Various brands of 6.5 cal

Excellent! I love data like this! Almost a decade of work in fisheries good data sets like this get the nerdy side of my brain all happy lol.
Definitely some standout trends! Too tired now but gunna put together some summary notes for myself tmrw. Appreciate it much!

@fordy great to see you back. It's been a spell since I've seen you post.

How were you getting the 1800ish velocities? Shooting animals at distance or using downloaded ammo at closer ranges?

BEEMAN said:

Basically your results with the Apex is what I was referring too. Not sure how they do at high impact velocity. But from what I am seeing they do ok at high velocity impacts. As with other bullets I'm sure not all apex perform excellent at high and low velocity impacts. I do see on the apex site they do list impact velocities on some bullets, which is nice to see.

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Gday beeman got it on where you seeing

Need to break these apex pills into 2 categories
& where I'd say your seeing that on the website as I've not looked for ages

First part guess you call it gen 1
the first alloy mark was using showed a weakness of fracturing under extreme pressures for which I personally won't use that style ( yes I've seen other alloys/brands do roughly the same some worse some a little better but it will let you down eventually ) now smack ( place the shot ) that critter & as long as it doesn't impact the knuckle or big bones @ extreme velocity it's go for ones life as I couldn't fault the performance then so imo a very wise choice to velocity rate a pill ( apex is not the only company to run maximums but also is that information correct as just like minimum you see it's often different than advertised when we take all resistance into account )


I loved that information on the apex website was put up as @ a minimum that information is better known than not , if one adheres to that or not is a personal position but great to see it imo

Second part gen 2
They do well @ high velocity & even to extremes I pushed things to & this is with the new alloy ( if that's still current I don't know but haven't talked/ messaged mark for ages so I'll find out ) on these tests I had 2 of the new alloy & 1 old which in all reality basically impossible to see in low impact ( balanced part more noticeable ) but once impacts were to the other extreme it reared it's ugly head again on gen 1 alloy but gen 2 it disappeared or I couldn't find it but believe me I tried lol

So on discussion with mark he asked one part of me " can I take the limit off the new alloy " which man alive that's personally a lot of burden for myself to carry as this can come back to bite me hard real hard but my testing showed no flaws in that alloy & one I never saw a pill do that style of meplat form , yes it's different is it the best but it definitely improved from gen 1 .

so we have to get out of our comfort zone & look what the data showed us & it showed me I trust the gen 2 & wouldn't worry what shot I took in a hunting situation with the gen 2 alloy as long as the pill is capable of covering the requirements of penertration capabilities so how can I not say take it off in my honest opinion it's not a concern now

But now we get into the next part of how does it preform @ where I will run it for my most likely impact/ resistance everyone of the apex is pipped by others yes it's matching it to one's own circumstances
But the apex has no pop & ultimately it has shown no broached pill has ever produced this pop but on the chat I had with mark he was going to adjust a few things to see what he came up with for which I don't know if he did or not

So has apex got pop now I don't know as not tested any of those pills for well over 8 months & mark was straight onto it & testing theories in gel so maybe he has maybe not but throughout other testing of pills for a mate who was tweaking pills I know no you can get this pop in a broached pill but it's not commercially available to any of us as in early development stages so if that company or others takes on board this tweaking that creates pop watch that space as that's a game changer as they will take the level of good killing to a even wider number on what kills where

I'll not name the company that broached pills were used

just to be straight up this thread is not to promote one brand over another it's to show what worked better where & the apex excelled @ low velocity & best easily imo is a good killer in other areas & not found a poor area in gen2 pills but improvement yes they can as I want excelled across all
I can dream right

Think I've dribbled enough yes use apex with confidence across all impact resistances in gen 2 pills
gen 1 I like the keep impacts below the velocity number ( think 3200/3300) & go for one's life from 1700 ish to whatever one wants to run them at
Cheers

Excellent analysis fordy. This is why I feel all your testing is so important. With the few animals I shoot a year, I just can't make those observations.i try my best though. I find that very interesting on the broached pills not having the "POP". Is this because they open a bit too early? I'm sure at my shooting distances and no extreme muzzle velocities they'd work fine for me. Maybe a point blank with the 338 RUM into a knuckle at 3000-3100 fps could cause problems. I believe the 200 gr Afterburner has an impact velocity tested to 3200 fps. But I'd need to look that up again. Thanks again for the details.

FireFlyFishing said:

@fordy great to see you back. It's been a spell since I've seen you post.

How were you getting the 1800ish velocities? Shooting animals at distance or using downloaded ammo at closer ranges?

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Gday FFF
Thankyou
Had a absolute terrible last half of this 24 year from 2 deaths of extremely close people to logistic of firearm & animal legislation changes in government acts in the organisation I work for on a voluntary basis plus health scares for my m&d plus trying to run a farm ( well my son done most of that & proud of him stepping up like he did ) amongst other things I'm so looking forward to 25 but getting settled again which is a big relief

To your question on how these tests were done & sorry I should've put that up

My setup was on these low velocity ones to load my beenmore down to 6.5 grendel levels & shoot those @ distance to get the velocity impacts I sought

Now I wou r loved to shoot @ my rifles velocity capacity as the rpm would've been better ( which I like higher anyway ) but I physically don't have the skills to place accurately past 500 yards & some instances 400 or less will pull me up

So the rifle is a 7 twist & loaded to grendel like MV velocity

The velocities to be used came from places like hodogen , GL's velocity charts on hammers
Adi , Barnes , nosler , nick Harvey's reloading books plus couple mates & just went from there on work up loads

So to me my thoughts were if it's in the grendel range & works it is only going to be more consistent if in a higher MV cartridge goes back to rpm for me & the 7twist puts that in a better field than the 8 twist grendel so the tests maybe a little worse in a 8 twist grendel

Do you or anyone else have thoughts on that rpm thing or if a problem with my thought process on how I went about doing what I did

I would love to hear more on the what one's thoughts are on that

Cheers

fordy said:

Had a absolute terrible last half of this 24 year from 2 deaths of extremely close people to logistic of firearm & animal legislation changes in government acts in the organisation I work for on a voluntary basis plus health scares for my m&d plus trying to run a farm ( well my son done most of that & proud of him stepping up like he did ) amongst other things I'm so looking forward to 25 but getting settled again which is a big relief

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I hear ya. I lost my father this year. I'm ready for 2025. Hang in there!

fordy said:

So to me my thoughts were if it's in the grendel range & works it is only going to be more consistent if in a higher MV cartridge goes back to rpm for me & the 7twist puts that in a better field than the 8 twist grendel so the tests maybe a little worse in a 8 twist grendel

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I agree. Especially on the coppers. The cup and cores you have tested may be more explosive which has it merits too.

Gday
Got a bit of time to do some lung exit pictures up of my videos
These ones are in that 1800 ish impact

I'll get some more done as time permits
Cheers

Excellent! Very helpful! Looking forward to seeing more.

Gday
Next lot

Bad part of me on the 116 apex as this one no reference of size of wounding so my pointing finger is about 3/4 in wide just above my nail

sorry I didn't have the same ruler for all the pictures over the various days & compromised with my leatherman on a few of them

here's the measurements of the leatherman

sorry it's In metric as I got pulled up the other day on metric vrs imperial for which it is what it is now
Cheers

Excellent pictures. It is very interesting to see the difference between these bullets.

Are these results typical of what you've seen with these bullets on multiple animals?

Thanks for this .As I've had a 6.5 PRC that I need to work a load for.Which ive been lazy as it shoots Hornady match 147 ELDM f
very well.I haven't shoot much with it.I stoned a wolf under 300,big black bear 200 went few yards, and speed goat at archery distance went down at shot. I hunt muley in grizzly area so like idea of a mono.

BEEMAN said:

Excellent pictures. It is very interesting to see the difference between these bullets.

Are these results typical of what you've seen with these bullets on multiple animals?

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Gday beeman
Thanks & it was extremely interesting for me as I was a bit of I believe what was going to work better but let's go test to show difference & then hopefully the companies can improve on what they are doing today & tweak things to give us better pills tomorrow & that has proven the case with some companies others not so which is fine but the bar is moving that is for sure as these 1800ish proved

2parts to that above
First I didn't see the apex being number one on these tests playing out the way it did & my pick would've been the 147eldm for which it did preform well ( not my well & none did imo ) & that part was the consistency of that pill
For instance on that 123 apex it ranged from
22to 41 seconds on the 10 critters on that particular low resistance shot for which it showed it's consistency when looking @ those 10 samples as the 41 second impact to tip was a outlier as everything else was from 22 to 27 seconds which is quite impressive Imo but in all reality I would've liked 10 more critters to see if it held that pattern as historically evidence shows it would widen the spread of those but it's a great start I believe & shows why numbers are needed

The second part is where I think your going in "multiple animals " you're meaning multiple species
But I'll cover multiple animals first
These tests that are recorded in those data sheets are pretty close to the actual number on these low resistance shots & can only think of a couple I didn't either autopsy on site or take the critters home or take it's vitals home for further evaluation

Now other impact shots that were off what I honed in on for low resistance occurred as I'm just not a good enough shot to get it spot on even @ these modest ranges for some here so apologies for that but is what it was
A classic was the copper rose hp as I just couldn't get data on that pill & I think after 4 critters I was getting low on test subjects so concentrated on getting the others completed or closer to the 10 I wanted which looking back that's a shame as that pill showed more promise @ getting better results & confirmed in other species but that's not apples to apples so take that to the next part & that's multiple species & yes these were done also but not all brands to this level of numbers as I don't have access to those numbers anymore but hone in I did & I'll tag the appropriate company to show them what occurred & if they take on board or not will solely be upto them

Gotta run sorry but I like sp6x6 post & that pill does well @ those velocities & I'll delve into that a little more as soon as time permits

Cheers

Yes, by multiple animals I meant same species but multiple animals taken. It's always hard looking at pictures. Yours are very good. But from what I see the Apex has been doing very good. Looks to have larger exits than others. The 125 HHT exit looks good as well. If I'm way off on my analysis, please don't hesitate to correct what I think I'm seeing.

I was a little surprised at the exit wound of the 124 HH. That bullet has performed very good for me on whitetail with a MV of 2938 fps. Shots have all been close though. 50-60 yds, so impact velocity will still be quite high.

BEEMAN said:

Yes, by multiple animals I meant same species but multiple animals taken. It's always hard looking at pictures. Yours are very good. But from what I see the Apex has been doing very good. Looks to have larger exits than others. The 125 HHT exit looks good as well. If I'm way off on my analysis, please don't hesitate to correct what I think I'm seeing.

I was a little surprised at the exit wound of the 124 HH. That bullet has performed very good for me on whitetail with a MV of 2938 fps. Shots have all been close though. 50-60 yds, so impact velocity will still be quite high.

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Gday beeman
gotcha on above & now your getting into areas where a individual should imo pay more attention & not blanket thoughts as its where ea pill works it's best & let's go 2 pills that cover most peoples twists & MV velocities around.the creedmore level take the 125hht &112hht both do very well @ substantially higher impact so if you take critters regularly @200 & in both those pills will work extremely well if we match them to a specific size critter & by that I mean watch the 112hht start showing IT's weakness of not having enough capacity for killing quickly on the bigger critters & by moving to the 125 hht ( if twist is adequate ) you'll see that it not only covers those bases it's the best pill I've used in these higher velocity impact & all the way upto including asiatic buff ( ( no big bulls taken ) so my choice the hammer wins that race now if twist is no good to run the 125 watch me move to a different choice & that most likely would be the raptor for those bigger critters ( I'd need to confirm on my data sheets )

So now if your that creedmore like shooter that's a say 600 to 800 most likely impact distance & @ the low end of the velocity curve watch me avoid the hammer's & go to the 123 apex or even the 147 eldm as critter size comes in here again but the apex has no trouble getting penetration & if twist is a issue a handful of others I'd also consider

So I'm one for looking @ what your chasing & match the best possible pill for that application but then sp6x6 puts in the possibility of a grizz
Man alive I hate bears as it throws another spanner in the works & my opinion on them is I have no clue , yes I'm a muppet on them so I'm taking a bigger gun & a pill that will cover more bases but if one's in grizz country & fixed on the 6.5 I'm probably going to go a toss up of the 125hht or the 123 apex as I'm wanting as much penertration as possible that goes to the apex yet the 125hht gives us a little bit of hold the coke can wound for a bit longer

Hope that all makes sense

On the 124 hh I'm all for that pill in it's old form & impacts kept high also ( some of the extremely high MV chamberings I think it's more suited to those than the 125hht but only a theory in 6.5 but holds weight on other calibers but not all ) , today not so much & that's another discussion for another day lol

@sp6x6 did this post address your post #25 queries

Cheers