Federal Fusion

[MKotur325]

It is always interesting when this sort of thing happens. I am not really smart on the bonding process and if all bonded bullets have the same integrity, or if they can vary and just because a bullet says bonded, it may not hold up as well as a higher quality bonded bullet.

That's a good point. Bonding a bullet just insures that the jacket and core stay together. Jacket thicknesses, jacket taper, and tip construction will all play significant roles in how the slugs upset.

The upset of the bullet, the consistency of the upset and the final characteristics in Gel are still controlled by the jacket. And to be fair, in some amount the weight retention is still dictated by the jacket.

The bonding process, to my limited chemical understanding, is basically adding some very small quantities of a specific metal to the jacket and core, followed by a high temperature bake of the bullets to basically weld the core near the jacket to the jacket. I would imagine that the component qualities still play into that.... but again, my chemical understanding is limited...

 

[GSP4EVER]

I took a medium sized whitetail in West Central Minnesota with the federal fusion. 150 grain 308 Winchester fired out of a Browning BLR. 92 yards 1/4 away (measured after the shot) downhill. We recovered the bullet out of the neck. Shot hit a little high right behind the shoulder. Deers head was down checking a scrape when I shot. Dropped where I shot him. Also took a similar sized doe at 47 yards broadside shot. Heart was in pieces.


Here is the bullet I recovered. 150 grain Fusion. After washing all of the meat off the bullet weighed 141.3 grains (94.2% of it orginal weight).

 

[Rooster52]

That is about as good as it gets.

 

[Rooster52]

The base of that bullet looks like the Speer Deep Curl.

 

[GSP4EVER]

The way I understand it when I talked to both Federal and Speer (same parent company ATK), the Fusion bullet is the Deep Curl. The Fusion Bullets were available at one time for handloading. Fusion discontinued it and now we have the Deep Curl. Made exactly the same process as the Fusion bullets.

 

[Biscuit Hunter]

The way I understand it when I talked to both Federal and Speer (same parent company ATK), the Fusion bullet is the Deep Curl. The Fusion Bullets were available at one time for handloading. Fusion discontinued it and now we have the Deep Curl. Made exactly the same process as the Fusion bullets.

For what it's worth, while the Deep Curl and the Fusion use the same electroplating process to apply the copper jacket to the lead core, they are not the same bullet. The Fusion has a boat-tail and a flat base, while the Deep Curl lacks a boat-tail and has an actual concavity to the base.

The base doesn't really come out too well in these pics, but hopefully you can see what I mean:

 

[GSP4EVER]

Thanks Biscuit Hunter. Learn something new every day.

 

[rhomas]

I must be in the minority, because I don't like any ammo made by Federal. None of my various rifles like the Fusion bullets, their shotgun shells hang up when being ejected in every semi-auto shotgun I own, and the only bullet I've ever had not load properly in my Taurus Millennium pro .45 or either my full sized XD or my XDS are the Federal American Eagle loads. I only have one rifle that handles Remington Core-Locts, and that's my Ruger Model 77 .220 swift, and even Hornaday ammo is all over the paper no matter which rifle I try those in. I've never had a single mis-fire, mis-feed, jam or ejection problem with any Winchester ammo; regardless of whether it's a rifle bullet, buckshot, turkey load, or pistol ammo.