Lethal Air shooting copper slugs in some big boresšŸ˜€šŸ˜€

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Up North Airgunner did a test on them some months ago:



So far only avaliable in .50 cal.
 
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I got some .357 Lehigh in, I think Iā€™m gonna test them this week. Theyā€™re not designed for Airguns but they fitā€¦ Iā€™ll report back when I have a chance to hit the range.
Be carefull when firing the first one!!!

I use a program made by a German predicting powder burner loads, and it is quite good (Quickload is the best!) at that.
It states a shot start pressure of some 3625psi to get the pure copper bullet going at all, thats about all a PCP can muster.

The airgun designed one is bore diameter and will "rattle" down the bore, but has a skirt that expands to grip the rifling. So it is way easy to get a good speed with.
A pure copper bullet engraving the rifling fully is another beast all together!
 
Be carefull when firing the first one!!!

I use a program made by a German predicting powder burner loads, and it is quite good (Quickload is the best!) at that.
It states a shot start pressure of some 3625psi to get the pure copper bullet going at all, thats about all a PCP can muster.

The airgun designed one is bore diameter and will "rattle" down the bore, but has a skirt that expands to grip the rifling. So it is way easy to get a good speed with.
A pure copper bullet engraving the rifling fully is another beast all together!
Hmmmā€¦ now you have me concerned. I was thinking at minimum I should have done some barrel lapping prior to shooting copper. Idk they may sit on the shelf for a bit
 
I have this conversation at least once a year with hunters toting powder burners lamenting the price of good hunting ammo.
Then i ask them about gas usage, food/beer and lodge, and that they might have to pull the trigger 2-3 times over the weekend.
Utter silence as they hear the penny drop!
Lots of people have essentially 0 dollars in all the things you list, me included. I shoot the same ammo, whether purchased or reloaded when I'm just playing around as I do hunting most of the time. There is no bullet for reloading in existence that is worth a dollar to me. I can count on two or three fingers the number of times in my life I have spent over 1 dollar per loaded round. As time goes by, I reload calibers that I didn't use to. Dies are cheap when you are not in a hurry. I have almost new dies for many calibers I have never reloaded for, just pick them up as they come available for next to nothing or the;y come with a used firearm I buy from an individual. Don't assume everyone spends tons of money for ancillary items related to their hobby.
 
Lots of people have essentially 0 dollars in all the things you list, me included. I shoot the same ammo, whether purchased or reloaded when I'm just playing around as I do hunting most of the time. There is no bullet for reloading in existence that is worth a dollar to me. I can count on two or three fingers the number of times in my life I have spent over 1 dollar per loaded round. As time goes by, I reload calibers that I didn't use to. Dies are cheap when you are not in a hurry. I have almost new dies for many calibers I have never reloaded for, just pick them up as they come available for next to nothing or the;y come with a used firearm I buy from an individual. Don't assume everyone spends tons of money for ancillary items related to their hobby.
I'm sad that you see wild game life so cheap, that a bad shot with a unsupirour bullet and unessesary suffering is acceptible to you.
 
In the video they are shooting regular hornady ftx copper jacked bullets. Not special airgun ammo like.the Lehigh defense. I couldn't tell from video if they were using a different barrel steel or how they accomplished it. Both airgun s had custom barrels to fire the copper. I give them credit for trying. Look forward too more testing.. I'm good with casting and powder coating but for the average hunter being able to buy normal ammo from hornady nosler Sierra a big plus. Copper jacked ammo.from powder burner company's are cheaper than airgun cast or swaged ammo. Better ammo cheaper for average hunter if they pull.of copper in airgun s.
 
Yes please let us know! What air gun?
Iā€™m bringing my rattler, rainstorm 3d and possibly GTL 480 (Iā€™m going with two friends for target shooting/chrono testing). Actually, funny enoughā€¦ Iā€™ve packed some of your ā€œRattler foodā€ as one of the ammo types to test but Iā€™ll post results in the other thread to keep this one focused on copper projectiles.
 
Iā€™m bringing my rattler, rainstorm 3d and possibly GTL 480 (Iā€™m going with two friends for target shooting/chrono testing). Actually, funny enoughā€¦ Iā€™ve packed some of your ā€œRattler foodā€ as one of the ammo types to test but Iā€™ll post results in the other thread to keep this one focused on copper projectiles.
Being a reloader, and having many 357 handguns, I have a fairly large assortment of 357 bullets laying about that I have no use for. Once I had my bullet resizing die for my Texan polished out to the right diameter for my Texan and lead slugs, I experimented with jacketed bullets in the Texan, sizing them down if they were over what my Texan likes. Lost cause for the most part. Very very very slow velocities compared to my lead slugs, so slow I never bothered with groups but it would have been bad if I did, just didn't waste time trying. Some of them I powder coated and sized down, again a lost cause though it was an improvement. On the recovered 357 bullets that had been powder coated, the lands had cut to bare jacket through the powder coat. Out of curiosity, I had a couple hundred Hornady 147gr 9mm XTP boattails, even though I have never reloaded 9mm, friend gave them to me ages ago. They are way to small in diameter for my Texan barrel and required a very thick powder coat to get larger than my bullet sizing die. Using a harbor freight electrostatic powder coat gun, I had somewhere between a 10-15% reject rate when sizing them(no resistance in sizing and if shot wide ES poor accuracy). I won't be doing anymore since my barn burned down a couple months ago, all my powder coating stuff was in there, and lots of stuff I care about. Electrical fire. BTW, my Texan barrel has a larger bore and slightly less pronounced lands than one straight from the factory, my bore resembled the surface of a concrete block as new from airforce. I did some serious fire lapping on it and eventually got a perfectly smooth barrel surface that does not foul in a long long time. It turns out that XTP is the most accurate bullet I have ever shot out of my 357 Texan, runs about 925fps in my air rifle. It is reasonably close to MOA, my "long" range off my front deck is 110 yards to target hanger. I shot a 10 shot group, fill and fire 2 shots, refill, repeat 5 times. ES of 3 fps, 1.25 inch group. It makes an awesome varmint round, would be a worthless round anything much bigger than coyotes. That particular bullet expands quickly and violently in water jugs out to 125-130 ish yards, longest I can do safely anywhere on my property. This is what it does to a 4 foot long 6" schedule 40 pvc pipe full of water at 75 yards. Pipe was on lifting forks on back of my tractor, adjusted to match trajectory at that distance. Plumbers test cap on one end held on by tight clamp, entry side was plastic grocery bag held on by rubber bands, pipe held down by heavy rubber straps on each lifting fork. Took out the same size pipe I've been using to catch pellets with and shot it point blank with a 357 handgun, gas checked 158gr semi wadcutters at just over 1100 fps and that pipe survived the shot, tried again and survived again. The XTP entered almost perfectly centered, expanded so fast it over pressurized the pvc pipe and blew it apart, water pressure blew the test cap a couple feet back, and the whole pipe pushed back a couple feet and was leaning on the ground and the back side lifting fork.
The bullet was laying on the ground.

9mm XTP exploded 6 inch pvc.jpg
 
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