SmallCaliberCentral

I was at Nosler last week with my friend from Bend, Oregon and they intimated such a product was in the works when I stated that I couldn't shoot anything but lead free varmint bullets at home. I'm glad word is finally out, it looks like a good product.

I believe the the Barnes Varmint Grenade is a powdered copper-tin core, appearing like copper colored chalk when cut apart. Iron core material may have additional advantage of quickly breaking down to Fe Oxide in irrigated fields. Iron is an essential plant nutrient, so it may be beneficial in soils where continual agriculture has depleted the iron content. (There's an idea for a bullet - one that breaks down to soil nutrients!) The ballistic tip feature will eliminate the Barnes hollow point variance and may result in better accuracy. I used the .204 and .224 Varmint Grenade on Oregon sage rats and they really did the job. Now with the Nosler lead free we have an alternative to try in barrels that don't optimize the Barnes, at least in .224. I'll be ordering some as soon as they are available.

The folks at Nosler are very helpful, and their Pro Shop has some really good deals on Leupold scopes if you are ever in the Bend area. In fact, everyone in the Central Oregon area was polite and well mannered, something I'm not used to living just south of San Francisco! Being an old foggy I never had so many doors held open for me with a friendly nod. Mrs. Wrangler said the genteel behavior was like the 1950's again!

These are all over the gun rags on the ad pages! Wonder if they're any good!

I am a big fan of Nosler Products

I purchased 4 boxes of the 35 grain .224" and they seemed to have promise at the range, but there hasn't been time to perfect a load. The first box I opened had bullets that varied by .025" in length, but subsequent boxes were much more consistent. Barnes Varmint Grenades can vary by .020" in length in, but they shoot very well regardless. I tried sorting the V.G.'s but it didn't make much, if any difference. What I like is the ballistic tip that provides a very consistent profile. I was using a 1:9 twist .223 Remington barrel that was purchased for the 50 grain Varmint Grenade, which may be happier with the 40 grain Nosler Lead Free. Next I'll switch to a 1:12 twist.

Any info on a possible .204 version?

Hope the BC will be better than the VG's otherwise I will stick to the tried and true 39 BK's

The next bullet Nosler brings out in this catagory is most likely a .204" offering........ they're working on it now........

Has this lead free business hit the squirrel patch yet Rick?

God I hope not, I just got my .204 R#1 shooting with red tip 32 grainers.

Critter: No, the lead-free ban is only in effect (for now) in certain areas of Calif. There may be others I'm not aware of such as some federal land or refuges, but it doesn't affect any of our rat patches here.

My friend from Oregon mentioned that Cabela's was selling Nosler BT Lead Free bullets with the soft-iron core technology. So I looked them up and sure enough they advertised soft-iron cores and were listed with a different stock number than the ones I purchased. The BTLF .224's I purchased were copper core technology. Copper or Iron, inquiring minds want to know. One wag on a bulletin board said it was because the iron cores made them magnetic so they would be considered steel core armor piercing bullets, illegal in California and elsewhere. So I shot off an email to Nosler and received an answer that the soft-iron core was never released because they sparked on impact with solid objects. Now sparking bullets in the summer dry grass is not a good thing, I don't want to start or pay for suppressing a forest fire. Fortunately, copper core is just fine with me, although magnetizing them so they'd stick on the refrigerator would be cool.