We did some shooting this weekend at 600 yards and 1030 yards into 2.5 gal water jugs, results were interesting. We caught one 160gr J4 jacket bullet at 1030 and it was broken in half, first six inch jug was clean in and out but the second one the bullet did what ever it did and started two pieces which traveled through two more jugs. Impact speed was 1825 fps.
At 600 yards dad put two quick rounds into the jugs and the first one uncorked into chunks of metal, the second had less resistance and tore in two like the one at 1030. It was quite interesting, I have no doubt that these would work excellent through the shoulders of an elk but I don't know if a deer would get them opened at much range. Impact velocity was 2230 fps at 600 yards.
The J4 jacket with lead to the tip may be a little to rugged and with the lack of frontal area and long shank it's slow to open or tumbles. We have the Corbin jacket version to test next, these have a thinner jacket at the nose and have a hollow cavity in the nose so they should open much more aggressive.
I shot some of the 142 Matrix from the 6.5 SS, it impacted at 1880 fps at 1030 yards but it shot through all six jugs and we could not find the bullet, I found bits of lead and jacket through the jugs and the holes looked like it may have opened but just the nose maybe, hard to tell, enough energy was released to blow the second jug up though so something happened.
At 600 yards the 142's opened much like a Berger, blowing the nose of sending wreckage through two jugs but not penetrating the third, I hit them twice but very little bullet was caught in the jugs and most of it was scattered on the board. At 600 yards I feel confident this bullet would rock just about anything you would shoot it at.
So nothing earth shattering but a little bit of a glimpse of what may happen, some of the bullet shot into water seem to react very much the same in game but then others react much differently so I do like to see what happens in water but reserve final judgement when they are put to fur. It does seem to me that the 6.5 bullets in general tend to be a little harder or slower to open, even with the 140 Bergers they seem slower than other cals we shoot to open so finding that perfect bullet in the 6.5 may take a little more shooting or we may come back around full circle.
I just got of the phone with Elkaholic and he had a buddy shoot a bear with a 160 Matrix at 50 yards, sounds like the wound was tight and not showing signs of the bullet really blowing open but damage was done, I think we'll have pics of that coming.
The top left hit was a 160 Matrix and the one that hit the orange was a cold bore shot from the 6.5 SS at 1030 yards which put a little icing on it!
2nd jug exit of the 142 at 600 yards.
2nd jug exit of the 160 at 1030.
