# Non Lead Bullets for Deer



## specialpatrolgroup (Jan 16, 2009)

I have never used non lead bullets for dear, I hear good things about the barnes X bullets, I think the triple shock replaced them now. Also Nosler has the E-Tip and Hornaday has the GMX bullets. I guess I thought that non lead bullets would not expand as easy as lead, and would be suited to larger, thicker skinned game like elk or bear. The reason I ask is with all the talk about lead poisining these days, these will be the wave of the future, a guy in our party is married to someone who doesnt want deer meat fed to her kids due to the possibility of lead in it. And lord help us if Oprah ever mentions it. Anyway, if there is no lead, then she wouldnt have a problem with it. So anyone use these on deer, or have a preferance for a particular non lead bullet?


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## People (Jan 17, 2005)

I have used the regular X bullet and the triple shock. They expand nicely. They use a very soft copper.

I do not know about all that lead junk they are talking about. If you watch what you are doing the amount of lead you get in your meat would be about as close to zero as possible. If you are not picky and take blood shot meat then you may get some lead.

With that being said there is nothing wrong with the X bullet or the triple shock besides the cost per bullet.

Chuck Norris's show is called Walker: Texas Ranger, because Chuck Norris doesn't run.


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## specialpatrolgroup (Jan 16, 2009)

We do all our own processing, and are carefull what we select, but that doesnt seem to matter to her.


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## Fallguy (Jan 23, 2004)

People have been shooting deer with lead bullets and eating them for years. Poeple worry too much!


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## duckmander (Aug 25, 2008)

Fallguy said:


> People have been shooting deer with lead bullets and eating them for years. Poeple worry too much!


What he said.

The only one dying from lead poisoning here is the deer.

Hope everybody has a great season this year.


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## Savage260 (Oct 21, 2007)

TSX have been excellent every time I have used them on game. I shoot them in 6mm, 25-06, 7mm, 30-06. They are spendy, but about the same as the Nosler and Hornady versions.


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## specialpatrolgroup (Jan 16, 2009)

Trust me, no amount of arguing will convince her otherwise. THey also cannot put plastic in a microwave because it gives you cancer somehow. The easiest thing would be to switch to a lead free bullet (or just tell her we did :wink: ).


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## SaberX01 (Sep 25, 2009)

I've known fellas that have swaged or forged bullets with tungstun power, soft solid brass and even steel. Handloading and getting them to shoot properly is abit of an art, but can be done.

However, injesting any of those metals in any large qty's will probably have ill affects on your person as well. Ever consider bow hunting :beer: then all you have to worry about is a sliver of razor blade causing an ulcer .. LOL ..

That said, if she thinks the worst thing in a common household / garage is the "possibility of lead injestion" she would be sadly mistaken. Common household cleaners can be deadly, no to mention things found in a garage, like antifreeze. And without question, trace elements make their way into the things we eat daily, no matter how clean folks are. Oh, I almost forgot one of the best examples, the ole Teflon coated Pans, LOL .. those teflon flakes are really good for you. uke:

My beter half goes bonkers on allot of things like that as well, cant get this or that becasue of X,Y or Z. It can be a real pain in the backside, so understand the problem.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

If you watch Crying with Oprah to long it will rot your brain.  I think the only way you will pick up lead is if you get to meat greedy and try save every scrap.

I have pounded a lot of X bullets downrange. Then the new X bullet the Triple Shock came out and I shot those. I have a box of the new Polymer tip Triple shock that I need to try now. They are accurate, there is no deer big enough to stop them, and the only thing I will say is they often don't put deer down as fast. They always put them down, but since penetration is so good most times the full foot pounds of energy are not expended within the animal. I would guess that a deer absorbs less than half the energy from a 30 caliber X bullet doing 3000 fps. They always run a little distance. Sometimes they make it 100 yards or so. I have had a few bang flop, but only when I have hit backbone or head.


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## southdakbearfan (Oct 11, 2004)

Buy a box of non-lead bullets, use them, then refill with regular if you don't like them as much.


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## SDguy (May 1, 2009)

TSX have worked fine for me in the 270 winchester. Noticed deer took a little longer to expire though they worked fine otherwise.

I am used to having deer drop right now with my 6 mm remmingtion. So I was a little surprised to see the deer cover 60 yards b4 expiring on 2 occasions using 130 grain TSX from my 270.


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## Savage260 (Oct 21, 2007)

That is strange to me that some of you have had deer run for a bit with the TSX. I have yet to have an animal move more than a step or two after being shot with a TSX. Even the Mulie buck I shot last year at 17yds was DRT, he slid down the hill on his face for about 25yds, but that was the only movement. Maybe he died of a heartattack before the effects of the bullet!!!


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## Fireman13 (Oct 23, 2006)

I've been using the Barnes TSX 85s in .243 and 140, 150 in 7mm-08. Four MN deer kills, very little if any running. The mushroom nice and retain 95% mass. They are also not affected as bad by small amounts of brush. Wide open, they shoot flat and load nice.


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## SDHandgunner (Jun 22, 2004)

I recently tried to work up a load for my new .30-06 T/C Encore using Nosler 150gr. E-Tips. I shot up a whole box of them at paper using various powder charges and seating depths and gave up. For one thing they copper fouled horriblly.

I have a buddy that has used X Bullets and now the TSX Bullets in a few different calibers. He absolutely loves their on game performance. However he tells me Barnes seems to be constantly changing the composition of the material the bullets are made of and the shape of the bullets. He has said that when switching from lot number to lot number of Barnes TSX he has to tweak his load but as much as 2 grains of powder to achieve the same level of accuracy and velocity.

The Hornady GMX is the new kid on the block so to speak, and I have been reading great things about this bullet. The only thing I would question is the minimum impact velocity in soft tissue to get decent expansion. On their web site Hornady shows an expanded bullet that had an impact velocity of 2000 FPS. There really wasn't much expansion there.

Larry


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

Obviously the "Lead Police" have gotten to her. I find it odd that kids these days seem to have more medical problems in their "sanitary" lifestyles than we did with all the "poisons" surrounding us. Heck I still hold lead weights in my mouth before attaching them to my line and I have never had an elevated lead level. I deer hunt primarily with handgun and have found that hard cast lead bullets actually leave LESS lead in the meat than jacketed ones do.

The most costly part of lead free bullets is load development. Beyond that you are only gonna use a couple a year anyway. Keep in mind that solid copper bullets don't have the density of lead bullets meaning they will be longer for weight. It also means they have a longer bearing surface. That said if your gun shoots 180 gr bullets best you may have to go 165 or 150 gr in copper to get the same length/bearing surface and same accuracy in your barrel.


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## Centerfire (Jan 13, 2006)

I totally agree with what was said about the copper bullets not expending their energy in the animal. I hand loaded the Barnes 130 grain TSX in my 270 win. I shot at a standing 8pt buck at about 170 yds and he disappeared into the woods - I could not believe I had missed so I went to check for blood trail (none) - still not satisfied I looked in the direction he went and found him dead about 30 yds from where he was shot. It wasn't until I rolled him back and forth a couple of times that a very small blood trickle appeared - he was hit about 2" behind the front shoulder and the bullet went clean through, by the size of the entrance and exit holes there was very little expansion. Had his lungs not been taken out he would probably have ran a lot farther.

I have had better blood trails on similar shots using 100 grn lead in my 243 win.


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## Burly1 (Sep 20, 2003)

I have to agree with the last poster on the TSX's not leaving a blood trail. The whitetail I shot this year showed no outward evidence of a hit, even though the deer dropped in his tracks, and the bullet completely exited the chest cavity after penetrating the heart and both lungs. I shoot a Ruger #1B in .270 Weatherby Mag. Although I have not chronographed my loads, I should be getting very close to 3400 fps from the Ruger's 26 inch barrel. The deer was a laser-ranged 302 yards from my hay bale stand.

Burl


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## Ron Gilmore (Jan 7, 2003)

Wow, no blood trail from a TSX! Opposite of what I have seen now the past couple years using them as well as others. Hard to say what expansion is since we have only found one bullet, but the massive amount of blood loss in a short distance proves them to be true killers if in the vitals and they will push through a shoulder and exit the other if needed!


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## fox412 (Mar 18, 2005)

I lolve the sierra game king myself. Puts a hurtin on em


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## liljoe (Jan 25, 2008)

After shooting the Barnes-X bullet for 20 plus years and then having to try the TSX because Barnes quit making the X totally unannounced I decided I had enough. When the TSX's first came out there was not 2 lots out of 5 that were even close to being similar. For the last 3 years my sons and I have been using the Berger VLD's. After 15 plus deer, elk, antelope and one Big Horn ram I feel we have a pretty good handle on their performance. We do all of our own boning, butchering and processing. The Berger all copper performs completely the opposite from what a Barnes TSX does. The TSX retains 95 plus percent weight and penetrates through the opposite side most of the time where the Berger expands all it's energy within the cavity and the pieces you retrieve are are just fractions of the original weight. If you want an all copper bullet and have some reservations about Barnes - don't overlook the Berger. They flat fly straight and the results are pretty amazing.


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## Jiffy. (Dec 3, 2009)

For a hunting bullet I shoot the TSX and TTSX exclusively out of all my rifles.

The little 25 cal 100 gr TSX bullet is the killingest little pill out there. Absolutely devastating on deer sized game! I've killed about a dozen deer with them from ranges out to 500ish and all but 2 dropped where they stood. The two that ran were both heart shots and both went about 75 yards after they picked themselves up off of the ground. Dead deer running....

I shoot the 130 TTSX out of my 308 and didn't get a chance at whacking a deer with it this year but a friend shot and killed a ND moose with the exact load this fall. It didn't make it 50 yards with a perfect behind the shoulder shot, complete pass through at just over 200 yards. Pretty sure that load will work on deer too...... :wink:

100 gr load is going 3300
130 gr load is going 3100
both shoot 3/4 MOA out to 600


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## Jiffy. (Dec 3, 2009)

liljoe said:


> For the last 3 years my sons and I have been using the Berger VLD's. After 15 plus deer, elk, antelope and one Big Horn ram I feel we have a pretty good handle on their performance.


Target VLDs or hunting VLDs? Are you jumping them? I've found that in order to make them shoot they had to be to the lands or a bit into the lands. They shot well in my 308 but I am not going to turn my bolt action into a single shot.


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