Cup And Core Bullet Failure

MG1890

Anybody besides me consider cup and core separation on lung / heart shot deer a good thing? I've seen tremendous wound channels from the fragments of traditional bullets on skinny little whitetails. Instant kills from these massive wounds.

Traditionally, core separation is a dirty word and considered a failure. I don't get it, it results in instant one shot kills. Overpenetration and minimal expansion from "premium" bullets seems to be a detriment.

So, let about a hundred come back to life and crawl out of my septic tank and tell me why cup and core bullets fail????

You guys are talking like a Sierra Gameking or Hornady Spire Point is varmint bullet. Trust me, they go plenty deep. Even IF the go to pieces, the pieces are usually in the far hide.

Maybe FMJ's would be better.

I think a Sierra 50 grain Blitzking is pretty much designed at its inception to separate the cup, the core, and anything else into tiny fragments.

TSR, you are right, I did miss that part. Sorry.

charliemeyer007

Proof is in the pudding. Nothing replaces a well aimed and placed shot. The critter can only get so dead. Blood shock can be an issue for meat hunters and large exit holes can "ruin" a lot of hide.

I think bullet selection is more of a concern when the game can stomp or maul you for poor choices. Use enough gun.

added I shot away 2 5 gallon buckets of pulled 30 ball boattails and AP bullets, likely several gallon cans of burnt out tracers and that doesn't include the many ammo cans of US GI factory ammo. They work just fine for hide hunters. I seem to recall that the famous elephant culler shot them all (several hundred) with a 7mm using ball ammo.

tsr1965

I am fairly sure that this is a continuation from this topic...

http://forums.GunBroker.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=669944

I do agree, that with any caliber, including the great and almighty 500 Whiz-Bang!, that shot placement is of great importance. One cannot concentrate on great shot placement, if they are stressing out about recoil. That is part of the reason, that the 243 Winchester came about...being to shoot a rifle well, because it is not beating one to death. However, not every shot is perfectly placed, and not every hunter has ethics to wait for a better shot.

That said, for many years, and even in some eyes today, the 243 is a marginal deer round, when used with conventional ammunition, loaded with cup and core bullets. What I am trying to stress, is that the Barnes, Nosler, and Hornady bullets made from solid copper, bring smaller caliber rifles into their own as a serious deer/antelope rifle. Even the 223 Remington, when loaded with a Barnes TSX/TTSX, twist rate permitting, becomes a serious deer round.

Truth be told, the 80 grain TTSX, in a 243 Winchester, will give you near perfect expansion, near double the penetration of a conventional cup and core bullet, even when penetrating heavy bone.

From on game experience, with the 223, 243, 25WSSM, 7mm Remington Mag, 7mm RUM, 308 Win, 30-06 Sprg, 300 Win, and 300 RUM, these bullets DO NOT FAIL. In the 30 calibers you can run the 130 grain TTSX, with better results than the 180 grain cup core bullets. The 223 with a 45 grain TSX will break both shoulders on a broadside mature deer at 200 yards.

Being to load lower weight bullets to a little higher velocity, reduces recoil, and increases hydrostatic shock.

If you have never tried these type, you owe it to yourself to try them.

EDIT 1

And this
quote:added I shot away 2 5 gallon buckets of pulled 30 ball boattails and AP bullets, likely several gallon cans of burnt out tracers and that doesn't include the many ammo cans of US GI factory ammo. They work just fine for hide hunters. I seem to recall that the famous elephant culler shot them all (several hundred) with a 7mm using ball ammo.


Has what to do with the topic being discussed?

The all copper bullets from Hornady, Barnes, and Nosler, ARE NOT, non expanding bullets. They have controlled expansion to the ultimate level, and minimize meat damage, while most often, creating TWO drain holes, and elevating previous under achieving cartridges, into valid deer cartridges.

There has never been a cup and core bullet, designed for big game, designed at its inception, to separate the core from the cup, upon impact, or during penetration. Quite to the contrary, the improvements revised, such as the "interlock", and "bonded" cores, all aim to keep the core with the cup. So, to say that a cup/core separation, is not a failure, is a stretch of the imagination.

EDIT 2

quote:I think a Sierra 50 grain Blitzking is pretty much designed at its inception to separate the cup, the core, and anything else into tiny fragments.

I highlighted what you missed in red, so you don't miss it this time. You need to read the whole thing, not just part of it.

Mobuck

I'd just as soon see the bullet stay in one piece. Bullet fragments don't chew easily. I've also been put off by fragments puncturing the stomach on lung shot deer.

waltermoe

I think it can be a good thing. I have shot two deer with my 7x57mm that were heart and lung shots using 130gr. Speer spitzer BT. traveling at 2900fps. there were no exit wounds, it was as if the bullets hit the heart and exploded, both dropped on the spot like a wet bag of cement, which is a good thing. The terminal ballistics would have been different, I'm sure if I would have had to of shot through heavier bone than rib bone. The only meat damage that I found, was there were some cuts on the other side of the rib cage from the jacket coming apart. I don't like having to track deer, so ya, it's a good thing.

Mobuck

sooner or later, you won't make that "perfect placement shot" and THEN you'll wish the bullet had better penetration

He Dog

Dead is dead, hard to argue with success, but I am with Mobuck. I don't shoot frangible bullets at bug game and would rather it stay together.

captnobody

I found this a interesting read and I've always had good results with cup and core bullets with non magnum chamberings https://www.buffalobore.com/index.php?l=product_list&c=86

pip5255

years ago I deliberately cut the jackets on round nose bullets so that they would expand faster to drop deer quicker so as to keep them from other hunters on nearby land, they worked great but some did explode inside the deer if they hit solid bone, one heart shot hit the shoulder bone and exploded causing fragments to blow thru front and rear of deer but needless to say the deer still went down on impact which was the plan, many friends wanted my loads so they too could drop them quick.
I say it could be a good thing.....................

beantownshootah

quote:Anybody besides me consider cup and core separation on lung / heart shot deer a good thing? I've seen tremendous wound channels from the fragments of traditional bullets on skinny little whitetails. Instant kills from these massive wounds.

If you can get your perfect lung/heart shot, then it shouldn't matter if your core separates or not, or even WHAT bullet you use. Having the massive wound channel effect can certainly help, but you can also get instant kills without bullet fragmentation, and having it doesn't necessarily ensure them.

In general, deers aren't particularly hard to kill, nor dangerous. People successfully hunt these with all sorts of things, including low energy handgun rounds, .223s, FMJ rounds (which actually are legal in some places), even bows and arrows, etc.

I won't say "doesn't matter", but for the vast majority of "ordinary" deer hunting, you do have a pretty large margin of error when it comes to both round power and bullet design, and assuming you're hunting ethically, you shouldn't "need" some sort of fancy/explosive fragmentation to do the job. You just want a bullet suited to the type of hunting you're doing.

The better question with respect to bullet fragmentation, I think, is what happens with shots that DON'T get right into the heart/lungs.

The problem with cup and core separation isn't that it happens, its that its inconsistent. Most normal hunting bullets aren't "supposed" to do that; it happens when they're pushed a bit beyond their design limits. You don't know if its going to happen at all, or where the pieces will go afterwards, or what they'll do. If the bullet fragments because it hits a bone first, that could be a problem, because you won't get the penetration you need. If you have a quartering shot or other non-standard one, and the bullet has to penetrate further than usual, again, early fragmentation could be a problem.

Secondary issue, and its a real one, is that for a number of reasons, many people simply don't want bullet fragmentation inside animals they're going to eat or skin.

Bottom line, while fragmentation *can* be positive, it isn't always and potentially has downsides too.

SCOUT5

Not an expert but I am going to chip in with information given me by what I considered an expert. Many years ago, before the wiz bang premium bullets became the norm, a man who guided many hunters on western hunts gave me some advice on bullet failure.


What he told me, after qualifying his experience, was that bullet failures did happen but weren't an issue with calibers greater than 6mm. Not that 6mm couldn't handle practically everything you would want to shoot, just that occasional bullet failure was more likely.