McGuire Ballistics field and terminal reports

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

You’re ballisticly correct!

Fixed for the missed pun.

Glad to see some more folks putting these to test. I'm a target customer for these things and have to saw was turned off by the weird engagement. My range time and amounts of animals I can kill in a year are limited so I gotta pick and choose. I wanted to try a new higher BC ~160gr 7mm mono, I'll wait for more data on the copper rose. Gonna give the cutting edge lazer a try.

 

[DagOtto]

Okay, it's taken a fair amount of time, but I have compiled every necropsy report I could locate on both Rokslide (this thread,) as well as the one referenced in this thread located on the LRH Forum. If you know of other good collections please send me links and I will continue to add to this database. In total I have 62 different necropsy reports for the Copper Rose bullets in all different calibers. I've attached a pdf version to this thread. Every entry has a link to the original post.

A few things jump out to me although these are far from conclusions with less than 70 data entries.

1-The bullet appears to create impressively large wound channels at times. There are 10 entries with wound channels estimated to be 3" or larger which I would place on the "really large" end of the spectrum.

2-There were 9 entries with wound channels that appeared to be 1" or smaller though.

3-There was a clear difference in wound channels depending on caliber with 6mm/.243 average wound channel at 1.5" and 7.62mm/.308 at 2.5". The overall average wound channel size was 1.9"

4-Average yards to incapacitation was 30 yards but the sample size was quite small as very few of the submissions included this data point. PLEASE INCLUDE DISTANCE TO INCAPACITATION in your necropsy reports. That and wound channel pics are really critical to good data comparisons.

5-Overall 8 reports had no exit wound, 40 reported exit wounds and 14 didn't report. That is an 83 percent exiting ratio.

6-Finally, 23 of the necropsy reports appeared to show clearly oblong wound channels which I have come to understand may indicate a tumbling bullet. There doesn't appear to be a relationship between caliber or impact velocity with this wound pattern although this has not been looked at closely yet.

For comparisons sake I've attached the data I have compiled for 6mm/.243 caliber bullets in the softer fragmenting category (along with DTAC w/Nosering which is a tumbler.) There are 91 reports in that database which are all from the .243 for big game thread here on Rokslide. At 2.1" average wound size is larger than all but .308 caliber in copper rose. The ratio of large (>3") and small (<1") wound channels appears to be very similar. Average yards to incapacition is slightly smaller, although I don't trust this number because of the tiny number of necropsy reports on the copper rose that actually included this data point. And the number of exit wounds is significantly smaller with the softer 6mm bullets at 56%.

Most interesting to me is the higher exit wound ratio of the Copper Rose and the larger wound channels for that bullet as caliber size grows. None of this is rocket science and seems to me to track with the science and relationship between caliber, impact velocity and bullet type. As an aside, it was really fun to see all of the different calibers in the various reports. 270 Sherman! 338 Lapua! even a good 'ole 30-06! It reminded me that guns are fun and that animals die when hit in the right spot with just about anything.

Caviates and Talking Points

I feel like I need to point out a few obvious things before others grind my face in them.

1- I'm a total amateur, not a trained ballistician, and not in any way associated with any business in the hunting and gun space except as a consumer and hobbyist. I don't have any point to prove in this analysis and I don't believe I am biased other than I do want to find a non-lead bullet that performs well. I've tried to enter data accurately and honestly. I am sure I've made mistakes in the process, so if you find mistakes please message me and explain what you found, and don't jump to the conclusion that I was trying to sway results.

2-The level of accuracy from self reported necropsy reports is spotty at best. In nearly all cases I ruled out reports that didn't have decent photos of wound tracks or which left key metrics out. However, these field reports are as close as we are going to get to any kind of scientific analysis of actual hunting performance for these bullets. My desire is to gain enough entries in the database where trends can be seen through the static of hunter inaccuracy and my own lack of expertise. I expect that once we build a database that has several hundred entries for each bullet, each caliber and each animal we will start to see some clear trends.

3-Most of the necropsy reports for the Copper Rose bullets were submitted by the owner of the company. While this is an obvious and understandable reason to omit bad results and highlight good results I saw nothing in the entries that seemed fudged or exaggerated. And the ones that were just glorified "grip and grins" with not wound photos or data got left out of the database. As a side note, it is really unfortunate that most of us feel so hesitant to post stories and photos about the ugly kills and rodeos we've all been part of. I think because of this bias to success we get to see only the good to great kill reports. I get it though!

4-Many of the reports provide a muzzle velocity and a distance to impact. At some point I will go through and extrapolate the estimated impact velocities using 4DOF.

5-After starting this exercise I understand that while not perfect, ballistic gel testing is a better way to prove a bullet's likely performance than field reports. I repeat here my cry for scientifically robust terminal ballistic testing in FBI gel for hunting bullets at various impact velocities. I believe this is the single most important data set that should and could be provided to us hunters to aid in our selection of hunting bullets. I guess we'd have to throw actual standardized BC data for bullets as well for those hunting past 500 yards.

6-Final thought, I would LOVE for this database to grow and grow. To that end, if you wish to help enter data from forum posts please message me and I can send you the spreadsheet format. I will make sure to give you credit for your work. The only data point that is subjective is the wound channel size as it's a estimate based off of photos and we all have a slightly different internal scale. To that end, I should probably continue to do the size estimation so they are consistent.

DO

 

[Formidilosus]

Okay, it's taken a fair amount of time, but I have compiled every necropsy report I could locate on both Rokslide (this thread,) as well as the one referenced in this thread located on the LRH Forum. If you know of other good collections please send me links and I will continue to add to this database. In total I have 62 different necropsy reports for the Copper Rose bullets in all different calibers. I've attached a pdf version to this thread. Every entry has a link to the original post.

A few things jump out to me although these are far from conclusions with less than 70 data entries.

1-The bullet appears to create impressively large wound channels at times. There are 10 entries with wound channels estimated to be 3" or larger which I would place on the "really large" end of the spectrum.

2-There were 9 entries with wound channels that appeared to be 1" or smaller though.

3-There was a clear difference in wound channels depending on caliber with 6mm/.243 average wound channel at 1.5" and 7.62mm/.308 at 2.5". The overall average wound channel size was 1.9"

4-Average yards to incapacitation was 30 yards but the sample size was quite small as very few of the submissions included this data point. PLEASE INCLUDE DISTANCE TO INCAPACITATION in your necropsy reports. That and wound channel pics are really critical to good data comparisons.

5-Overall 8 reports had no exit wound, 40 reported exit wounds and 14 didn't report. That is an 83 percent exiting ratio.

6-Finally, 23 of the necropsy reports appeared to show clearly oblong wound channels which I have come to understand may indicate a tumbling bullet. There doesn't appear to be a relationship between caliber or impact velocity with this wound pattern although this has not been looked at closely yet.

That is a very well done summery. It also highlights the points that I have made, and was trying to get clarification on- how often does the Copper Rose yaw/tumble. Because when they don’t, the wounds are narrow like any other mono.


Nit pick:

On your 6mm sheet- there should be a lot more DTAC data- I alone have posted 20 plus with wound and time/distance to incapacitation information.

 

[DagOtto]

That is a very well done summery. It also highlights the points that I have made, and was trying to get clarification on- how often does the Copper Rose yaw/tumble. Because when they don’t, the wounds are narrow like any other mono.


Nit pick:

On your 6mm sheet- there should be a lot more DTAC data- I alone have posted 20 plus with wound and time/distance to incapacitation information.

Thanks,
As for the missing DTAC data, I haven't gotten close to all the way through the 6mm/.243 thread yet. I've only gotten roughly 100 entries in.
As I complete that effort I will post analysis etc.
D

 

[Formidilosus]

Thanks,
As for the missing DTAC data, I haven't gotten close to all the way through the 6mm/.243 thread yet. I've only gotten roughly 100 entries in.
As I complete that effort I will post analysis etc.
D

Mainly just nitpicking. That is a very good synopsis of the available information.

 

[180ls1]

Is there a consensus on copper bullet stability and performance? My copper 6.5 is a 7tw and has been impressive on game. It's also leaving the muzzle @ 3400 but I wonder how much really cranking up the RPM effects performance and reliability.

 

[PathFinder]

Okay, it's taken a fair amount of time, but I have compiled every necropsy report I could locate on both Rokslide (this thread,) as well as the one referenced in this thread located on the LRH Forum. If you know of other good collections please send me links and I will continue to add to this database. In total I have 62 different necropsy reports for the Copper Rose bullets in all different calibers. I've attached a pdf version to this thread. Every entry has a link to the original post.

A few things jump out to me although these are far from conclusions with less than 70 data entries.

1-The bullet appears to create impressively large wound channels at times. There are 10 entries with wound channels estimated to be 3" or larger which I would place on the "really large" end of the spectrum.

2-There were 9 entries with wound channels that appeared to be 1" or smaller though.

3-There was a clear difference in wound channels depending on caliber with 6mm/.243 average wound channel at 1.5" and 7.62mm/.308 at 2.5". The overall average wound channel size was 1.9"

4-Average yards to incapacitation was 30 yards but the sample size was quite small as very few of the submissions included this data point. PLEASE INCLUDE DISTANCE TO INCAPACITATION in your necropsy reports. That and wound channel pics are really critical to good data comparisons.

5-Overall 8 reports had no exit wound, 40 reported exit wounds and 14 didn't report. That is an 83 percent exiting ratio.

6-Finally, 23 of the necropsy reports appeared to show clearly oblong wound channels which I have come to understand may indicate a tumbling bullet. There doesn't appear to be a relationship between caliber or impact velocity with this wound pattern although this has not been looked at closely yet.

For comparisons sake I've attached the data I have compiled for 6mm/.243 caliber bullets in the softer fragmenting category (along with DTAC w/Nosering which is a tumbler.) There are 91 reports in that database which are all from the .243 for big game thread here on Rokslide. At 2.1" average wound size is larger than all but .308 caliber in copper rose. The ratio of large (>3") and small (<1") wound channels appears to be very similar. Average yards to incapacition is slightly smaller, although I don't trust this number because of the tiny number of necropsy reports on the copper rose that actually included this data point. And the number of exit wounds is significantly smaller with the softer 6mm bullets at 56%.

Most interesting to me is the higher exit wound ratio of the Copper Rose and the larger wound channels for that bullet as caliber size grows. None of this is rocket science and seems to me to track with the science and relationship between caliber, impact velocity and bullet type. As an aside, it was really fun to see all of the different calibers in the various reports. 270 Sherman! 338 Lapua! even a good 'ole 30-06! It reminded me that guns are fun and that animals die when hit in the right spot with just about anything.

Caviates and Talking Points

I feel like I need to point out a few obvious things before others grind my face in them.

1- I'm a total amateur, not a trained ballistician, and not in any way associated with any business in the hunting and gun space except as a consumer and hobbyist. I don't have any point to prove in this analysis and I don't believe I am biased other than I do want to find a non-lead bullet that performs well. I've tried to enter data accurately and honestly. I am sure I've made mistakes in the process, so if you find mistakes please message me and explain what you found, and don't jump to the conclusion that I was trying to sway results.

2-The level of accuracy from self reported necropsy reports is spotty at best. In nearly all cases I ruled out reports that didn't have decent photos of wound tracks or which left key metrics out. However, these field reports are as close as we are going to get to any kind of scientific analysis of actual hunting performance for these bullets. My desire is to gain enough entries in the database where trends can be seen through the static of hunter inaccuracy and my own lack of expertise. I expect that once we build a database that has several hundred entries for each bullet, each caliber and each animal we will start to see some clear trends.

3-Most of the necropsy reports for the Copper Rose bullets were submitted by the owner of the company. While this is an obvious and understandable reason to omit bad results and highlight good results I saw nothing in the entries that seemed fudged or exaggerated. And the ones that were just glorified "grip and grins" with not wound photos or data got left out of the database. As a side note, it is really unfortunate that most of us feel so hesitant to post stories and photos about the ugly kills and rodeos we've all been part of. I think because of this bias to success we get to see only the good to great kill reports. I get it though!

4-Many of the reports provide a muzzle velocity and a distance to impact. At some point I will go through and extrapolate the estimated impact velocities using 4DOF.

5-After starting this exercise I understand that while not perfect, ballistic gel testing is a better way to prove a bullet's likely performance than field reports. I repeat here my cry for scientifically robust terminal ballistic testing in FBI gel for hunting bullets at various impact velocities. I believe this is the single most important data set that should and could be provided to us hunters to aid in our selection of hunting bullets. I guess we'd have to throw actual standardized BC data for bullets as well for those hunting past 500 yards.

6-Final thought, I would LOVE for this database to grow and grow. To that end, if you wish to help enter data from forum posts please message me and I can send you the spreadsheet format. I will make sure to give you credit for your work. The only data point that is subjective is the wound channel size as it's a estimate based off of photos and we all have a slightly different internal scale. To that end, I should probably continue to do the size estimation so they are consistent.

DO

This is really cool to see put all in one place and summarized, thanks for putting in the work to do it! Don't forget the 6UM thread, there are a lot of data points in there. Mostly 115 NR DTACs.

 

[mtnbound]

Okay, it's taken a fair amount of time, but I have compiled every necropsy report I could locate on both Rokslide (this thread,) as well as the one referenced in this thread located on the LRH Forum. If you know of other good collections please send me links and I will continue to add to this database. In total I have 62 different necropsy reports for the Copper Rose bullets in all different calibers. I've attached a pdf version to this thread. Every entry has a link to the original post.

A few things jump out to me although these are far from conclusions with less than 70 data entries.

1-The bullet appears to create impressively large wound channels at times. There are 10 entries with wound channels estimated to be 3" or larger which I would place on the "really large" end of the spectrum.

2-There were 9 entries with wound channels that appeared to be 1" or smaller though.

3-There was a clear difference in wound channels depending on caliber with 6mm/.243 average wound channel at 1.5" and 7.62mm/.308 at 2.5". The overall average wound channel size was 1.9"

4-Average yards to incapacitation was 30 yards but the sample size was quite small as very few of the submissions included this data point. PLEASE INCLUDE DISTANCE TO INCAPACITATION in your necropsy reports. That and wound channel pics are really critical to good data comparisons.

5-Overall 8 reports had no exit wound, 40 reported exit wounds and 14 didn't report. That is an 83 percent exiting ratio.

6-Finally, 23 of the necropsy reports appeared to show clearly oblong wound channels which I have come to understand may indicate a tumbling bullet. There doesn't appear to be a relationship between caliber or impact velocity with this wound pattern although this has not been looked at closely yet.

For comparisons sake I've attached the data I have compiled for 6mm/.243 caliber bullets in the softer fragmenting category (along with DTAC w/Nosering which is a tumbler.) There are 91 reports in that database which are all from the .243 for big game thread here on Rokslide. At 2.1" average wound size is larger than all but .308 caliber in copper rose. The ratio of large (>3") and small (<1") wound channels appears to be very similar. Average yards to incapacition is slightly smaller, although I don't trust this number because of the tiny number of necropsy reports on the copper rose that actually included this data point. And the number of exit wounds is significantly smaller with the softer 6mm bullets at 56%.

Most interesting to me is the higher exit wound ratio of the Copper Rose and the larger wound channels for that bullet as caliber size grows. None of this is rocket science and seems to me to track with the science and relationship between caliber, impact velocity and bullet type. As an aside, it was really fun to see all of the different calibers in the various reports. 270 Sherman! 338 Lapua! even a good 'ole 30-06! It reminded me that guns are fun and that animals die when hit in the right spot with just about anything.

Caviates and Talking Points

I feel like I need to point out a few obvious things before others grind my face in them.

1- I'm a total amateur, not a trained ballistician, and not in any way associated with any business in the hunting and gun space except as a consumer and hobbyist. I don't have any point to prove in this analysis and I don't believe I am biased other than I do want to find a non-lead bullet that performs well. I've tried to enter data accurately and honestly. I am sure I've made mistakes in the process, so if you find mistakes please message me and explain what you found, and don't jump to the conclusion that I was trying to sway results.

2-The level of accuracy from self reported necropsy reports is spotty at best. In nearly all cases I ruled out reports that didn't have decent photos of wound tracks or which left key metrics out. However, these field reports are as close as we are going to get to any kind of scientific analysis of actual hunting performance for these bullets. My desire is to gain enough entries in the database where trends can be seen through the static of hunter inaccuracy and my own lack of expertise. I expect that once we build a database that has several hundred entries for each bullet, each caliber and each animal we will start to see some clear trends.

3-Most of the necropsy reports for the Copper Rose bullets were submitted by the owner of the company. While this is an obvious and understandable reason to omit bad results and highlight good results I saw nothing in the entries that seemed fudged or exaggerated. And the ones that were just glorified "grip and grins" with not wound photos or data got left out of the database. As a side note, it is really unfortunate that most of us feel so hesitant to post stories and photos about the ugly kills and rodeos we've all been part of. I think because of this bias to success we get to see only the good to great kill reports. I get it though!

4-Many of the reports provide a muzzle velocity and a distance to impact. At some point I will go through and extrapolate the estimated impact velocities using 4DOF.

5-After starting this exercise I understand that while not perfect, ballistic gel testing is a better way to prove a bullet's likely performance than field reports. I repeat here my cry for scientifically robust terminal ballistic testing in FBI gel for hunting bullets at various impact velocities. I believe this is the single most important data set that should and could be provided to us hunters to aid in our selection of hunting bullets. I guess we'd have to throw actual standardized BC data for bullets as well for those hunting past 500 yards.

6-Final thought, I would LOVE for this database to grow and grow. To that end, if you wish to help enter data from forum posts please message me and I can send you the spreadsheet format. I will make sure to give you credit for your work. The only data point that is subjective is the wound channel size as it's a estimate based off of photos and we all have a slightly different internal scale. To that end, I should probably continue to do the size estimation so they are consistent.

DO

Good job, thanks for doing.

 

[blacktailcentral]

Any reason they only post g1 bcs rather than g7…. Seems to me that if they understood ballistics they would advertise the correct drag model for their bullet.

 

[SDHNTR]

Here we go again

 

[blacktailcentral]

Here we go again

Not trying to stir it up but these are boattail projos so g7 would be the correct drag model.

 

[JFK]

Figured I’d add to this thread as I have some real world data. Got out shooting this morning and had 25 of the McGuire 128gr copper rose in one of my 270’s. Loading for this rifle (Sauer 100) was not ideal due to mag length limitations leading to massive jump. I have another rifle with longer mag that I will try next time.

128gr Copper Rose
55gr H4350
Starline Brass
Rem 9.5 primers.
COL 3.330
Avg muzzle velocity 3050
1:10 22” barrel
1000’ elevation

Zeroed gun at 100. Baseline accuracy was not great. Around 1.75moa for 6 shots. The same gun shoots around 1 moa with same powder charge/components with 129gr Barnes LRX. The way the McGuire is designed the ogive is further back on the bullet so I’m sitting somewhere around 150 thousandths of jump. I’ll likely try them in my other gun where I can load them out longer or switch powders, or both.


BC. That was really what I was interested in as they state a .580 G1. After zero’ing at 100 I plugged in .550 on a hunch that .580 was unrealistic, and shot to 500 yards making first round impacts on 12” steel. The wheels came off the cart at 600. Missed low, made additional correction, then was making consistent impacts.

Adjusted BC down in shooter app to match 600 yard data and started missing high at everything inside of 600 yards. Kinda frustrating because I was short on time and couldn’t get it fully dialed in but it shows promise with a much better bc than the lrx. Hopefully I can get them to shoot better with another powder.

 

[WI-Carcosa]

6.5 PRC 7.5 twist 20” barrel 125 McGuire copper rose. 3130 MV avg
25 yards, 3087 approx impact velocity
Hard quartering to me. Impact neck above shoulder and exit behind opposite shoulder. Immediate incapacitation. I did not get pics during field dressing but I pulled out a few chunks of lung along with the main lungs. Smashed the neck vertebrae and fragmentation evident throughout wound channel.


Entrance under hide

Exit under hide

Entrance shoulder removed.

Exit shoulder removed

 

[WI-Carcosa]

2 more McGuire kills. 125 copper rose both magazine fed going 3130 avg at the muzzle.
First big whitetail doe at 47 yards high shoulder quarter to, 3054 approx impact velocity. Immediately incapacitated. No pics but similar to buck in post 273.

Second small doe. 105 yards 2955 approx impact velocity. Quartering away entrance behind shoulder and exit out opposite shoulder. 50 yard sprint 8 seconds to incapacitation. Multiple exits including opposite rib age and shoulder. While gutting the heart fell out and the top half was gone. Pieces of lung removed during gutting. Only 3 kills thus far at high impact velocity, but this is much more destructive than the CX, trophy copper, Barnes, typical mono performance I have seen at similar high impacts velocity with larger calibers.




Entrance ribcage. Oblong shape appears to tumble (tumbling is good!!)

Exit shoulder hide off.

Exit ribcage low and back from shoulder

 

[sambo3006]

Thanks for posting! I want to try that bullet in a .264 WM build for next year. Your results are encouraging in regards to potential close range impacts.

 

[WI-Carcosa]

Two cow elk kills with the 125 McGuire copper rose. 6.5 PRC 3130mv

Cow 1: 248 yards, single feed, broadside. 2777 est impact velocity
High double lung hit. Ran into trees 110 yards and tipped over. No follow up shot available but could see her stumbling on her way. Full pass through. Bullet fragmented on entry and core tumbled passing through. Lungs with heavy damage. Copper fragments in wound channel. Time to expiration about 13 seconds

Exit

Exit hide removed

Entry front shoulder removed



Cow 2:
-shot 1 151 yards, 2911 impact velocity, single feed, broadside
Hit back in paunch in front of the hips. (My idiot self did not hit the shot process brake as it took steps forward. I was furious with myself but saved that for when she was dead). Bullet tumbled but did not create large upset in only soft tissue. She bunched with group and ran 60-80 yards. Stayed in scope and the moment she separated from the others…
-Shot 2: 222 yards, broadside, 2813 fps magazine feed
Front shoulder hit and dropped. Shattered ball joint of onside shoulder, hit front lobes of lung, broke base of scapula and core of bullet found on the inside of the hide on opposite shoulder. She Picked her head up and..
-Shot 3, 222 yards, 2813 fps, broadside, magazine feed, neck pass through immediate incapacitation. Copper fragments in offside hide. Time to expiration 36 seconds.

Shot 1 exit

Shot 2 entry hide removed

Shot 2 ball joint onside shoulder

Shot 2 exit and bullet

Shot 3 entry hide removed


I only have 5 kills with this bullet so far thus I am hesitant to opine yet, but as of now it is far more damaging than the typical mono kills I have witnessed. Both performed in tissue, but the single feed is notably more destructive. More to come next hunting season