Wringing Out Lehigh Defense High-Performance Copper Bullets

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Soon after David Fricke founded Lehigh Defense in 2006, he was joined by Mike Cyrus, an extremely talented fellow with a head full of innovative ideas on new bullet designs. One thing led to another, with the eventual result being an extensive lineup of precision-made, all-copper handgun and rifle bullets of monolithic construction, with each designed to excel at a specific application. In 2021 Bill Wilson of Wilson Combat became the new owner of Lehigh Defense and relocated the entire operation to a new factory in Clarksville, Texas. Extremely important to him, Cyrus also made the move.

Handgun bullets of various diameters, weights, and designs suitable for every cartridge from .380 ACP to .500 S&W Magnum are offered. An excellent example is the Extreme Penetrator favored by Alaskans who carry handguns chambered for 10mm Auto, .44 Magnum, .454 Casull, and various other cartridges for protection against bears. Lehigh also makes bullets for other companies. When Jeff Hoffman of Black Hills Ammunition decided to offer several handgun cartridges loaded with bullets of his own design, technicians at Lehigh Defense produced Honey Badger projectiles that met—and even exceeded—his exact performance specifications.

Rifle bullets in diameters ranging from 0.224 inch to 0.500 inch with exotic names like Controlled Chaos, Xtreme Chaos, Maximum Expansion, Xtreme Cavitator, Match Solid, Close Quarters, and Wide Flat Nose (WFN) are on the menu. A guide I hunted brown bears with in Alaska carried a Marlin 1895 with its magazine filled with Buffalo Bore’s Dangerous Game loading of the .45-70 Government cartridge with the 380-grain WFN bullet at 2,075 fps. Most rifle bullets are designed for high velocities, although the 176-grain Controlled Fracturing is intended for loading to subsonic velocity in the .300 BLK and the .308 Winchester. Pressure-tested data for all Lehigh Defense rifle and handgun bullets is no farther away than a visit to the company’s extensive online Load Data Library.

The Bulletmaking Process

The bulletmaking process at Lehigh Defense begins with the delivery of several tons of 12-foot-long copper rods. They come in a variety of diameters sized to reduce the amount of waste for a given caliber. As a rod is automatically fed into a programmed CNC Swiss screw machine, it is transformed into bullets of a specified diameter and shape. As an example, the .30-caliber, 152-grain Controlled Chaos bullets on my shelf emerged from the machine precisely 0.308 inch in diameter, 1.270 inches long, and with a large nose cavity measuring 0.720 inch deep on one end and a boattail shape on the other.

As is typical for most monolithic constructions, grooves in the shanks of Lehigh Defense bullets reduce bearing surface area. When needed for four-petal breakaway on some bullet designs, the machine saws four shallow exterior grooves spaced on 90-degree centers beginning at the nose and extending back to the bottom of the adjacent nose cavity. The .30-caliber, 155-grain Tipped Xtreme Chaos bullets I am shooting have those narrow weakening cuts. Final bullet production steps include rinsing off the machining fluid and after drying, a sealant is added to ensure a nice and shiny appearance is maintained.

Turning out bullets with CNC equipment has a number of advantages. For one, bullets are extremely uniform in weight and diameter. Flexibility leads to improvements in quality and performance. Wilson is quite active in the company, and when the decision is made to add a new bullet to the lineup and the first small batch is made, he tests them on paper targets for accuracy before heading out to the ranch to bump off a sounder or two of feral hogs. If performance on paper or pork is less than satisfactory, the CNC programmer makes the suggested tweaks, and another small batch of bullets is made. Back to the target range and pig heaven goes Bill for another go-around. This is repeated until all hands on deck are convinced the new bullet is ready to be added to the line. The company is always open to communication, with some of the improvements made through the years suggested by customers who use Lehigh Defense bullets on game of various sizes. CNC technology makes that relatively quick and easy to do.

Bullet Performance

I have not had an opportunity to use Lehigh Defense bullets on game, but here is how their performance was described to me by Cyrus. As Controlled Chaos and Xtreme Chaos bullets travel through liquid-bearing tissue, their front portions split into four petals that break away from the shank of the bullet. During penetration, the petals radiate outward from their original path while continuing forward for maximum energy dump and tissue disruption. As the petals come to a stop, the shank continues moving forward for deeper penetration. The two designs differ mainly by the shank of the Xtreme Chaos expanding to a larger diameter and retaining more weight after petal shedding for deeper penetration on game.

A sharply pointed polymer tip is a recent addition to several bullets in the lineup, with the Tipped Maximum Expansion, Tipped Xtreme Chaos, and Tipped Controlled Chaos all weighing 155 grains. They all delivered excellent accuracy from my rifle.

While the improvement in ballistic coefficient flattened trajectory a bit and increased downrange energy delivery, those were not the primary reasons for adding the tip. The small flat tip of the original Controlled Chaos bullet occasionally caused feeding issues in some gun makes and models, so the decision was made to add the tip for smooth feeding in all rifles. The original bullet is still in production, and most who use it would never switch. However, for the few customers who own rifles that do not feed it smoothly but wish to stay with the design, the new tipped version is good news for them and for Lehigh Defense.

The decision to add a plastic tip was not limited to .30 caliber. Loaded to 3,000 fps in .260 Remington and 6.5mm Creedmoor, the new 120-grain Tipped Maximum Expansion could prove to be the best all-around choice for those cartridges, and the 6.5-284 is capable of pushing it a bit faster. I am looking forward to trying the 200-grain Tipped Controlled Chaos in my .358 Winchester Model 88 and my .350 Remington Magnum Model 600. And I won’t overlook the grand old .35 Whelen, either.

Bill Wilson, who has hunted a lot in North America and Africa, once described the 160-grain Xtreme Chaos fired from all cartridges ranging from .308 Winchester on up to the various magnums as the best-performing bullet he has used on game like Rocky Mountain elk and Lord Derby eland. And if he does not hold first place for taking more feral hogs than anyone else on the planet, he is probably in a very close second position. His favorite pig medicine has long been the 125-grain Controlled Chaos loaded to 2,440 fps for his .300 HAM’R AR-15. Lehigh Defense eventually developed load data for the .308 Winchester that pushes the bullet from a 24-inch barrel at over 3,200 fps. My custom rifle in that caliber simply loves it, and I am looking forward to trying it on deer. It also should be the right medicine for reaching across a sagebrush flat to drop a big pronghorn buck.

Factory-Loaded Options

Lehigh Defense offers factory-loaded handgun and rifle ammunition, so the company does not live by bullets alone. In addition to the usual suspects in rifle cartridges, we have the .260 Remington, .300 BLK, .300 HAM’R, .350 Legend, and .458 SOCOM. The reduced-recoil loading of the .308 Winchester with a 125-grain Controlled Chaos at 2,600 fps is quite accurate and is an excellent choice for a young hunter or for anyone who due to health issues is sensitive to recoil. A note included in each box of ammo emphasizes that for best accuracy all fouling left in the bore of a rifle by other brands of bullets should be thoroughly removed. The ammunition is presently available from Wilson Combat, Graf & Sons, Midway, and Natchez Shooters Supply.

Layne’s Shootout Results

Space limitations do not allow me to cover all Lehigh Defense bullets and ammunition for testing, so I boiled choices down to seven .30-caliber bullets for handloading in the .308 Winchester and five flavors of loaded ammunition. Accurate bullets deserve an accurate rifle, and the one I chose has been with me on quite a few successful hunts through the years. Built by Kenny Jarrett on a blueprinted Remington Model Seven action, it has a Jewel trigger and a McMillan stock. A switch-barrel rifle, its first barrels were in .243 Ackley Improved and 7mm-08 Improved, and I later sent it to Shilen for the fitting of a Select Match Grade barrel in .308 Winchester.

The little rifle was built for accuracy, and its medium-heavy, 20-inch barrel measures 0.790 inch at the muzzle. It weighs 8.75 pounds with a Schmidt & Bender 2.5-6X scope it has always worn, but when accuracy-testing Lehigh Defense ammo and bullets, I switched to a Bushnell Elite Tactical 3.5-24X 50mm scope. That rifle was chosen for reasons other than its .308 Winchester chamber, one being its tendency to consistently keep three good bullets inside half-MOA, with groups crowding a quarter-inch coming often and at no surprise. I already knew the rifle delivers its best accuracy with other brands of monolithic bullets when they are seated in the case for considerable free travel prior to rifling engagement, and that applied to bullets made by Lehigh Defense as well.

The Lehigh Defense factory-loaded ammo proved to be less accurate in the test rifle than my handloads, probably because my rifle insists on longer bullet jump. Even so, accuracy was still more than good enough for about any hunting application the .308 Winchester is suitable for. Velocity ratings for four of the five loads are from a 20-inch barrel, so I was curious to see how they fared in my rifle with a barrel of the same length. The 125-grain Controlled Chaos Low Recoil load was 22 fps faster in my rifle, and the 155-grain Tipped Maximum Expansion load was 34 fps faster. The 155-grain Tipped Xtreme Chaos load was 38 fps slower, and the 160-grain Xtreme Chaos load was 25 fps faster. Velocity rating for the 152-grain Controlled Chaos load was from a 24-inch barrel, but I wonder if that’s a misprint on the box because it was only 34 fps slower from the 20-inch barrel of my rifle. All the results of my shooting are listed in the accompanying chart. As I mentioned earlier, I have never hunted with Lehigh Defense bullets, but after giving them a try at the shooting range, that is bound to change. 

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