6.5 Creedmoor non-lead factory ammo test
In 2019, California banned the use of lead bullets for hunting. Since then, I’ve been trying to find a good non-lead factory load in 6.5 Creedmoor. My early rudimentary testing unfortunately did not inspire confidence.
That was a handful of years ago and the market has seen a lot of new offerings since. So the time seemed ripe for another test. This time I wanted to be confident in my results so I did an in-depth test with every non-lead factory ammo I could easily get my hands on.
I measured dispersion (group size) and muzzle velocity standard deviations at the range. Using this data, I ran an analysis to calculate estimated hit percentages in various scenarios. At the end of the day, I’m interested in whether I would be able to confidently take a shot or not with the ammunition in a given hunting scenario. If you’re in the market for non-lead alternatives I hope you will get something out of these results.
Test setup
For the dispersion test I wrote a program to generate PDF files for each target, see example below. These were randomized per session so that a particular brand of ammunition would not always be shot first (or last).
Dispersion was tested at 91.44 meters (100 yards). I shot 5 shot groups, 5 times per ammo, a total of 25 shots per. This was done over 5 different range visits. Each session produced one group from each ammo. This is mainly for practical reasons.
Due to how the range is set up I would shoot two different ammo brands per 15 minutes, with no particular break between shots in the group other than for note taking and getting settled again. After 15 minutes of shooting there is about a 10 minute break for target change and barrel cool down. Repeat until done for the day.
I was using a hefty Sinclair Benchrest competition shooting rest up front and a Short Action Precision SAP WC Run and Gun rear bag.
I measured the groups with photos and the Ballistic-X app on my iPhone. The group measurement used is mean radius minute of angle (MR MOA). See the linked article on why mean radius is a better measurement than extreme spread.
I measured muzzle velocity with a Labradar.
Before each session I thoroughly cleaned the barrel with Boretech Eliminator Bore Cleaner and JB Bore paste. This should ensure I started with similar conditions for each test. I shot 3 fouler shots before starting the test to flush out any solvents from the barrel and ensure consistency.
I did not do any terminal ballistic testing.
Rifle
Action: Lone Peak Arms Razor-Ti
Stock: Manners MCS-EH6A
Barrel: Pre-fit Proof research carbon at 22”. 1:7.5” twist.
Cartridge: 6.5 Creedmoor
Trigger: Triggertech Diamond
Scope: Kahles K318i 3.5-18x50 CCW SKMR3
It’s worth noting that it is a carbon-wrapped barrel. However, this is a test for hunting ammunition and as such I used my main hunting rifle to perform the test. It’s a light rifle, so the groups will be bigger compared to what a heavy barrel target rifle might produce. Ultimately this is the rifle I hunt with so what I care about is how the ammunition and rifle performs together, not the ammunition in another rifle.
The barrel was brand new at the start of the test to ensure that it was not worn out. It was ‘broken in’ with 100 rounds.
Ammunition candidates
When selecting ammo I picked up whatever was available at the nearest big box stores (Sportsman’s Warehouse, Bass pro shops, Big 5 etc). Partially for convenience since California has made it difficult and expensive to order ammunition online now that it has to go via an FFL. However, I did also make one purchase from Midway for common brands I could not find locally.
While the test is specifically for non-lead ammunition, I included Hornady’s Precision Hunter ELD-X 143 grain lead-based ammo for comparison. This is the ammunition (or a handloaded version) that I use for out of state hunting.
The full list of ammunition is:
Unfortunately many of the bullets did not list a G7 ballistic coefficient so I chose G1 in this list to make comparisons easier. Price per round is what I paid with my own money. I’m sure prices are different now, some might be found cheaper online than what I paid in the store.
Group size
Before we look at the raw dispersion data from the range it seems prudent to provide some context on what a good and bad mean radius (MR) MOA group looks like. I know this type of measurement might be new to some readers.
So I decided to very unscientifically cherry pick a result from my 6.5 target rifle and load combination for comparison below. From a recent test group, the target rifle currently gets somewhere around 0.2-0.3 MR MOA for 5 shot groups using 140 grain Berger target hybrid bullets and N555 hand loads, shot off a bench. In my mind this is a very good group size, although benchrest shooters might disagree. The comparison also shows how poor most of the groups in this test are.
For the table below I took each of the 5 group measurements per ammo and averaged them. Any average above 0.6 mean radius MOA is marked as red.
Group size analysis
I have divided the dispersion results into two segments. The first one is better segment of ammunition with groups hovering around the 0.5 MR MOA mark. That seems to be what this shooter, rifle and test setup is capable of producing with factory ammunition. In this segment we have, from smaller to larger groups: Barnes VOR-TX LRX, Sako Powerhead Blade, Federal Trophy Copper, Hornady ELD-X, Hornady Outfitter CX and Federal Barnes TSX. In terms of dispersion for hunting I would say all of these are more or less the same at this short distance.
The second segment is the ammunition that is closer to 0.6 MR MOA or above (marked in red), some of them far above. These are for one reason or another not grouping as well as the rifle is capable of. From smallest to largest groups: Nosler E-Tip, Sig Sauer Hunting HT, Hornady Superperformance CX, Winchester Copper Impact XP and Barnes VOR-TX TTSX. My rifle definitely did not like the TTSX with a significantly worse group than any other ammunition in the test. Nosler E-Tip is technically just under the 0.6 mark but at 0.59 I figured it belongs in this group rather than the one above.
Muzzle velocity
Below is the muzzle velocity standard deviation. I won’t dive into what standard deviation is, but this excellent article series provides a good overview.
Good muzzle velocity standard deviation is generally under 3 m/s (~10 fps) for hand loads. Good factory ammunition might be a bit higher. I’ve set the cutoff for “good enough” in this article at less than ~7.5 m/s (25 fps), anything above is marked red below.
Let’s take a quick look at the muzzle velocity averages as well. In my opinion this is not as important as one might think, at least compared to the group sizes for instance. We can see that the ELD-X is unsurprisingly the slowest speed. Given that it’s a jump up in bullet weight compared to the non-lead alternatives that makes sense. The Hornady Superperformance CX is a hot load, which also makes sense since that’s the whole point of that product line.
Most of the others are in the mid 800 m/s range with a few dipping just below that. Nothing too exciting.
Muzzle velocity analysis
Three of the ammunition offerings have muzzle velocity SD very close to our hand loading benchmark of 3 m/s (10 fps). Federal Barnes TSX, Federal Trophy Copper and Hornady Superperformance CX. These are all excellent in that regard. It’s worth noting that both Federal offerings tested show up here. That gives me confidence in their ammunition quality.
The middle of the pack (hovering around 6 m/s or ~20 fps) are not too shabby either. Hornady ELD-X, Hornady Outfitter CX, Barnes VOR-TX LRX, Sako Powerhead Blade. I would not be concerned with these SDs unless I was trying to stretch out to longer distances.
The four worst ones above my arbitrary cutoff (marked in red in the table) were Sig Sauer Elite Performance Hunting HT, Barnes VOR-TX TTSX, Winchester Copper Impact XP and Nosler E-Tip. I will be staying away from the ammunition in this last group for that reason. In particular from the Winchester and Nosler based on this test.
Combined results conclusions
There’s some notable overlap in the list of ammunition with the worst MV SD and group size. Winchester, Sig Sauer and Barnes VOR-TX TTSX show up in both. They are out of the running in my opinion. Hornady Superperformance CX had poor groups so I will remove that one as well. Possibly due to it being a fairly stout load with a light rifle?
This leaves the following contenders to run through the next step of our analysis:
Barnes VOR-TX LRX
Federal Barnes TSX
Federal Trophy Copper
Hornady ELD-X (lead control)
Hornady Outfitter CX
Sako Powerhead Blade
Unfortunately I could not find a bullet length for Sako Powerhead Blade. This is required for the WEZ analysis so I was not able to include it in the analysis. If anyone is able to find it or is willing to pull a bullet and measure let me know.
Weapon Employment Zone (WEZ) analysis
Applied Ballistic’s WEZ analysis is essentially a ballistics calculator on steroids. It can simulate shots taken and tell you how many of those would hit the target. The input to the program is the data we gathered above: group size, muzzle velocity data and so on.
The final output I am interested in is the hit percentage. If I took 100 shots while hunting with this ammunition, how many of those would be hits?
I will consider two distances: 500 and 800 meters. Target size is 20 cm (~8”) in diameter. The intention is to simulate a deer-sized target. Standard deviation of 0.45 meters/s (1 mph) wind. Note that this is not how strong the wind is, but the shooter’s ability to estimate the wind speed. This is intended to simulate a hunting scenario in the western US where 500 meters might be the outer limit, in particular with a lighter caliber. Personally I would not take an 800 meter shot on an animal under any circumstance, and certainly not with 6.5 Creedmoor. Even so I was curious to see how big the difference would be with these ammunition choices at that extended distance.
Unfortunately WEZ analysis uses extreme spread group size and not mean radius as input. It’s also worth noting that the ideal shooting conditions I had at the range when measuring the dispersion will rarely present itself while hunting. Put another way, these hit percentages are as good as it gets for this shooter, rifle and ammunition combination. For a real hunting scenario with the added stresses, wind uncertainty and awkward shooting positions, the group size would be bigger and thus the hit percentage would most likely be much lower. For an ethical shot get closer until you have plenty of margin of error.
Final disclaimer: often these bullets were not in the Applied Ballistics database. In the cases that data was missing I had to resort to the ballistics coefficient self-reported by the manufacturer on the ammunition box. There have been cases in the past where that number might be inflated but I have no ability to verify their claims so we will have to live with this discrepancy.
For comparison I also threw in two of the poor performers below. Barnes VOR-TX TTSX with the worst group size and Nosler E-Tip with the worst MV SD.
WEZ conclusions
Given the differences in group size and muzzle velocity standard deviation I was surprised how close some of the better offerings came in the 500 meter test in terms of hit percentage. At the end of the day what matters is hitting the target so I have to draw the conclusion that most of the top choices included in the WEZ analysis will work just fine at shorter distances since they hover around the 95-98% hit range at 500m.
However, it’s clear that beyond 500 meters the contenders diverge quite quickly. Federal Barnes TSX at 800 meters, for example, is a coin toss if I will hit or not. Unsurprisingly, due to higher ballistics coefficients, the heavier lead-based control did the best at 800 meters at 67% hit percentage. The second best was the Federal Trophy Copper at 62.5%.
I was also surprised at the Nosler E-tip results. The extremely high muzzle velocity standard deviation did not translate into lots of misses within 500 meters at 97.5%. However at 800 meters it quickly fell apart at 60.2%. So when hunting at shorter distances the standard deviation does not matter as much as I might have guessed at this size target.
To further illustrate the difference between our lead based control and one of the poor performers, Hornady ELD-X will give twice the hit probability compared to the poor performer Barnes VOR-TX TTSX at 800 meters. It’s an obvious remark, but if the ammo doesn’t group at a short range it won’t group at 800 meters. The Barnes also has less than half of the energy at that distance, probably mostly due to the lighter bullet.
Statistics
I’m not a statistician so I’m on thin ice here. In this section I’m attempting to compare the results to verify if they are statistically significant. Disclaimer that this may well be completely wrong. If you don’t care about the intricacies of the statistics tests used you can skip this section. The analysis was performed with the statistical language R.
Statistical analysis of groups
I compared the dispersion results using ANOVA. The test shows that the groups are not all the same. P-value 0.003, alpha 0.05. A post hoc test was performed using TukeyHSD pairwise. For most of the comparisons I did not get a statistically significant result, meaning the results were too close to call if there is a real difference or not. One result stood out however. The Barnes VOR-TX TTSX groups were confirmed to be worse than quite a few of the other products. In the table below those results are listed with a p-value less than 0.05.
Statistical analysis of muzzle velocity standard deviation
For the muzzle velocity variance/standard deviation I used pairwise Levene’s test. The following are the cases where I could determine that there is a statistically significant difference (alpha 0.05). The left three columns are the best ones in each pair.
Nosler E-tip shows up quite a lot on the loosing side. Whereas several of the ammunitions with MV SD around 3-4 m/s show up on the left. Hornady Superperformance CX, Federal Barnes TSX and Federal Trophy Copper to name a few.
Final conclusions
Personally I intend to use Federal Trophy Copper for my non-lead needs. It produced good groups and excellent muzzle velocity standard deviation as well as good hit percentages at 500 m. It is unfortunately one of the most expensive choices in the lineup, but I guess you get what you pay for. One downside is that as far as I can tell the bullet used is not sold directly to handloaders.
I have to admit I entered this testing with the hypothesis (and bias) that the lead based control Hornady Precision Hunter ELD-X would blow everything out of the water. In the end the results in terms of hit percentage at 500 meters were much closer than I expected with Federal Trophy Copper at 97.9% vs the ELD-X at 98.5%. In terms of muzzle velocity standard deviations the two Federal offerings stood out as being very consistent and better than the Hornady ELD-X.
The area where lead is still king is at extended distances. In particular when it comes to energy retained. At 800 meters the non-lead ammunition with the best energy retention is Federal Trophy Copper is at 761 joule. The ELD-X is closer to 1003 joule. I will keep using the ELD-X whenever I am out of state (unless a future lead only test says otherwise).
There were a couple of disappointments in the lineup. Nosler E-Tip, Winchester Copper Impact XP, Barnes VOR-TX TTSX and Sig Sauer to name a few. I have crossed them off my shopping list.
It’s unfortunate that I was not able to get the Sako ammunition through the final test. The group sizes were very competitive at a shared first place, the MV SD was ok. However the BC is the lowest of the ammunitions in the test at 0.348 (G1). This can be compared to ELD-X at 0.623 (G1). Perhaps I’ll do a follow up if I decide to sacrifice a round to measure the bullet and run through WEZ analysis.
Should the Federal Trophy Copper be unavailable I am sure Barnes VOR-TX LRX, Federal Barnes TSX, Hornady Outfitter CX or Sako Powerhead Blade would work in a pinch, in particular at shorter distances.
As a side note I am curious to see if we will get any heavier non-lead offerings. Personally I’m waiting for the depleted uranium hunting ammo to surface.
Test setup critique
The test setup was not quite as ideal as I would have liked. If I had a range in my backyard I would have shot each group with much longer times between each to let the barrel cool thoroughly. In particular with the thin carbon wrapped barrel. I would have also preferred to shoot prone to get a better position, but the public range I performed the test on does not allow it.
There were quite a few Labradar readings dropped during the test. A few dropped due to either the shooter next to me triggering the Labradar or due to not being aligned properly on the cramped shooting bench. It’s also possible the new Garmin chronograph could have solved this problem for me. I don’t think the missing data points changed the overall result. At 25 shots per ammunition a few drops would not change the outcome much but it’s always nice to have more data.
I would have liked to use a Shotmarker to reduce any risk of dispersion measurement problems. As it turns out there wasn't really a risk of the groups being small enough for this to be a problem.
For even better results having an assistant load the magazines so I could shoot “blind” would have been even better. In the end I doubt my pro-lead bias made any difference.
Notes
What’s the deal with the mix of metric and imperial measurements? Like most of the world I think in metric but I am living in the US. The ranges here are set up in yards and much of the tooling as well. My attempts to steer them right have so far been fruitless. The fight goes on.