faster, that’s all.
Lead fouling is a function of not only your lube, but whether or not you’re using a gas check, and the hardness of your lead.
Even then there are ways around that. I’ve shot soft lead with a 105gr Lee SWC in .357 mag with 22gr H110 behind it. Powder coating is a wonderful thing I surely hope to see more of in the ammo space eventually.
The Hi-tek polymer coating is very common on lead bullets these days. It it what I mostly load.
True, and also a function of powder selection (burn rate and burn temp), peak pressure, rifling type, land and groove diameter, bore finish quality, etc. Yeesh!
Anyways, its never a bad thing to have more options on the market!!
Is a gas check on a bullet the same as an artillery ‘driving band’?
Something else I’ve wondered, considering the huge effort required to remove a bullet stuck in a bore, why don’t bullets come ‘keyed’ to the rifling, eliminating the friction losses and subsequent barrel heating?
Well, that would also involve chambering them in a specific orientation so the lands/grooves pre-formed into the bullet are rotationally aligned with their equivalents in the barrel’s rifling. Plus choosing ammo that matches your specific firearm. For example, it wouldn’t simply work on all ARs and instead you’d have to choose an ammo with projectiles “pre-rifled” for a specific twist rate, specific number of lands, and specific land shape and depth.
I think it’s easier just to let the rifling press into the projectile. Or go with polygonal rifled barrels, which do typically claim to reduce both friction on the bullet and improve gas seal, leading to higher velocities (may or may not pan out in real life, but it’s often claimed).
And it is very difficult to hammer out a bullet that’s stuck in the bore (e.g. squib load) but that’s working against whatever its coefficient of static friction is, and the difference between that and its kinetic friction could be worlds apart.
How in the world would you do that? Square or triangular bullets?
Round bullet, with ‘tabs’ of some sort on the base of the projectile to fit the grooves in the rifling…
If the base of the projectile wasn’t smoothly round, you couldn’t crimp the case around it, could you?
Look up blackholeweaponry.com and then google “Caudle 3 land polygonal rifling” and look at the pictures. They’re amazing barrels.
Driving bands on modern artillery shells are not pre-engraved to the rifling.
Now if you want to see stuff that is pre-engraved to the rifling, look up the Whitworth Rifle. It used hexagonal rifling, and the paper patched bullet had a hexagonal cross section as well. Whitworth artillery was made that way too.
I forgot, recoiless rifles used pre-engraved driving bands that had to be lined up with the rifling in the bore.
Question for you:
Would the ideal, non/minimally fouling bullet be a copper or brass plated lead one? Such that the softer lead core would allow for a harder plating alloy than the monolithics use, while still playing nice with the rifled bore?
I noticed copper fouling playing around with Barnes bullets back in the day, at velocities way below what’s common with fmjs in rifles.
I think the earlier Barnes & Berger bullets fouled more because they were trying to use a softer copper alloy.
In general, it would seem (to me) that the least copper fouling is found with copper jacketed, lead core bullets. Then again, I think that the condition of your barrel has a big part to play in this too – if you have a lapped/polished bore, then you’ll have less fouling overall.
CA is the biggest, at least in the top 2, gun market in the US. And CA requires non lead ammo for hunting.
At .80 per, this isn’t plinking ammo, that’s for sure! At 300 gr, they ought to get the job done, whatever the job happens to be.I wonder what this chronos at ahead of 40 grains of black powder (or Pyrodex P). I’d bet it packs a thump.
Practice with lead and use these for hunting.
A 300 grain bullet on top of 40 grains of black powder? I don’t think you will see very much velocity … maybe 1000 fps out of a rifle?
For reference 100 grains of Pyrodex pushes a 295 grain PowerBelt bullet out of a rifle at 1,670 fps. Obviously, less than half that powder charge is going to cause a major reduction in velocity.
Time to read-commence shopping for a good .45-70.
I’m seeing a pattern here………
Having the same thought myself. If you could get a good load that sends those out of a modern rifle at 2,200 fps or better, that would be a serious bear stopper, and elk stopper, and anything else indigenous to North America.
The 475 might come in handy for the 475 Wildey magnum, the man-stopping Bronson gun from Death Wish 3.
Went to their website hoping they had a size/weight appropriate for 45acp…. nope doesn’t look like it.
Shame as this thing looks like it would be great for hogs.
Cost of these all copper bullets is way too much and the performance is nothing spectacular when compared with lead. In fact, a hardcast lead with a polymer coating would have no fouling whatsoever, would wear the barrel less, would keep the barrel cooler, and would cost less too.
Wait for a company to come out with factory polymer coated bullets and this copper only bullet market will disintegrate as the states that either have some sort of lead ban or will have such a ban are already states that are seeking to regulate the 2nd Amendment out of existence, thus leaving no reason to have bullets at all.
I may try it… But I would like to keep my “tube of lube”
For…
“bone crushing deep penetration.”
If it doesn’t need lube, what are the grooves for? Friction reduction? Just to look properly “bullet-y”?
People went from discarding pennies to shooting them.
I think it should look more pointy.
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