Just for the heck of it - this afternoon (can not hunt anymore this year)I decided to cut open a Gold Dot. I had a 180 grain 40mm Gold Dot sitting on the desk so I took it out into the shop and with the sawzall cut it in half...
I really wanted to see what the piece of copper at the bottom of the HP really was. In my mind I was hoping it would be some thing like what I know a Nosler Partition is with a copper shelf across the bullet supporting lead on top and in the bottom.
It is not built that way - but now I know.
Here is what I think I proved to myself:
1. While the copper is electroplated to the lead it is not a thin layer of copper - it is what I would call the normal thickness of copper. It is definetly "bonded" stuck to the lead. It would be very difficult to separate the two.I could not get it to separate by picking at it.The lead and the copper are going to stay together retaining the weight of the bullet.
2. The "copper dot" embedded in the lead at the bottom of the HP is just a peice of copper where the all the copper petals of the hollow point come together. This junction does seem to stop the expansion of the petals at this point as you have seen in other pictures.
Again just thinking to much probably....
