Lead Free: What works?

I wonder if they've started making them a bit tougher than in the beginning. I remember their vids showing the bullet turning to powder inside a grape, and lots of people saying they were just getting surface damage. Cool vids, but most things in slow motion are!
 
Interesting point about the Varmint Grenades. I've read enough poor accuracy reports that I really am not interested in buying any to try. And by poor accuracy I mean there are very few or zero reports of 1/2 moa type groups, folks struggle to find sub-moa loads. If that's changed, I'm interested in seeing good accuracy results.
 
When the VG first came out, I ordered a box of 250 of the 36gr and stuck a couple in the bandsaw. I was mainly looking for voids in the powdered core. Didn't find any, but I did notice that the powdered core is encapsulated with a thick layer of copper. That layer varied in thickness the best I could tell with the calipers, and was located around the ogive.

It more or less looked like the hollow point would break the front encapsulated area causing expansion. I wasn't real sure it would work well at lower speeds, so I coated those slugs in moly and stuffed the case full of varget and got good results.

My best suggestion is don't use em unless you can push em at least 3800fps. A 50gr MPG in a .223 won't work well imho.

I don't think the hornady or Noslers will have that issue where they use a plastic tip.
 
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