Lehigh Spear

[ronlaughlin]

Grouse45 provided these 247 grain bullets. The bullet was shot into a trap the same as shown in photo at a range of 25 yard. The powder load was 50 grain Blackhorn.

The bullet was captured by the sixth (last) jug. The third jug was the most damaged with the back side blowed out. The broken tip was found in the fourth jug. The nose of the bullet appears to be jammed with plywood.

 

[Bones816]

I’ll reply.
That doesn’t look effective.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[52Bore]

Add it to the list of nearly all 'tipped' bullets - FAILED.
I guess Spear is a proper word to use.

 

[jerseyjimk]

Looks pointless for now, i wonder if they put lead in the cavity if that would help support the spear

 

[WV Hunter]

Well that is one weird looking tip.
So far no matter how they try, no luck improving on the original design. I'll stick with that - they work great and shoot great too :yeah:

 

[sabotloader]

On another forum one member asked a pertinent question about this bullet.

And while most of us looked at this test result and deemed the bullet a failure - real world testing has now shown other wise...

My concern with this design is that the tip could be misaligned during loading and cause erratic flight similar to the steel rods place in armor piercing bullets. If those are not centered then accuracy falls off. Looks like a lot of trouble for a tip design that probably doesn't increase the BC enough.

Bronco, answer about bullet BC

Lehigh 451x230CF-HP .160
Lehigh 451x237CF-LP .250

Lehigh 452x240CF-HP .180
Lehigh 452x247CF-LP .260

So I would say the tips do decent job bumping the actual G1 BC

I am not sure how you could get the tip misaligned in the bullet. It is press fit into the copper bullet and it is really tight. I have actually tried to remove them from a bullet with a vise and vice grip. Didn't happen. I completely destroyed both in my attempt.

Remember also the tip is not the normal aluminum that we encounter. It is 7075-T6.

7075-T6 aluminum is a type of 7075 aluminum. It is furnished in the T6 temper. To achieve this temper, the metal is solution heat-treated and artificially aged until it meets standard mechanical property requirements.

As shown in Ron's test it would probably break before it bent.

Loading - some have speculated that loading might also be a problem but most normal spire type loading jags load the bullet with out touching the tip. I have used TC Super Jags, Spin Jag Originals, and of course a Lehigh loading jag. All of these load the bullet correctly.

I can also tell you that dropping them on the concrete floor in the garage, not a designed test, but it happened a couple of times when I was trying to remove the tip in the garage. Anyway the drop did not effect the tip or the bullet.

One other thing that arrived in my email this morning was some information of successful harvests using the lighter .451x237CF-LP bullet. Same bullet just smaller diameter and shorter so it can be shot from a 1-48 twist ML or in this a case tight bored smokeless ML's

A couple of guys wrote:

My Grandson Shot this Mouflon at 267 yds. With the prototype .451, 237 gr. bullet that you sent: created extreme internal damage lending itself to tremendous terminal performance. It also passed through but with the aid of the fragmentation, the animal was disabled immediately and expired immediately after.

My Son Shot this Axis Buck at 363 yds. With the prototype .451 MZ bullet in his Smokeless Muzzleloader, with an average velocity in his rifle: 2963 fps.
The spotter saw the deer bellied up immediately when it got shot: it too, passed through, but internal damage was massive.
Performed perfectly and to my utmost expectation.

Ron's tests are a great comparison tool and he spends a great amount of time and effort getting them done. After viewing his test of the bullet - I personally would have labeled it 'bullet failure'. Yet real-world testing of this bullet indicates a completely different result.

I think we all should keep that in mind.

 

[ronlaughlin]

Mike,

Those bullets that killed those animals were traveling a way faster than the bullet when we caught it. Results should be expected to be different. If the bullets that killed those animals had been traveling the same speed as the bullet we caught, the results may have been disappointing? Had the bullet we caught been traveling as fast as those killing bullets, you may not have considered the result to be a failure.

The information i posted in the OP was data we collected in the real world. ☺

 

[sabotloader]

Mike,

Those bullets that killed those animals were traveling a way faster than the bullet when we caught it. Results should be expected to be different. If the bullets that killed those animals had been traveling the same speed as the bullet we caught, the results may have been disappointing? Had the bullet we caught been traveling as fast as those killing bullets, you may not have considered the result to be a failure.

The information i posted in the OP was data we collected in the real world. ☺

Those particular bullets were traveling faster than what you were shooting because they were being shot from a smokeless ML. But check 363 yard range on the long shot. I have not done the math but at that range they have slowed down more to the normal velocity that we might expect from a normal ML. Second... Tom and others have used the bullet with a normal ML velocities and report very good Terminal Performance.

I am not trying to down play your testing - but shooting carpet, plywood, and water is not done to often while hunting. I am saying these confirmed animal harvests are the best of testing circumstances.

 

[long shot]

dont think so they might work but seems like selling shotgun shell with an arrow. in it

 

[ronlaughlin]

......I have not done the math........

Had you done the math, you could have understood........

 

[Muley Hunter]

I remember one of the Barnes bullets clogged up with wood like this bullet. I wonder if the wood is doing this and acting differently than an animal hide?

 

[ronlaughlin]

Plywood certainly isn't the same thing as bone.

What has been observed throughout the duration of this bullet study is some of the bullets fail to work when they aren't traveling fast enough. These very same bullets work fine, when their speed is increased. Follows is a couple of examples. The 250g XTP traveling slower, and then traveling faster. The 250g TEZ traveling faster, and traveling slower. The PT Gold was another bullet that didn't work when traveling slower, but worked good when traveling faster.

Two of these failed bullets didn't have the plywood jammed in the face, the one bullet did. It seems the speed at impact is the key, not the plywood clogging. Many bullets fail to work when the powder charge is 50 grain Blackhorn. Bullets that fail when traveling slow include the Partition, the Deep Curl, the XTP, the TEZ, the PT Gold, and others. Large open hollow points seem to work best at slow speeds.

 

[Muley Hunter]

Ron...........Have you figured out what 50gr at 25yds is equal to in distance with 100Gr? In other words at what distance would the bullet be doing the same fps with 100gr as the bullet is doing at 25yds with 50gr. This would be for the 250gr TEZ.

Over 200yds?

 

[ronlaughlin]

Yes, a little beyond 200 yard; less than 250 yard.

 

[Muley Hunter]

Thanks, Ron.