Polymer Tipped Bullets
By Oakleaf
There was a time before ipods and blogs when a hunter went to the field or forest with a “thutty-thutty.”
Perhaps they may have had a .35 Remington but the reality was that in that bygone era, a deer and black bear gun was a lever action complete with tubular magazine. Iron sights were sufficient because you weren’t shooting that far, maybe 150 yards. Now Winchester® and Marlin® built some pretty strong firearms, but they weren’t strong enough to withstand the discharge of one of these cartridges in the magazine!
Everyone was stuck with blunt nosed bullets so the recoil would not cause a second cartridge to discharge in the magazine. While these fine old guns and their cartridges served, and still serve, many a hunter well, the plain fact was/is that they were quite short in range because those big round nose bullets were not very efficient in moving through the air and they also did not like to travel very fast. It was just a fact of life back then.
Some firearm makers got around the issue (it used to be called a problem) by changing the gun’s design to accept a clip and chambering the firearm for different cartridges. But millions of the original tube fed lever action guns still grace the gun cabinets and hunting cabins of a whole lot of hunters who don’t want to give up on old faithful.
Seeing a real opportunity in the market place for a new technological development, the firm of Hornady®, here in the U.S., set about to design not only a fix for this generations old problem, but also create some additional new cartridges that would even up the performance of lever guns without the chamber pressures going through the roof or out the side of the action.
Enter in the polymer tipped bullet. We all have seen the miracles of plastics and related materials. You can deform the point of the polymer on one of these newly loaded cartridges and it springs back to its original shape as soon as you release the pressure. When propelled out the barrel this new tip greatly increases the ballistic coefficient of the 30-30 cartridge which translates to higher down range velocities and more kinetic energy delivered at the target. Plus it starts the bullet expansion more effectively.
So instead of just being pretty much of a 150-175 yard gun, the 30-30 can reach out to 200 to 250 yards. Let’s look at the 30-30 a little closer technically. A 150 grain round nose is chugging along at about 1959 fps (feet per second) velocity and 1278 ft-lbs (foot- pounds) of kinetic energy at 100 yards. The bullet drop at 300 yards is 2 feet 5+ inches.
The new bullet design weighs in at 160 grains but the real difference is what happens down range. The new kid is motoring along at 1916 fps with 1304 ft-lbs at 200yards! The bullet drop at 200 yards is a scant 0.2” when you zero the gun 3” high at 100 yards. Way out there, at three hundred yards, this new design is still faster than the original cartridge by over 400 fps and double the kinetic energy. Ok nit pickers, it is really only 1.89 times the kinetic energy – tell that to a black bear. In those good old days, anything out at more than 225 yards was something you sent a Christmas card to, plus with iron sights you couldn’t see it anyway. Well not anymore!
Not happy with just rejuvenating the life of the 30-30, Hornady® developed an entirely new cartridge in conjunction with the gun maker Marlin®. This new cartridge is called the 308 Marlin Express®. This critter launches out of the barrel 260 fps faster than the upgraded 30-30 with the same bullet weight. And at 300 yards this new cartridge/bullet combo is flying along faster than the original 150 grain round nose at 100 yards by 67fps and almost 200 more ft/lbs of energy. Is this new cartridge a genuine 300 yard gun in the hands of a skilled shooter? You bet it is. Just sight the new cartridge in at 3” high at 100 yards and you will be only 1.7” high at two hundred. The bullet drop at 300 yards is just about 6 and three quarters inches. That is less than the original cartridge’s drop at just 200 yards.
Hornady® threw away the old drawing board and came up with new case geometry, new propellant technology, and that beautiful polymer tipped bullet with the name of Flex Tip®. Now you have a cartridge that can be chambered into a lever action firearm that can truly be an elk cartridge and an antelope gun all rolled into one. The chamber pressures are well within the operational range of a lever action firearm.
Many of the newer generation lever actions will accommodate a telescopic sight and now you have a cartridge that can use that variable scope that has been sitting in the drawer and lonesome. If you have one of the older levers you can still benefit from improved performance and with a little gunsmithing put a scope on old trusty.
This also lets you left hand shooters have more firearm options to choose from, which is always a good thing. Maybe these “new old days” ain’t so bad after all, but I’m still keeping my Hula hoop® and fuzzy dice just in case.
