265 Lehigh Prototype CF--50g Blackhorn
 

Tom provided this all copper Lehigh Controlled Fracturing 265 grain prototype bullet. It was shot into the standard trap, which consists of carpet, 3/8" plywood, and water jugs backed by phone books. Powder charge was 50 grain Blackhorn; range was 25 yard, and an extra jug was added in case it penetrated through five of them.












The bullet was found in the fifth jug. Two petals were found on the ground. The first jug was severely damaged, and had three holes on the back side punched by petals. The second jug was destroyed. The third and fourth jugs were holed through, and through. The fifth jug held the bullet even though there was an opening on the back side.


























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Impressive penetration for a 50gr load.

Personally, im glad Lehigh is doing more with copper lately.

Its pretty strange me using a copper bullet but i think its gonna be a dandy for sure. As far as a 50grn load of Bh, if a bullet fails with that test my testing is over. It will not go to the woods hunting with me.

Thanks for the testing Ron. If the bullet fails at 50grn of BH209 in your testing my testing is over. I wont use the bullet hunting at all. Ill be receiving tips for these bullets and ill also send you some more with tips in them and do the same test. Once the tips come i run both with tips and without thru the chrono to calculate BC of bullet.

It will be interesting to see if the tip affects the fracturing.

Since the bullet fractured to that degree at only 50gr of BH209 I would be real curious of 100-120 gr loads performance.

I think 50gr at 25 yards would just about equal 80-90gr performance at 100. Just a rough guestimate.

Do you think the base would stay intact at higher velocities?

That base would stay intact at MUCH higher velocities. It's solid copper. I'm sure it could withstand higher velocities than you could load any BP load up to. Probably smokeless rigs too.

99% sure it will and in most cases it will pass thru...

If that's the case, I think these bullets warrant another test at a higher impact velocity.

A few years ago, a similar bullet i tried, in a similar test, but then using 105g of Blackhorn. That bullet was brass instead of copper. The range was about 60 feet. Follows is what i wrote back in 2010.




Sabotloader loaned me some bullet and sabot. Doing what any one of us would do i put them on top of some powder and shot them out of my rifle. The first one i shot at paper to see where i would hit,and it cut paper almost where i aimed. That done i shot at juice bottles filled with water. The load was 105g BH209 lit by Federal 209a pushing the 303.3g bullet in an orange sabot of unknown origin. The measured diameter of the bullet was 0.457.7". First a picture of the bottles:













The bullet went through all the bottles, bounced off the first board, and was found where x marks the spot.













The spent bullet weighed 217.3g, and looked like this compared to an unfired bullet:




















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Follows is some more information originally posted in 2010. It compares the Bloodline, TEZ, and Gold Dot. The range was about 60 feet; the powder charge was 105g Blackhorn. The Bloodline bullet is similar to the prototype bullet, but is brass, not copper.










































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