As a general practice I like to cut bullets in half to take a look at the way they are internally designed, their jscket thickness, etc.
Sectioning a 93gr 6.5mm RWS T-Mantle bullet I noticed that in spite of its copperish appearance, the jacket is made of some ironish material which is attracted by a magnet and seems to be much harder and brittle that the usual gilding metal.
My question is wether it is advisable to shhot them or if they may be to hard on the barrel wiping out the rifling in a few shots.
Thanks for your advise.
Montero.

Hola Montero

Try with a magnet and you'll find TUG TIG H-Mantle also are steel ( the last copper washed as T Mantle ) , also S&B are steel coper washed , not any problem for me , I'm more worried by copper fouling for pure copper bullets like Barnes X , if they harm the barrel in any way Germans don't produce it , hope some Germans could give us more info .

Daniel

Several manufacturer's have used mild steel in bullet jackets. Norma used to make a "tri-clad" bullet jacket.It was mild steel with a layer of gliding metal on the inside and outside(hence the tri-clad name). The outside layer of gliding metal was thick enough that there was no contact between the rifling and the steel in the jacket.I only recall recovering one of these bullets.Instead of the jacket folding back to almost touch the heel of the bullet and the lead core mushrooming like most conventional bullets the jacket petals would remain almost at right angles to the body of the bullet.Weight retention was quite high and the bullets would usually exit creating a larger wound channel than conventional bullets. I suspect cost of production was the end of these bullets. I suspect the bullets you are talking about would be similar. Many of the solids produced have a steel jacket with gliding metal on top.

Turkish, corrosive 8mm Mauser ammo (circa 1943) uses steel jacket bullet. It's a mild steel and soft. I'm not certain I'd want to shoot steel in my 700 Rem. but in my $80 Mauser they seem to be just fine.

Mild steel can be made softer than copper with a little metallurgy.

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Jacket material is not the main culprit in barrel wear, it's the high-speed, hot gases which actually cut the metal like an acetylene torch.

30-06 military ball ammo used to be made with mild steel jackets. I shot a lot of it. didn't hurt a thing.

Indy

eldeguello,
A cutting torch requires that the metal be preheated in order to cut, the metal in my weapons never gets that hot. Barrel erosion occurs due to the friction of the bullet and contaminates in the barrel not the 'cutting action' of hot gasses. The gasses expand behind the bullet so their velocity only exceeds the bullet velocity AFTER the bullet exits the barrel and not before. There is no ionizing effect so it doesn't work like a plasma cutter and if the bullet is properly sized to the bore leakage is vertually non-existant.
As I said erosion is due to the friction of the bullet and the contaminates in the bore. Just another opinion. . .

PaulS

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stay safe and live long!

Many of the big bore "solids" are copper plated steel jackets with lead cores for weight. I have had no issues with barrel erosion with these bullets.

PaulS,
A question for you. Your statement about barrel erosion. If throat erosion is due solely to speed and contamination can you explain this to me. A 30-378 Weatherby mag will noticeably erode the throat within a few shots (less than 100) while the 300 Weatherby mag will literally take hundreds and hundreds to achieve the same level of throat erosion. The muzzle velocity differential is only 80 fps between these two loads. The throat erosion generated by a 30-06 is only slighter less severe than the 300 Weathery mag with a muzzle velocity differential of 450 fps.

Thanks,
Todd E

PaulS, if your barrel stays cooler, it will last longer, BUT, if you think bullet friction is what wears away barrel steel, and not powder gases, you are just flat WRONG!!!