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Sierra matchking performance on game
- Thread starter Hunt_4life
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Not a MK, but ive shot them in my rifle.Same MO. Berger 300 OTM, shot a muley with one last night,probably pushing 30 animals with said bullet at 2750.It flat lays game down.Shot was 474,wind to 40,uphill mtn shot,ran it threw my sig.Chip shot for my rifle,less wind.Folded buck instantly,not one step,in and out both shoulders.
CONatureBoy
Well-Known Member
Re drilling target-bullet meplats for hunting: I drilled the Berger Berger 7mm 190-grain Long Range Hybrid Target bullet's meplat with a 0.0465" (56 gauge) drill bit, just deep enough to enlarge the meplat. Here's a picture of the Berger 7mm 180-grain VLD Hunting bullet (left) next to my drilled target bullet (right):
I shot the 190 into a Clear Ballistics 6"x6"x16" FBI gel block at 100 yards from my 280 AI (1:9 twist, 27" barrel), muzzle velocity 3,000 fps. Results:
The black vertical line is 1.5" from the front face of the block, and is where expansion started. It's evident the permanent wound channel has the same shape as a Berger hunting bullet shot into gel, with the same depth of penetration before expansion. Here's a screen scrape from a YouTube video () of a Berger VLD Hunting bullet shot into gel:
I have shot these at targets, and they maintain their original accuracy. I will take the 190-grain bullet hunting in a week or two. If I shoot something with it I'll post the results here. As always, proceed at your own risk.
I shot the 190 into a Clear Ballistics 6"x6"x16" FBI gel block at 100 yards from my 280 AI (1:9 twist, 27" barrel), muzzle velocity 3,000 fps. Results:
The black vertical line is 1.5" from the front face of the block, and is where expansion started. It's evident the permanent wound channel has the same shape as a Berger hunting bullet shot into gel, with the same depth of penetration before expansion. Here's a screen scrape from a YouTube video () of a Berger VLD Hunting bullet shot into gel:
I have shot these at targets, and they maintain their original accuracy. I will take the 190-grain bullet hunting in a week or two. If I shoot something with it I'll post the results here. As always, proceed at your own risk.
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HRM Johnny
Well-Known Member
I am believing for a successful hunt. I am looking forward to your post about the performance of the bullet. Please include pictures.
CONatureBoy
Well-Known Member
Thank you both. In Feb. of this year I shot two Nilgai with 220-grain 30-cal. SMKs drilled the same way. Both shots at 200 yards broadside. Both nilgai dropped where they stood, with terminal ballistics as you would expect from a stout hunting bullet such as a SGK or a Nosler partition. I'm now hoping for the same experience with the 7mm 190 Nosler target (on spring black bear). Fingers crossed!
That's all I used for years with my 7mm Express, 150gr, until I shot a buck and the bullet went in between the ribs going in and coming out, no bone at all. The wounds sealed back up and I only found 3 drops of blood, but I did get the deer. All of my previous shots struck a rib bone on the exit and it always left a good blood trail. I stopped using Ser BTHPM and switched to Nosler.
This year I'm using a 300WM Berger 208gr Match bullet from all the reviews I've read about it and from a friend who says it'll work great.
Nice buck.
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Make sure the hollow tip is open and from what I've been reading it sounds like it could be your go to bullet.
I may give my 30cal 168gr the drill treatment and see how they do in my 300 WM.SMKs, unaltered, tend to be very unreliable in most calibers. The cavity isn't that large under the meplat and ahead of the core to begin with on them, and the opening is also typically pretty small and sometimes jagged and can create inconsistent and unreliable expansion. I used to use them a lot at one point, and found drilling the tips and going slightly into the core with a 1/16" bit widened the meplat and increased the cavity enough to produce very reliable and consistent results. I later upgraded the process to a meplat trimmer and widened the tips to .070-.100" depending on caliber. It worked just as well and was more efficient than the drill bit, plus more consistent since there's a degree of error involved in drilling them.
Once I started using AMAXs, then ELDMs, and then TMKs, I stopped bothering with all that and just shoot those now. No loss in BC and no extra steps and tedious work at the bench.
If corrected like I mentioned though, the SMK has around a .026" thick jacket, just like the GameKings and TMKs, and they'll work well down to 1400fps with a good amount of impact resistance. For a shot like behind the shoulder on a whitetail, I'd maybe be more confident keeping it no lower than 1600fps though just due to the smaller cavity.
And yes, uncorrected/unaltered, they can and have still worked great for a lot of people, myself included. They've just had instances where they didn't open up properly though too and that's the unreliability and inconsistency I'm talking about. Correcting and widening the meplat will fix that, or using a tipped bullet.
Also, in regards to the 175 SMK specifically, it's used in M118LR and is made to consistently not be "inhumane" per the Geneva Convention and Hague Declaration. A lot of testing went into it and it's use as a sniper round in the DoD. It's still highly advised to open the tips up in order to ensure reliable expansion time after time, especially when impact velocities dip below around 1800fps. They're typically better than other SMKs, but I've found a lot of newer lots of SMKs across calibers are a lot better than they used to be.
Also, I do have a few posts related to things like this and showing differences in jacket thicknesses and construction, found here:
https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/bullet-construction.283735/
https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/selecting-a-hunting-bullet.283902/
https://www.longrangehunting.com/th...d-in-comparison-to-other-bullet-types.283812/
https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/berger-hybrid-vs-berger-vld.283905/
Also, I've not read through this whole thread, so my apologies if I missed something or echoed anything.View attachment 310686
CONatureBoy
Well-Known Member
I learned about meplat drilling from Dr. Martin Fackler's article "MatchKing Bullet: Past, Present, and Future" (The Journal of the International Wound Ballistics Association, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1995, pages 11-12 http://thinlineweapons.com/IWBA/1995-Vol2No2.pdf). The author motivates the article by saying "The erratic performance of the 168 grain .308 caliber Matchking bullet in the human target is a serious problem for law enforcement." He reported talking at a "SWAT /Sniper Seminar in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and [learning] that there have been quite a few recent incidents in which the 168 grain Matchking bullets, as currently loaded by Federal, have failed to expand in animal tissue." In response he drilled some of the same bullets' meplats to 0.055" (slightly larger than my 0.0465") and found "on testing [that] all of these bullets with enlarged holes opened reliably after penetrating the equivalent of less than one inch in 10% gelatin or muscle."
See also W. Hays Parks, "Open-Tip Match: When a 'Hollow Point' is not a Hollow Point" (https://sadefensejournal.com/open-tip-match-when-a-hollow-point-is-not-a-hollow-point/). The author was in charge of the military's legal analysis of the use of SMKs in combat. He writes, "Navy (Crane) product improvement programs led to the 7.62 MK 316 MOD 0 Special Ball, Long Range (DODIC AB39), continuing to employ the 175-grain Sierra MatchKing, and the 220-grain Sierra MatchKing .300 Winchester Magnum Match MK 248 MOD 1 (DODIC AB43) in 2008. In each case wound ballistics tests based upon Dr. Fackler's protocol, today an integral part of the legal review of new military small arms ammunition, reconfirmed Dr. Fackler's 1985 conclusion that the terminal ballistics of OTM projectiles are similar to those of FMJ Ball, that is, they do not 'expand or open easily' in soft tissue." Parks explains the military's conclusion (based on e.g. ballistic-gel tests) that the 175- and 220-grain SMK military sniper ammunition should be classified under military law as FMJ projectiles.
See also the Terminal Ballistics Research article at https://www.ballisticstudies.com/Knowledgebase/8x57JS+Mauser.html. Writing about the 8mm 175-grain Sierra Prohunter bullet, the author reports, "Hollow pointing the Sierra with a 7/64 drill bit produces the most spectacular results but on larger bodied deer, can inhibit penetration. A smaller drill bit enhances penetration while still maintaining good performance."
Years ago I lost a mature bull elk to a perfect broadside shot at 460 yards with an SMK 220. In and out, no expansion. Trailed the slowly bleeding bull for several miles in deep snow (I've written about that elsewhere in this forum). That loss led me to investigate SMK terminal ballistics, which in turn led me to learning how to drill meplats. My provisional conclusion is that drilling cup-and-core target bullets' meplats to 0.045-0.050" roughly transforms their terminal ballistics into those of hunting bullets. So, if I'm going to hunt with a cup-and-core target bullet, I'll drill its meplat to 0.0465" first.
Here's a better picture of my gel-block test with the drilled 7mm 190-grain Berger target bullet:
1.5" of penetration followed by a 6" or so permanent wound cavity.
As always, proceed at your own risk. I am not advocating using target bullets for hunting, and not advocating drilling meplats. I'm just reporting my own experience.
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I hunted with M118 LRs, instead of drilling I ran them through a meplat trimmer, and chamferred the hole with #1 center drill. With my suppressed M1a hunter that I spun the barrel from a blank, I purposely shot a hog behind the shoulder from about 200 yards.
Surprised me, it dropped where it stood. No exit. Had a hard time looking for the entry hole
I did not open the hog where it laid, we just grabbed it and took it the woods.
Surprised me, it dropped where it stood. No exit. Had a hard time looking for the entry hole
I did not open the hog where it laid, we just grabbed it and took it the woods.
drakehammer
Well-Known Member
CONatureBoy
Well-Known Member
7mm 183-grain Sierra Match Kings, trimmed with a meplat trimmer, then drilled to 0.0465" and polished with 00 steel wool.
CONatureBoy
Well-Known Member
SMKs have thick jackets. Compare the pictures I've posted in this thread of the tip of a Berget target 190-grain 7mm bullet, which I trimmed and drilled, with the 183-grain 7mm SMKs that I trimmed and drilled.
Target bullets are generally made with thicker jackets than hunting bullets, for two reasons: (1) the thicker jackets withstand the heat of rapid repeated shooting that's common in competition, while thinner hunting jackets don't; and (2) thinner jackets make for more frangible bullets having more explosive terminal ballistics.
As for what Sierra says, you have it backwards. Here's an excerpt from the Sierra web site's description of the 7mm 183-grain SMK: "Although MatchKing® and Tipped MatchKing® bullets are commonly used for varmint hunting, their design will not provide the same reliable explosive expansion at equivalent velocities in varmints compared to their lightly jacketed Hornet, . . . BlitzKing, or Varminter counterparts." It's the hunting (especially varminting) bullets that have the light jackets--not the target bullets.
