Hunting Bullets Have Come Of Age

THE first jacketed bullets were made with long, projecting nose sections of exposed lead. These bullets worked fine at moderate velocities from 2000 to 2500fps, and indeed this type of construction has never been substantially improved upon for such moderate velocities.

The copper alloy jacket takes the rifling well, obturates (seals the bore against escaping gases), doesn't raise pressures too drastically, and when the shank is made heavier, the core harder and the base thicker the bullet holds together and penetrates deeply unless heavy bone is struck. The exposed lead nose will flatten upon contact with the quarry, the entire forward section of the bullet will "mushroom" and the greatly enlarged frontal area will then cut a correspondingly larger wound channel through muscle and tissue.

This basic design served very well until 1905 when