Copper bullets

[LeftySixgun]

I haven’t gone done the copper bullet road. I’m asking this out of my own 7yr old curiosity.
On this forum and many others, it seems like we hear and see many reports for Barnes bullets (seems to be a very popular copper bullet) and game harvested.
How does the Hornady CX bullet line compare to the Barnes?
Has anyone taken the Hornady CX line to Africa for PG and been successful?
Just curious

 

[AckleyHunter]

My experience with coppers:

7mm: used orginal barnes x, lrx, and badlands bulldozer. Bandlands went out of business but they were the best coppers I've used. Accurate, high, true BC values and they had a hourglass shape to handle the copper flow. Other brands just cut grooves which create hard edges, increase drag, and lower BC. Took several antelope and mule deer with the lrx. All ran, but died within a 50-100 yards.

The only animal I never recovered was a whitetail doe shot with the og barnes. It didn't go that far, maybe 200-250 yards, and hid under some logs. We, really the birds, found it the next week.

30 cal: I've used the hammer lever bullet. Big opening in the nose. Works great in the 30-30. Highly recommend for lever guns, and prob the 300 savage.

338: Barnes ttsx from a 338 rpm. Killed spike elk and a black bear. Elk was drt. Do not recommend any copper bullets for black bear. Their skin is really thin and most are under 200 lbs. Especially spring bears. They just don't have enough substance to really open them up.

358: used the 255 gr hammer. Shoots great, hits reallly hard. I have no doubt it will pass through both shoulders of an elephant. The ore hauler tire at our range doesn't stop it. The actual BC is way lower than advertised.

Overall, coppers need more speed to work properly than lead core. They have lower bc values which exacerbates the need for speed. Adding on to this, you need to shoot lighter bullets, especially in legacy cartridges with slow twist rates, because they are longer than lead core bullets and to maximize velocity. Animals I have shot take longer to die, but still die really fast. The wounds they make are long but narrow, i.e. you can eat to the hole. They work just fine as long as you send it through the lungs over 2000 fps. No animal will notice the difference.

Tyler Freel just killed a grizzly with a 22 arc using the copper rose bullet. They all can be used to great effect.

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[Rafiki]

need more speed to work properly than lead core. They have lower bc values which exacerbates the need for speed. Adding on to this, you need to shoot lighter bullets, especially in legacy cartridges with slow twist rates, because they are longer than lead core bullets and to maximize velocity. Animals I have shot take longer to die, but still die really fast. The wounds they make are long but narrow, i.e. you can eat to the hole. They work just fine as long as you send it through the lungs over 2000 fps. No animal will notice the difference.

Maybe. I don't have a lot of experience on game (buffalo) with copper monoliths but what limited experience I do have suggests otherwise; of course I have been using a different bullet.

I'm in the camp of bullet mass, more traditional weight, not so much lighter zippy bullets so I've been loading my 375 H&H with 300gr at 2530fps and my 500 Sharps (.510 cal) with 570gr at 2060fps (although I'm looking get 2150fps).

These are Peregrine Bushmaster VRG-3 bullets. VRG-3's are flat nosed and have a little brass plunger that assists in expansion. Originally I thought it was a gimmick but it seems to really work.

Like I said, very limited experience but also very dead buffalo that we didn't have to go find.

 

[Elkeater]

I’ve been using solid coppers really consistently the last 6 or 7 years, I have experience with Barnes, Hammer, and Lehigh Defense in a variety or cartridges. I’ve probably taken or seen taken 50-60 head of game from small feral hogs and goats up elk, eland, and bison taken with copper bullets.

I’ve used the 199gr Hammer Hunter, and the 180gr Barnes TTSX in the .300 Winchester Mag. Both do the job very well. I’d lean at the Hammers for more terminal effects in the sense that the Hammers break apart and create multiple wound channels vs, the perfect straight line penetration of the Barnes. But I trust both on pretty much anything.

I’ve used the 140gr Absolute Hammers, and the 141gr Hammer HBC in my 7-08ai. Very devastating terminal performance. My buddies have dubbed this rifle the “Angry Hammer”. I’ve shot stuff as close as 20 yards and as far as 600 yards with excellent results. Only animal I can recall having any trouble recovering was a large 250lb feral hog boar. My buddy hit him through the lungs and the bullet stopped in the cartilage plate on the opposite side. No exit wound made for a poor blood trail. That’s the only animal I’ve ever seen stop the bullet. We still recovered the pig 75 yards from the point of impact it just took us 15-20 minutes to find.

I hand load the 124gr hammer hunter for my buddies 6.5 creedmoor. I’ve seen him kill all kinds of stuff with that rifle including a solid 340” bull elk at nearly 400 yards. When we gutted that bull the little bullet had gone in tore the heart in half and went out the other side. I’ve also seen him drop multiple aoudad, hogs, axis deer, coues deer, and probably some other stuff. I don’t recall tracking much of anything.

In .223 Remington I’ve used the 63gr Absolute hammer and the 62gr Lehigh Defense Controlled Chaos. Very impressed with both. Deer, Aoudad, hogs, javelina have all been cleanly taken out to 200 yards. I was very very impressed with the Lehigh Defense. My son shot a nice sized javelina with that little 62gr bullet last winter and my first thought was it might have been a little too much of a good thing for a 55lb javelina.

Bottom line is that I think coppers are great. I don’t have any experience with the CX line but I wouldn’t hesitate to give them a try.

One thing of note. The faster you drive a copper bullet the better they tend to perform. So I usually recommend dropping down a weight class or two from your usual choice. For example in the 7mm cartridges if you usually like the 160gr class I’d drop down to the 140gr class and drive them as fast as you can as long as it’s safe and accurate.

 

[Ndczerwinski]

My son used 130 gr CX from his 6.5 PRC to take impala, blesbok, and blue Wildebeast all worked great in 2024.

In 2025 my son and I used 160 gr CX from a 7 PRC to kill multiple springboks, ostriches, steen buck, black wildebeest, nyala, etc. worked great for those as well.

 

[MHYOUNG 375]

I've been at this Africa hunting game for over 30 years and used a lot of different controlled expansion bullets for everything. I'm now loading the TTSX for about everything. Accuracy seems to be good to excellent with all calibers and bullet weight I've tried. Game preformance is excellent with lots of penetration for those poor angle shots. I do agree with one of the other poster that the TTTSX and TSX work best when driven fast.

MARK

 

[Azklmsr]

Just got back from Africa and used Barnes TSX and TTSX in my 375 H&H. TSX on a Big old buff. He went 30 yards after hit and gave a great bellow. Bullet did not exit, but was on far side after a shoulder hit and vitals. 300 TSX loaded to about 2600 MV. No issues.

I used the same load above on a large Gemsbuck at 25 yards, Shoulder hit quartering towards me. Dropped in 25 yards. Full penetration

I used a 250 TSX at 2850 MV on a Wildebeest at 40ish yards. Cut his heart in half. Ran +/- 30 yards and piled up. Full penetration

Same load on a Zebra. Same story

Same load on a Large Kudu. Shoulder hit quartering too. Found the bullet on the off-side abut mid way back against the skin. He dropped instantly.

That's the only experience I have. Seemed to have worked well.

On lighter game, I used a 243 Win with 95 Gr Hornady SST at +/- 3100 MV on a pair of Impala and a blesbok. Only bullet that did not fully penetrate was on one of the impala at
188 yds (laser measure) that I hit the spine quartering to. He dropped instantly and we found the bullet on the offside. It being a more conventional bullet shed more weight, but that was perfect performance.

 

[Rare Breed]

I think it’s safe to say no one is shooting TSX at less than 2,000 feet per second. I use Barnes TSX on all but the cats both lion and leopard. They are too hard for the cats.

 

[Rare Breed]

I shot my lion with a TSX which is how I know not my opinion, fact