When the Woodleigh Bullet Company offered me some new VLD projectiles to test. I jumped at the chance.

Woodleigh is famous for its premium grade hunting bullets. I was keen to see how their new brass monolithic solids would go in some of my rifles. The particular bullets on test consisted of 250 grain bullets in .338 calibre. Initial measurements of these projectiles revealed the following details. Calibre .338 Weight 250 grains. See below for derived B.C.  Actual diameter, .3375" Three band, two groove design, consisting of one large pressure groove and a smaller crimping groove. Non bore riding design with all bands the same diameter. Tangent Ogive design, 19.5mm long. Small boat tail approximately 2mm long. Base diameter approximately 7mm in diameter. Bullet length 1.693" long. 10 bullets per bag.

VLD brass solids are not a new invention. They have been around for quite some time. The alloy that they are made from is quite safe to use in modern rifle barrels but shooters need to recognise that they have slightly different properties to lead core copper jacket bullets. To start with the brass solids will not compress to the bore diameter like soft lead core bullets will. For this reason they are made slightly smaller in diameter. Making the bullets slightly smaller can lead to gas leakage past the bullet. For this reason grooves are cut into the shank of the bullet. These grooves act as pressure reducers much like the sealing gland does on the shaft of a water pump. These grooves also provide a place for the metal that is displaced by the rifling to collect. This reduces the friction on the bullet as it passes down the bore.

Without these design features brass bullets would run at much higher pressure compared to lead core copper jacketed bullets. But thanks to some clever design work these bullets can but loaded with similar powder charges to lead jacketed bullets without fear of excessive pressure build up.

There has been a number of different designs from other projectile manufacturers that are similar to these Woodleigh projectiles. One subtle difference is that Woodleigh bullets do not have tapered drive bands as some other brands do. Some say that this may lead to pressure spikes with this design. During this test I looked specifically for any sign of these pressure spikes and at no time was there any evidence of pressure spikes. 

It is my opinion that pressure spikes induced by monolithic projectiles are a result of seating these bullets too close to the lands. As monolithic projectiles are solid, they do not have the ability to compress as easily as lead core copper jacket projectiles. This means that it may require more effort to start the engraving process.

As with any load development work. Always start of with the powder manufacturers recommended starting charge and work up with caution.

These bullets are not an overly aggressive design. Woodleigh has gone away from the modern trend towards long pointy and aggressive designed solids. These radical designed bullets require very fast and in some cases "gain" twist barrels in order to properly stabilize the bullet. This Woodleigh designed VLD bullet is of a more conservative design. This is a good thing as it makes the bullet much more forgiving and easy to tune for accuracy and its B.C. will be much more reliable. The short, conservative construction of this bullet, seems to be designed along similar principals to some of the excellent designs produced by Cutting Edge bullets. Although the B.C. of this bullet is not as high as some of the more radical designs, its actual B.C. will not be that far behind. This is due to a number of things that are peculiar to monolithic brass solids.

The obvious difference  between conventional long range bullets and VLD brass solids is that the brass bullets are much lighter for a given volume. This means that a 250 grain Brass VLD needs to be much longer than a 250 grain lead core bullet. As an example of the difference. Lead has a weight of 11340kg/m3 while Brass has a weight of about 8430kg/m3. This all adds up to brass bullets having more surface area for a given weight. This "wetted" area adds to the surface drag on the bullet. Combine this with the pressure grooves cut into the shank of the bullet and brass VLD bullets tend to have more drag than conventional long range bullets.

There are some advantages to brass VLD solids for long range shooting. The bullets can be made on CNC machines to very close tolerances and a variety of designs can be made to suit specific situations. The point of the bullets can be made to a very fine tip and this helps increase the B.C. of the bullet.  CNC machined bullets are very consistent in size, weight and composition. There are no issues with internal construction as they are solid. This adds to the accuracy potential of these bullets.

These sample bullets have two interesting features. First is the short length of the boat tail and its steep angle. A boat tail on a bullet has the potential to reduce the base drag of a bullet by about 15%. This particular bullet has a very short boat tail. This means that it is not as efficient as it could be had the boat tail been longer. The other feature of these bullets is the short tangent ogive. This type of ogive is excellent for accuracy and makes a bullet easy to tune. When you combine these two features together, you end up with a VLD brass bullet that is much shorter than other VLD type brass projectiles. This should mean that the B.C. is lower. This design also results in a bullet with less surface drag than longer brass VLD bullets, is easier to tune, has excellent accuracy potential, and is most likely a lot more stable.  In actual fact this bullet may be so stable that it might even survive transit through the transonic barrier? This is not possible with most VLD brass bullets.

From Left, two projectiles recovered from 670 yards. A projectile recovered from 1097 yards and (right) an unfired projectile for comparison. Bullet expansion is non existent.

The other advantage of this bullet design is that it can be loaded to magazine length in most rifles without having to be seated so deep into the case as to eat up powder capacity. With some VLD brass bullets, seating to magazine length is a real issue. Long VLD bullets can not be seated to magazine length without the tangent point on the Ogive being below the case mouth. This is not a desirable thing as it means that the bullet would have to jump a considerable distance to the lands and single loading might be required in order to get the rifle to shoot with accuracy.  I loaded up a batch of Woodleigh 250 grain VLD bullets into my Custom Remington 700 in .338 RUM. They were seated to magazine length. COAL was 3.650" This placed the projectile about 0.050" off the lands which is an acceptable distance for accurate shooting. Feeding from the standard factory staggered RUM magazine was excellent. The load consisted of 93.5 grains of AR2217 and CCI 250M primer in Remington cases. Field testing reveal that the muzzle velocity of this load 2953 fps. Other testing was conducted using a Sako rifle .338 Win Mag. This rifle was loaded to a lower velocity so that velocity dependant B.C. figures could be determined. This load consisted of 61 grains of AR2209, CCI 250 Magnum primer and Winchester cases. Loaded to an COAL of 3.394" This load produced a velocity of 2505 fps. .

Long range testing of these bullets revealed some interesting results. Atmospheric conditions at the start of testing at Omeo was, 27.45 in/hg, 10 deg C and 70% humidity. The low velocity testing from the .338WM Sako provided consistent hits out to 670 yards with a B.C. input of 0.50 and muzzle velocity of 2505 fps. The estimated terminal velocity of 1540 fps.  High velocity testing at various distances out to 1100 yards provided consistent hits on target using a B.C. of 0.45 and a muzzle velocity of 2953 fps. The estimated terminal velocity at 1100 yard was 1240 fps and required 35 MOA of elevation from a 100 yard zero. In direct comparison with the Woodleigh bullets, I fired some 250 grain Hornady BTHP match projectiles at a similar muzzle velocity of 2945 fps. The Hornady projectiles needed 7 MOA less elevation to reach the same distance. Accuracy at all distances was quite good.

Long range testing was conducted out to a distance of 1100 yards on private property, although it was possible to shoot much further during testing due to the huge size of the property. This was found to be the longest practical distance to shoot these bullets due to their moderate B.C.

Footnote :- Recently "Snipers Hide" sponsored some ballistic testing in the Nevada desert by  KnS Ballistics Services. They have reported findings that indicate that brass turned bullets tend to give much lower B.C. numbers than first thought. This report can be found Here  

This report includes some very aggressive designed brass turned solids, so given the less aggressive design of these Woodleigh bullets, I am very confident in my results.

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