From: gmk@falstaff.MAE.CWRU.EDU (Geoff Kotzar)
Subject: Re: "Solids"?
Organization: /etc/organization

In article <2t6pdc$j3c@tadpole.fc.hp.com> dougj@hpfcla.fc.hp.com (Doug Juhola) writes:
#Most 'Solids' are some sort of copper alloy. no lead at all.
#one exception that comes to mind is the Speer AGS. it has a
#steel insert.


The above two statements are not quite correct. In the US
there are four basic "solid" designs.

First, and most common, is the steel jacketed solid. This is the
type made and loaded by Remington and Winchester and marketed for
reloaders by Hornady. These have been around for years and years.
They use a steel jacket about 1/16th inch thick which is copper
clad both inside and out. The cladding is about 0.010 inch thick.
They have lead cores that are crimped in from the back.

Second, and one of the most recent designs, is the Speer African
Grand Slam solid. It uses a heavy copper alloy jacket with a Tungsten
slug as a core. Rather than the round nosed design used by the first
group of solids, the Speer uses the flat nose first seen on the Trophy
Bonded Sledgehammer.

Third is the Trophy Bonded bullet which again uses a heavy copper
alloy jacket with a lead core. Just like the Speer but with a lead
core instead of Tungsten. The TB Sledgehammer predates the Speer by
a number of years.

Fourth, and last as far as I know, is the monolithic solid which is
turned from a solid billet of some copper alloy. Thunderbird Cartridge
Corp. owns the patent for this design. They sell these under their own
name. But this design is also available from A-Square under the name
"Monolithic" solid and from Barnes under the name "Super Solid". The
Thunderbird and the A-Square products have a suspiciously similar shape
so they may be from the same producer. The Super Solid has a shape that
differs from the other two.

There is a fifth desgn but it does not qualify as a true "solid".
Barnes used to market a copper tubing based solid. The one end which
became the nose was closed but not really sealed. A lead core was inserted
and the the base was then also closed. The jacket thickness was limited
by the thickness of the available copper tubing. They used 0.049 inch
thick tubing. For many of the old British these were the only "solids"
still available. Their failing was that they were not reliable; they
were more suseptible to deforming by bending or rivetting.

gmk

Having not sectioned a Woodleigh solid I cannot say to which of the
above designs it belongs.