All of the bullets produced by Bear Creek Ballistics are of a pure copper construction (no lead) with either a plastic or copper alloy ballistic tip depending on the required weight. The profile of the bullets are optimized to give the best ballistic performance for that weight bullet without sacrificing expansion characteristics. The bullet nose is intentionally weakened to promote rapid expansion and a quick humane kill. This style of bullet design has been used to harvest game animals from the size of buffalo and bear to antelope and coyote. Our findings have been that regardless if the impact distance is 30 feet or 300 yards, the bullets will expand to roughly 2x their starting diameter and typically pass completely through the animal.
We feel the copper composition and the weakened tip of the bullet gives the best of both worlds. The bullet will fully open on a lung shot or shoulder shot and due to the excellent strength of the copper penetrate completely through the shoulders of whitetail size game. The bullet on the right was recovered from under the skin of a large Whitetail buck. The buck was shot at 30 feet, the bullet velocity was over 2,000 fps and shattered both shoulders, expanding to over 1.2″ with no weight loss. The bullet on the left was recovered from a mature Whitetail doe shot at 200 yards, the bullet expanded to 1.0″ also with no loss of bullet mass.
Recovered bullets. The right bullet was recovered from a large buck shot at 30 feet. The left bullet was recovered from a mature whitetail doe shot at and 200 yards.
The rapid energy transfer of these bullets will typically put whitetail size game down at the shot with a solid chest shot eliminating the need to track the animal for an extended distance due to poor bullet performance.
Recently there has been a lot written regarding the benefits of using copper over lead and lead core bullets for big game hunting and the lead contamination that can occur as a bullet passes through a game animal.