Load Data for Copper Handgun Loads

M

Marco Califo

New member
I bought Barnes and one other brand Copper bullets for the calibers I carry.
Barnes data, while welcomed, is not max-performance. Hodgdon includes a good amount of copper bullet loads using powders from Hodgdon, Winchester, Accurate, Ramshot, often with substantially higher velocities. Lyman #50 includes some copper data, but it is tepid. Alliant does squat.
My question is am I missing anything?
I had hoped Barnes put out a book, or at least updated their data (and especially powders) more often than once a century.
Terminal ballistics, bullet weight choice, guidelines are also on my wish list.
 
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My question is am I missing anything?
Click to expand...

IF, by "Missing anything" you mean missing additional places to look for data, I have no idea.

But if you mean "missing anything" about all copper bullets vs. standard construction, you might be.

Consider these points,

All copper bullets must be longer than lead bullets of the same weight.
They have to fit into the same limited space, and so, being longer take up a different amount of room in the case.

They may have longer bearing surfaces in contact with the rifling, and the all copper alloy bullets may not (probably are not) the same alloy used in copper jackets for lead bullets. This MAY result in increased friction in the bore, and therefore lower speed with a given amount of pressure.

All these factors can have an effect on what is considered "top performance" since the pressure has to be within industry limits, with all bullets.

Also consider that, even in handguns, an handful of FPS velocity difference rarely has any observable down range effect.
 
Thanks 44 AMP, those differences are WHY the data is unique to copper bullets.
Yes, I am looking for further load data or any reference material.
 
You've found the main sources I would have looked at. After that, you're into interior ballistics programs, for which you want to compare predictions with published data to get a sense of how close their model works. As compared to jacketed bullets, it takes more force to engrave a copper bullet than it does a jacketed bullet, though the copper bands used on a lot of the rifle bullets now have reduced that difference. I mention it so that if you use GRT or QuickLOAD, you know to tweak the starting pressure to get a better alignment of the result with the published pressure. After you have that sorted, you can look at substituting other powders.
 
Thanks Unclenick.
I do have Quickload, but have not installed it yet. I will, and then get up to speed with conventional bullets, then start working on copper. No further questions at this point.
 
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The Vihtavouri app has 9mm 115 grain data. I thought they had other calibers but I don't see any after scrolling through the common handgun calibers.
 
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