The California lead ban was instituted just after I received a new rifle build in .257 Ackley from Greg Tannel. The following year I had to use lead free bullets, but there were none suitable for the .257" bore at the time. So I switched to my Remington 40X with a Pac-Nor 1:10" twist barrel in .22-250 Remington, using Barnes 50 grain Varmint Grenades. Accuracy of the Varmint Grenade was simply phenomenal, with 10 shot groups at 100 yards easily besting .5". Performance on ground squirrels indeed were explosive (as the photo below shows).
Being that I had taken up building rifles on the Savage Precision Target Action, and some on the Remington 700 with a barrel nut, I ordered a 24" Shilen barrel for a Savage action in 1:12" twist for the .204 Ruger. This was my introduction to the cartridge, which I decided to test even though it appeared a little ridiculous, given my preference for the .223 Remington. Being proved wrong is sometimes a good thing. The .204 Ruger with the Barnes 26 grain Varmint Grenade and 25.2 grains of Reloader 10X zipped out at 4110 fps, shot .25" groups, and had the advantage of allowing the hits to be observed directly through my scope. I will say, that impossible though it may seem, that rifle has never missed a squirrel - even when I thought I missed, the carcase proved me wrong. One other fascinating feature of a hit was observing the shock wave disseminating from the squirrel, as fur and dust were dislodged by the impact. Wow, never witnessed that before.
Next I progressed to the 6mm WSSM and 62 grain Varmint Grenades. They required a 1:8" twist barrel, so I ordered a Pac-Nor Savage Varmint Contour 26" barrel. One load shot a .187" 10 shot group at 100 yards, probably a fluke, but the thing never shoots over .4". On Oregon sage rats full of wet alfalfa it completely disintegrates them leaving only a rototilled patch of soil. Central California ground squirrels on arid ground, just splatter, unraveling in a manner we refer to as a splattercation. Best of all, you can miss low and still kill them with fragments. The squirrel below was killed by the buzz saw effect of a miss that hit the branch below it, killed by a a storm of splinters and bullet fragments; kind of like a carronade ball impacting a wooden Man-o-War liberating splinters to impale unlucky sailors.
On it went, every lead free compressed powdered-metal core jacketed bullet I tried easily shot better than the lead core variety. High velocity didn't unravel them, probably because their cores are a solid, like a stick of metallic chalk, while lead cores soften from heat and disintegrate at high rotational speeds. Even the .204 Barnes 26 grain Varmint Grenade in a 1:8.5" twist at 4,085 fps shot into a bug hole. I tried the Barnes Varmint Grenades in .204, .224, and 6mm as mentioned. Then came the Nosler BT Lead Free bullets in .204 and .224. This latter proved astoundingly accurate in a .223 Remington Pac-Nor 1:9" twist polygonal rifled barrel on one Savage Target Action. The difference between the groups below is the primers, otherwise both are the same, 10 shots at 100 yards, same rifle and barrel. The Winchester Small Rifle Primer is a compromise between a standard and magnum primer.
The 55 grain Nosler BT Lead Free 6mm bullet also proved accurate, and will be a primary candidate for the new 6mm PPC and 6mm BR Norma rifles I am building, both with 1:8" twist barrels, one a Brux and the other a Kreiger. Hornady also manufacturers NTX lead free bullets in .204 and .224 calibers. Their 24 grain NTX .204 BT proved very accurate in my homemade AR-15 straight pull bolt action with a Hart custom barrel.
Now, getting back to that .257 Ackley. Barnes finally introduced an 80 grain TTSX .257" bullet. This is a game bullet, a tipped monolithic expanding copper bullet, not a powdered-metal core varmint bullet. I worked up a load that ran around .5" and tried them on squirrels. They worked beyond my expectations: Top photo is a sight-in group (.5" red diamond) and the bottom photo the results of a hit.
Even in a homemade Remington 700 swap barrel with a 24" Pac-Nor 1:10" twist Sendaro Contour, polygonal rifled barrel chambered fro .308 Winchester the Barnes 150 grain MPG bullet (a big Varmint Grenade with a cannelure) shoots pretty good. Here's an early test load. Someday I'll try some more as time allows. Top: The rifle swapped out from a .22-250 Ackley configuration to .308 Winchester (the magazine works for both). Bottom: An early 10 shot test group with two trigger spasms.
So the story is that lead bullets are great, but being restricted to lead free is not a problem either, except for one thing: These bullets are longer for their weight so a faster twist may be needed for the heavier of the lot. These bullets are so good that my friend in Oregon has switched exclusively to them even though they aren't required.
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