Copper Head 55gr bullets - anyone tried these yet?

[JRM83]

Saw these bullets over at The American Marksman and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with them. I *think* the accuracy should be fairly good since the bullet is solid copper and the bases will be very consistent. Has anyone given these a try yet and can report on how well they shoot?

CopperHead AP .22 Caliber .224 Dia. 55gr BT, SOLID COPPER Bullet 100 count

 

[dauntedfuture]

Make sure you reduce your loads, solid copper bullets will drive pressure up drastically and wear out barrels faster.

 

[Mad_Charlie]

Make sure you reduce your loads, solid copper bullets will drive pressure up drastically and wear out barrels faster.

Would you mind elaborating sir?? I haven't really studied this. or used solids.

 

[dauntedfuture]

Solid bullets like Barnes or M855A1 have a solid copper band driving area (Where the bullet is .224) which does not compress like the lead in a normal bullet will. As such the pressures of a given 55g traditional bullet vs a solid copper bullet are vastly different. Barnes uses a driving band on their bullets so that the body of the bullet rides inside the bore so to speak and your are swaging the "bands" down to more diameter. In solid copper bullet you are swaging the bullet down quite a bit and as a result your pressure goes up. Copper, being a harder medium then lead with the increased pressure has been shown to increase bore wear in some studies or tests. Most shooters using Copper bullets like a Barnes are using them for hunting in a hunting rifle and as such don't shoot all that many so you don't see much increased wear.