The Lehigh advantage
 

After watching Dave from Lehigh do some testing, i decided to do some on my own. I took 2.5 gal bags and filled them half full of water and shot at them at 50yards with the 250grn Lehigh Brass bullet to see how consistent and accurate the petals sheared.

It was simply amazing how consistent these bullets perform. The bottom line is, the petals shear when they hit liquid and start pucturing/severing arteries and vitals inside the game you are shooting at. And then metplate of the bullet just keeps on going and in most cases exits thru the animal.

I also shot some 290grn TMZ'S and the 300grn SST"s into the water. The only difference between the bullets was the petals. All three bullets blew up the water and went thru the 3/4" plywood. The Lehigh with these extra petals is fascinating to me and very effective.

Here is a picture below of the petals shown on the wet piece of paper after the petals sheared while going thru the water.





For those that dont know, the 250grn Lehigh has 6 petals that shear off inside the animal to create the extra trauma/shock on game.

The 150grn Steel bullets failed the test. Dave needs to go back and modify those bullets to perform like the brass. The 150grn bullets did work when you got 110grns of BH209 at 50 yards. This light weight bullet will need to work at slower velocities for recoil sensistive people and women and children. I did shoot a few Deer with these bullets last year and they worked really well at 2600fps.

BTW- Dave is also working on getting the sabotless bullets to perform just like the Brass bullets in copper. We hope to have some to test in the next couple weeks if possible.

Interesting. So are the copper bullets going to be designed to shear like the brass ones? I would think it would be harder to do with a softer metal like copper.

Hi Grouse.
One of my hunting goals is meat in the freezer. How much meat are you losing due to the shearing petals?
Thanks,
Art

I kind of lean that way too flounder. Primarily a meat hunter - nice horns are a bonus and do get the blood pumping. I would be pissed to have a big chunk of loin destroyed with a mid-chest shot.

But it sure looks like that bullet would put an animal down fast.

The copper bullets will be designed like the brass one's. And it will be harder to do with the copper. It might take a few times to get it right???? The steel bullets also need some work to work like the brass.

I haven't lost any meat to tell you the truth. My friend really butchers most of my deer. The Lehigh is very consistent in performance. What about XTP'S, SST'S, and all lead bullets? They never do the same thing twice. Now if a bad shot was made i guess it's possible.

I don't know if a petal or two would ruin any of the meat. It might not be very pretty but you could always grind it.

I forgot to mention i also tested the 250grn Lehigh at 200yards. I used 130grns of BH209 and a Knight Disc Elite 50cal. The picture above was a mirror image of the results at 200yds. At some point/range the Lehigh will work like a conventional mushrooming bullet. Those petals require i believe 1000fps and liquid to shear and come off. I'm very happy out to 200yards to say the least with both 50 and 45cal Muzzlleloaders.

I plan this weekend to do the same test's with the 200grn Lehigh. I dont expect any issues because the 200grn bullet will be even traveling faster then the 250grn.


Here's a picture of the bullet after the petals have seperated.

https://webmail2.agoc.com/mime.php?f...bullts+004.mpg


This bullet is the .458 300grn Lehigh 45/70 bullet. These bullets also shoot very well in Muzzleloaders.

I have taken two deer with the 200gr Lehigh one was a 170 pound buck the other was a 140 pound doe the buck was a long angle running shot and the doe was standing almost broadside never lost any meat. Not losing meat is more a matter of hitting them in the right place than the bullet. Lee

With a fragmenting bullet and high velocity those little pieces can go a long way in any direction even with a perfect boiler room shot. I am aware that shot placement is most important.

flounder33

Actually the petals can not go very far at all, especially in meat. The petals weigh so little they can not retain enough energy to travel in meat, However in liquid they are able move a given distance.

This fall I shot a buck in the neck just above the bone with a .458/275 grain Lehigh. Of course the animal went right down so I thought it was a great shot. One of the things that I wanted to know was what the bullet did - how it performed.

The bullet did exit of course, but I really wanted to know what the petals did in that short distance or if they even came off.

At home in the garage, I skinned the animal and was able to find 2 petals just about to come out of the meat under the skin and above the wound channel. If you look closely at the exit wound and just above the wound (at about 3:00 o'clock), you will see a red slit where one petal almost made it out to the skin. I then took to my local butcher and let him know I was in search of petals. He cut into and around the channel - he found two more petals directly below the wound channel both of them lodged up against the near bone. Both had traveled about an inch but did not have enough energy to drive into the bone. The other 2 petals were never found they muct have exited still intact with the bullet. The shot I made did not provide enough fluid for the petals come off clean and because they were in muscle meat tissue they did not travel very far at all. The theory is the petals will work the best in a fluid atmospher. If I could have mode the shot behing the shoulder as I would have liked... the petals would have come off in the chamber and perforated the vitals, and the bullet body would have continued on through the animal.

My shot proved to me that even though somebody has labeled it a fragmenting bullets - the fragments really only work well in fluid. In muscle tissue they do not move that far at all - matter of inches if that.

This picture shows the blood pool from the high neck wound. It bled out far better than I thought it should with such a short wound channel...



Here you can see the exit wound and how high above the shoulders it was.



You just do not have to worry about the petals moving to far in the meat if they get to the meat... Now if you gut shot one or chest cavity one - expect either a huge stinky mess in one cavity or dark red jellow in the other as it destroys heart and lung tissue.

Thanks Pete, good illustration.

I agree 100%. I also think the Lehigh design also aids in a bad shot. Of course not something you want to promote.