Post by Woody Williams on Aug 29, 2012 5:20:05 GMT -5
I belong to another online hunting group and one of the members shared this. I'm not a rifle hunter, but I know some on here are so I thought I'd share.
A week ago I sent out a website that I found interesting about the terminal bullet performance of a number of handloads and commercial ammo. Although I’m not sure exactly how well this outfit assesses bullets, the info seems straight forward. I’d like to know what their agenda is, if any from a bias standpoint.
The following is a summary of some of the bullet performance info that you may find interesting. There was really nothing too unusual about the information [rovided, but a few things caught my attention. Some of this may busrt your bubble about certain bullets:
1.Sierra Bullets – both GameKing and ProHunter: The site is sort of ambivalent about Sierra Bullets considering them a budget, cup and core bullet. Adequate, especially in heavier weight for caliber sizes, but old technology.
2.Hornady Bullets – In General the site is not impressed with many of Hornady’s run of the mill bullets such as their Interlock and BT Interlock designs. They seem to rate them below the Sierra Bullets of similar type because they are more prone to fragment seriously – especially in magnums. This should come as no surprise and is consistent with some info I collected many years ago putting together an article on elk bullets. The lower priced Hornady’s often were fragmented or separated.
Surprisingly, there is a lot of praise about the Hornady SST bullets. Especially in the mid to higher weight categories. The testers really liked these bullets compared to any other basic cap and core bullets. They also provide an interesting way for handloaders to anneal bullets by “cooking” them with a candle and letting them cool down slowly. They say this results in better penetration and bullet performance. Here is the website for doing this process:
www.ballisticstudies.com/
Be sure to go to the Handloading section, which is quite a ways into the 7mm Website for this cartridge. They describe the process here, but refer to it for many other SST and InterBonded bullets of various calibers. Also interesting is the recommendation that you only have to anneal 6-10 bullets for hunting – probably marking these, and then use the un-annealed bullets out of the box for sight in and practice. Seems like good advice.
The testers also were happy with Hornady’s Interbonded bullets, but recommend annealing some of these (there isn’t as much on the Interbonded as the SST’s, probably because it is a newer bullet?
3.Most of the Speer bullets are considered to be the least well performing bullets tested of the major manufacture cup and core bullets. They said the bullets were “softer” than other brands and fragmented easily. They are mildly complimentary of the HotCor design, but not so with the Speer BT’s. I WONDER IF THE SPEERS HOTCOR DESIGN IS ACTUALLY A BONDED CORE BULLET – DOES ANYONE KNOW? They don’t advertise it as so.
Speer’s GrandSlam is also given a relatively poor rating as several bullets had blown apart in the tests. I’ve also had the 150 grain Speer GrandSlam bullet explode on a black bear using a 308 Win, but also seen extremely good performance with the 165 and 180 grain 30 cal GrandSlams in the 30/06 and 300 Win Mag and have had good performance from the 100 gr GS 243 cal.
4.Of the standard commercial ammo bullets the CorLok gets the nod for quick kills and overall bullet performance over the PowerPoint (Winchester) or Vital Shok (Fed). Several ammo makers also use Nosler’s Ballistic Tips and Sierra bullets in their Mid-economy loads.
5.Bullets that were generally praised include Hornady Interbonded and GMX’s, the Sirroco, the Trophy Bonded, the Nosler Partition and Accubond and the Barnes TSX and Tipped TSX bullets. It says that kills with the copper bullets can be pretty slow on deer sized animals due to the smaller wound channel, that the Bonded Core bullets may not penetrate well on large elk sized critters (except for the Trophy Bonded that is very stout and penetrates well) and that the Nosler Partition provides an excellent compromise between a fast killing projectile and a bullet that penetrates well.
6.The Berger VLD Bullets are not given much praise for lack of penetration in the old Berger VLD design with a thin jacket and the newer VLD designs that may not mushroom at all, especially on smaller animals like deer.
All in all, the website is quite interesting and you’ll likely find something new and/or something that you disagree with. It provides a lot of information most hunters need to know, but few will take the time.
The following is a summary of some of the bullet performance info that you may find interesting. There was really nothing too unusual about the information [rovided, but a few things caught my attention. Some of this may busrt your bubble about certain bullets:
1.Sierra Bullets – both GameKing and ProHunter: The site is sort of ambivalent about Sierra Bullets considering them a budget, cup and core bullet. Adequate, especially in heavier weight for caliber sizes, but old technology.
2.Hornady Bullets – In General the site is not impressed with many of Hornady’s run of the mill bullets such as their Interlock and BT Interlock designs. They seem to rate them below the Sierra Bullets of similar type because they are more prone to fragment seriously – especially in magnums. This should come as no surprise and is consistent with some info I collected many years ago putting together an article on elk bullets. The lower priced Hornady’s often were fragmented or separated.
Surprisingly, there is a lot of praise about the Hornady SST bullets. Especially in the mid to higher weight categories. The testers really liked these bullets compared to any other basic cap and core bullets. They also provide an interesting way for handloaders to anneal bullets by “cooking” them with a candle and letting them cool down slowly. They say this results in better penetration and bullet performance. Here is the website for doing this process:
www.ballisticstudies.com/
Be sure to go to the Handloading section, which is quite a ways into the 7mm Website for this cartridge. They describe the process here, but refer to it for many other SST and InterBonded bullets of various calibers. Also interesting is the recommendation that you only have to anneal 6-10 bullets for hunting – probably marking these, and then use the un-annealed bullets out of the box for sight in and practice. Seems like good advice.
The testers also were happy with Hornady’s Interbonded bullets, but recommend annealing some of these (there isn’t as much on the Interbonded as the SST’s, probably because it is a newer bullet?
3.Most of the Speer bullets are considered to be the least well performing bullets tested of the major manufacture cup and core bullets. They said the bullets were “softer” than other brands and fragmented easily. They are mildly complimentary of the HotCor design, but not so with the Speer BT’s. I WONDER IF THE SPEERS HOTCOR DESIGN IS ACTUALLY A BONDED CORE BULLET – DOES ANYONE KNOW? They don’t advertise it as so.
Speer’s GrandSlam is also given a relatively poor rating as several bullets had blown apart in the tests. I’ve also had the 150 grain Speer GrandSlam bullet explode on a black bear using a 308 Win, but also seen extremely good performance with the 165 and 180 grain 30 cal GrandSlams in the 30/06 and 300 Win Mag and have had good performance from the 100 gr GS 243 cal.
4.Of the standard commercial ammo bullets the CorLok gets the nod for quick kills and overall bullet performance over the PowerPoint (Winchester) or Vital Shok (Fed). Several ammo makers also use Nosler’s Ballistic Tips and Sierra bullets in their Mid-economy loads.
5.Bullets that were generally praised include Hornady Interbonded and GMX’s, the Sirroco, the Trophy Bonded, the Nosler Partition and Accubond and the Barnes TSX and Tipped TSX bullets. It says that kills with the copper bullets can be pretty slow on deer sized animals due to the smaller wound channel, that the Bonded Core bullets may not penetrate well on large elk sized critters (except for the Trophy Bonded that is very stout and penetrates well) and that the Nosler Partition provides an excellent compromise between a fast killing projectile and a bullet that penetrates well.
6.The Berger VLD Bullets are not given much praise for lack of penetration in the old Berger VLD design with a thin jacket and the newer VLD designs that may not mushroom at all, especially on smaller animals like deer.
All in all, the website is quite interesting and you’ll likely find something new and/or something that you disagree with. It provides a lot of information most hunters need to know, but few will take the time.