TheSouthpaw
Well-Known Member
Second these thoughts here. Transparency to customers should be just as high a priority as the sales, especially when the product is expensive.
Hammer ballistic coefficient tests...
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QuietTexan
Well-Known Member
Consumers would be better served pick bullets based on design - expansion and weight retention/shedding. Either the bullet expands appropriately at impact velocity or it doesn't. Once it does, does it retain an appropriate amount of weight to penetrate or not? The real lies aren't in the BC printed on the box, it's the myth than all the new whizz-bang high dollar bullets actually do anything different, and if they are different that it's actually better.
The BC data that's published is just noise, it doesn't actually mean anything. In the tacti-cool world we live in where sleek, sexy high-BC sells to the masses the majority of shooters paying a premium for the hotrods would be better served with old, un-sexy short and fat bullets anyway. But the fact that these masses can't tell any differences even with the large discrepancies in published data is proof that for the vast majority of hunting shots BC gives an illusion of false precision.
BC being off on the box is no more meaningful than variances in FPS or bullet weights being off from what's printed on the box. Does it matter if one CoreLokt is 180.3gn and the next is 179.7gn? Nope. Does it matter if box FPS is 2850 and it really chrono's at 2820? Nope. Does it matter if BC on the box is .325 and it's really .285? Nope. Not one of those three things, severally or combined, will move POI enough to induce a miss when shooting at a 6-8MOA target inside 500 yards.
How many negative reports of explosive impacts are going around about the ELD-M and ELD-X line? At the same time how many guys shoot Berger's specifically because they have low weight retention? That's a mismatch of expectations in design right there. Don't want low weight retention? Don't shoot the bullet advertised with 50-60% weight retention inside 400 yards like the ELD is, choose something with a locked or bonded core. Don't complain about the bullet doing exactly what it was designed for, it was a poor decision on the shooter's part to select it in the first place. But it has high BC! It's sleek! It's sexy! Says the masses who got sold on a data point that doesn't matter.
Guys aren't shooting Hammers or CE because they have awesome BC, it's because they're a fracturing petal shedding design where the expansion design can't be matched by a cup-and-core. So those two monos designs don't even consider BC in the first branch of the decision tree to use them or not. It's a moot point as to does a Hammer or a Hornady ELD-X have better BC on paper, the differences in design make direct comparison meaningless.
Where BC does matter, in terms of bullet-to-bullet consistency and in terms of transition to going in to transonic performance from Mach 1.5 to 1.2, the box BC isn't worth the ink it's printed with because the key metric of barrel twist isn't accounted for. Gyroscopic stability plays a non-negligible role in consistency of BC, so unless the box is going to start carrying velocity and spin rates to go with BC it's insufficient information.
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I get the points you're trying to make. If you go back in this thread a bit, you'll see I mentioned priority one is terminal performance. To say BC doesn't matter on a long range hunting forum is interesting, even if a lot aren't hunting to long ranges. No need to open that can of worms though.
The consumer should have figures that are in acceptable limits for accuracy because the equipment used (cartridges, barrel lengths and twist rates, etc) and the environmental conditions do indeed vary from each end user, to at least use to base their choice in selection from.
To me, the point here isn't that BC is low, it's that it's significantly lower than estimated. As long as you have an accurate number, you're good and can use it for your dope. So what it is once trued is not the problem.
As far as cup and core performance, that's a whole other topic but I will say poor performance in a vast majority of instances is user error and using a particular bullet or weight beyond it's limitations.
Bottom line is published/advertised numbers, no matter what they are, SHOULD be as close as possible to real world numbers. Everyone should true their loads and get actual numbers. For hunting applications, terminal performance is priority one. Getting it accurately and as expected to the same POA/POI is priority two. Which bullets guys/gals choose is their business and their right. Everyone's needs, desires, and standards will vary. I just think they should be setup for the most potential for success without any misleading numbers, even if it's common knowledge they're not completely accurate.
RockyMtnUT
Well-Known Member
So they should advertise on www.Shortrangehuntingforum then? 74.3% the people on this site are looking for a Best BC for long-range rather than the 30.06 round nose. I would bet more sells are driven off of BC than bullet performance.
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I 100% agree. Probably why i haven't ordered yet. $100 for 40 bullets is very steep. This entire thread is based on true BC of copper bullets. Im sure these will be no different. Copper bullets do better going fast. Especially at distance. That is why I think you'll see overbore magnums become more popular as the copper story unfolds.
I like to shoot and try new stuff. That is my only driver for paying that kind of money on a box of bullets. For $20 more I can get 2 boxs of Hammers that are proven to me. If they can achieve those BC numbers they could be worth the money. At the end of the day BC is just a number that puts them on target. Lower BC just means you need to be better at wind calls.
Soon when my hunting season is over I'll try them out and post a report on my personal finding if it hasn't been done by somebody else.
QuietTexan
Well-Known Member
I find the caveats given by smaller vendors perfectly acceptable, and the numbers they provide more than accurate given the constraints that they can't report on every particular combination of variables.
If you want to be marketed too that's your call. I can calculate and true up my own BCs, as should anyone who's actually shooting long range. Pick design first, then make sure the stats are accurate. I'm not going to change bullet choice just because something else comes out that's a minor percentage point better.
The truth is a few points of BC doesn't matter at all. When BC does matter consistency between bullets and wide-band velocity average is more important than the hard number. Picking new-whizz-bang 208.9gn bullet over last year's 207.4gn bullet because of a 0.005 increase in G7 doesn't translate into anything meaningful. Nothing get's past the fact that making a wind call 1mph more accurately or a distance call 5 yards closer to actual outweighs minor BC improvements while supersonic - which is the real kicker.
If you run a large enough cartridge to not drop into transonic it's all just paper racing anyways. Wind deflection varies with velocity, which is retained better by heavier bullets. Considering anything heavier than 200 grains out of any decent 308 or 338 cartridge will stay in the supersonic range to past 1000 yards, the actual BC in terms of drop and deflection of a bullet isn't as meaningful a data point even for long range hunting as it's made out to be. Unless I missed where people are sniping animals at 1+ miles consistently, then pretty much any remotely modern VLD and hybrid design will all work well enough that the differences are trivial compared to bullet design for terminal performance.
It might be unpopular but I'll say it - buying bullets because of the BC on the box is silly, it's feel-good false precision that isn't going to translate to anything meaningful. The Big Three - Wind, Range, and Velocity still matter exponentially more. If anyone is shooting to the point where BC matters, they'd better know well enough that there are too many factors to condense down to one catch-all number in the advertising material.
I prepare to shoot large game out to around 900yds. I prefer to buy a bullet with a reasonably accurate assigned BC value, compared to buying a bullet with a BC value that fails to maintain expansion velocity to my intended yardage, and not learning about that until after purchase and vetting of the bullets BC value. Others I know share my preference.
Your position on the relative unimportance of accurate marketed bullet BC values isn't my position. I gather you feel, and hold the belief, that anyone disagreeing with your position simply isn't knowledgeable enough to agree with you. I'm knowledgeable. I disagree now, tomorrow, and forever.
I'm confident many other bullet purchasers disagree also.
Your position on the relative unimportance of accurate marketed bullet BC values isn't my position. I gather you feel, and hold the belief, that anyone disagreeing with your position simply isn't knowledgeable enough to agree with you. I'm knowledgeable. I disagree now, tomorrow, and forever.
I'm confident many other bullet purchasers disagree also.
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If you're happy with that, that's great. To imply that everyone should share the same mindset is what I'd disagree with is all.
So a few points doesn't really matter much, no. That's the point trying to be made. If we got advertised BCs that were only a few points off, that would be plenty acceptable. The OP got a difference of .043 on a G7 BC with his 124gr HH load in a 264wm. That's a lot for a G7. If we called his MV 3100fps and calculated the difference where the bullet hits 1800fps, that puts it at around 750 yards. The difference between the estimated BC and what the OP got puts the difference in drop over a foot and the difference with a 10mph full value wind at just under a foot. That doesn't matter at all?
I went ahead and made up the charts for each Hammer he tested as well as the Badlands SB2. The 140gr AH was a difference of .031 G7, the 143gr HH was a difference of .30, and the 140gr SB2 was a difference of .016 G7.
So this wasn't about picking the new latest and greatest bullet to get a few more BC points. It's about published/advertised BC varying significantly after being trued.
The fact is many people do base a lot of their decision on buying a bullet on advertised BC. If actual BC is way off from advertised, you're decision becomes a bit of a hope and guess. I'm not really ok with that. That's really the whole point here. Yes, we all need to true our load and BC isn't everything, but that's not the point.
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WiscGunner
Well-Known Member
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You are of course welcome to your opinion but like other have said, I am not in your camp of thinking. BC certainly does matter long before transonic velocities. BC help extended the range if minimum expansion. The ability to judge wind to 1mph is highly unrealistic but having a high BC bullet that gives you far more room for error in your wind call is definitely realistic and many of us that shoot/hunt long range utilize high BC for exactly this. But then perhaps your definition of long range is different than others?
Max range of expansion with Factory estimated BC .259G7
Max Range with actual field use .206G7 BC
Hornady 180gr ELD-M
I love the Hammer Hunters in my 7SS but clearly they are a 600yrd bullet for me. Others might take them further by pushing harder for more velocity but I prefer better barrel life and temp stable powders so I use H4350 for the 155HH and H1000 for the 180 ELD-M.
Eliminating range/velocity errors is in the same league as reducing wind call error with higher BC bullets. Better components help me meet my goals for accuracy and quick killing. Knowing the limitations of your gear is important.
Note the 180 ELD-M is approx 200fps slower but way better wi dow for error in wind and retained terminal velocity.
QuietTexan
Well-Known Member
OP's Point: Published BC's are wrong.
My Point: I don't care that they're wrong, because published BC's will never be accurate enough for the type of analysis required for long range shooting because they lack significant relevant information.
OP's Counter: They could publish better information if they got a Labradar, a Kestral, and an iPhone app.
My Counter: They still would have to provide BC information in multiple velocity windows, multiple barrel twists, multiple lots of things, and at the end of the day it would still never line up close enough to every rifle those bullets are running through.
You: Come along and basically prove my point.
You're proving it because you somehow chose the 264 WM and 7mm-08, and you didn't list barrel twist. Implicit in your argument that the difference in published and actual BC is that YOU are using the same velocity and twists that were used to calculate the BC. You have no idea the variables you're introducing into the calculation because you don't have the original equipment spec. Your drop is a foot off from the published spec, but could be two feet off or four inches off from the originally calculated BC for the bullet because you're shooting it out of a different rifle. The published BC could be 100% correct for a certain equipment combination, it's just wrong for YOURS. And yet, you have no idea how different it is because the relevant information was never given to you.
Still my point: Published BC is irrelevant because it gives the used a sense of false precision since the most relevant variables are not presenting with the information.
It's a tail chase of never enough. The way you short cut that is to do the actual work yourself, then you don't have to care what the BC on the box is or be mad that the dastardly dastards publishing them are 100% on super-cereal on purpose lying to you
You didn't read that correctly, try again. 1mph more accurately. That means reducing an error, not down to 1mph of accuracy, but by 1 mph. What does your 0.5 mil wind hold change to if you run the window from 4.5 to 8mph? Only 1mph worse on each end, if it changes by half a mil the point stands.
And even then, the whole point here is that using box BC is silly because it's almost certainly wrong anyways. Hornady doesn't have better gear to calculate BC, they used equipment closer to what the OP was using to test them. Each of us have to true up the numbers or it's just as bad a blind guess as using FPS off a box of factory ammo.
600 is plenty far enough to be called long range for hunting. Let's be realistic, no one here is super-sniping animals at 1k+ using the BC off the box after only practicing on the 100 yard range
Hard rock
Well-Known Member
I'm curious what makes the OP such a expert on his B.C testing . I would think Steve's testing on his bullets are tested in good faith and published that way , of the thousands of bullets he has sold and as many shooters that has shot them I haven't read one complaint of the BC being way off , if any thing all positive . I keep hearing how this is a long range hunting forum , I would like too know how many members here need a high B C bullet for their actual hunting and big game killing distances. I bet if a survey is done on this forum 10 percent of the members , maybe has killed a big game animal over 500 Yds . I personally have a 600 yd limit and I'm not there yet . The high B..C bullets doesn't matter in my case and probably too most on this forum , but Terminal Performance does matter because they work from point blank too my self imposed limit of 600 yds as long as the impact vel is 1800 fps or faster . My perspective is Steve and his hunting group in Africa are testing a lot of there bullets too report back on the over all terminal performance of the Hammer bullets on different game at different distances . I have full confidence in the way they have arrived at their Published BC . I'm sure when they are back from Africa , Steve will chime in for clarification and explain there BC testing .
Well I for one have, by several people
And this isn't just about Hammers. There are many other bullet manufacturers that have estimated/published BCs that have been significantly off from actual results. To be clear, if I were to make my own post on the subject Hammer wouldn't be my main example and I likely wouldn't name them at all. I'd probably name ALCO for the biggest offender in my own personal experience. Hammer just happened to be the bullet on the OP that showed the most significant difference from published to actual, with the Badlands next.
Is the OP an expert? I have no idea. If the standard is we should all just true our own BC and use what we get, why is what he got in question?
It was for reference purposes only
. I chose those cartridges because that's what the OP stated he used. I used realistic values to show a likely scenario. No kidding it might not be completely accurate, but it illustrates the point just fine, nonetheless.
Here's another example, from another member. His trued value was .078 lower than the published estimate, and a G7 value. That's pretty significant and if he chose that bullet hoping to get a certain max range from it, and then discovered that based on his trued value he can't achieve that, that's a problem and a big frustration.
Conversely, maybe that trued value doesn't actually make his round any less effective for his particular needs with in. In that circumstance, no big deal. He now has his trued BC and can go on using it without issue.
