Alright, I had planned to get a lot more testing done this weekend but work, weather and sick kids are getting in the way. For this round of testing I tried changing my medium a bit by adding water and just throwing in the leather instead of layering it like I had in the past. I did see a change in penetration but no discernible change in expansion with the bullets tested. The biggest issue with the new method is that it's early impossible to get a good measurement on penetration since I can't really remove the leather in layers like I did before. Here's the setup I used yesterday.
My testing got cut short after a the snow rolled in and I couldn't see the target at 100 yards any more. I did get 7 new bullets tested though out of the 26 that I have to test at the moment. Yesterday's test guns included the Ruger 77 300 Win Mag, 338/375 Ruger Savage Striker and to test the 270 bullets, I used a 270 AR. For those not familiar with it it's a wildcat formed from shortened 6.5x47 Lapua brass with a case capacity of 43.2gr.
Like previous tests, 2 shots were fired at 100 yards with each load. Because of the different style of testing used this time out I won't include the penetration. I'm not confident that I was able to get good measurements on any of the bullets this time around. I will not that the shank of the Hammer bullets Sledgehammers made it almost completely through the test medium.
270 AR
-130gr Swift Scirocco II
- Muzzle velocity 2571 fps
Retained velocity at impact is approximately 2400 fps with retained weights of 125.5gr and 126.8. This would be similar to the impact velocity from a 270 Win at 400 yards.
-130gr Nosler E-Tip
- Muzzle velocity 2565 fps
Retained velocity on impact is approximately 2400 fps with retained weights of 129.1 and 129.3 grains. These bullets showed the second best penetration of the loads tested. Again, this impact velocity is similar to a 270 Win at 400 yards. This is a bullet that I have on hand and will likely test some more. The mild load I used for this test shot under 1 MOA and would perform very well as a 300 yard hunting load from the AR with a muzzle velocity of about 2700 fps.
-135gr Sierra MK
- Muzzle velocity 2580 fps
Retained velocity on impact is approximately 2425 fps. Retained weight would be considered zero in my mind. The cores completely separated from the jackets after very little penetration. This result is dramatically different than my experience with the 300gr SMK in this test.
338/375 Ruger
- 224gr Sledgehammer
- Muzzle velocity 2160 fps
Retained velocity on impact is approximately 1975 fps. Retained weight of the bullet shanks after petal separation are 186.2 and 186.3 grains. Impact velocity was calculated using a BC of .3 due to the relatively large HP and blunt profile of these bullets. As stated earlier, these bullets out penetrated everything else tested yesterday by a considerable margin.
- 250gr Sierra MK
- Muzzle velocity 2610 FPS
Retained velocity on impact is approximately 2440 fps. Retained weight of the bullets is again what I would consider zero. The jacket and cores completely separated very quickly after impact and penetrated only a few inches. This impact velocity would be similar to a 338 Lapua/338 RUM at 400 yards.
300 Win Mag
- 210 Nosler ABLR
- Muzzle velocity 2620
Retained velocity on impact is approximately 2500 fps with retained weights of 160.4gr and 128.3gr. This load ended up with a higher muzzle velocity than I wanted so I will likely retest these with a muzzle velocity closer to 2200 fps.
- 242 SXRH
- Muzzle velocity 2065 fps
Retained velocity on impact is likely in the 1975 range. Retained weight would be what I consider zero. These penetrated approximately 3" and did massive damage, but retained very little weight. This is a bullet that Elkaholic makes and I believe is intended for low velocity impacts. I think I'll need to move to a longer range to get better low velocity impact data on this one. If I run the muzzle velocity any lower I don't think it well be adequately stabilized.
I started this just to play around since I've always been a bullet scrounge since I started shooting as a kid. Over the years I started to move towards either mono-metal or bonded bullets for all of my hunting guns and so far these tests have pretty much confirmed what I always believed. The most consistent results I'm seeing are from the Accubonds and the solid copper bullets. Accubonds have always worked well for me and other folks I know but there's talk of moving to lead free ammo here in WA so I started moving over to the solid coppers. I've run a lot of Barnes bullets over the years and I've never been disappointed with how they perform. Last year I started to move over towards the Hammer Hunter bullets to replace my Accubonds and I'm really happy with how they're preforming in all these tests too.
I still have a ton of bullets to get to! This is the line up of stuff I wanted to get done this weekend.
143 ELDX, 147 ELDM, 150 Matrix, 162 ELDX, 180 SP, 210 ABLR, 212 ELDX, 215 Berger, 242 SXRH, 250 Berger
135 SMK, 130 E-tip, 130 Scirocco II, 225 SGK, 200 TTSX, 225 TSX, 260 AB, 300 SGK, 350 SMK
88gr HH, 130 SH, 181 HH, 185 SH, 224 SH, 255 SH, 283 SH
A huge thanks (I think
) to everyone who's sent bullets and helped me out. Keep the feedback coming if there's a way you guy's would like to see this improved.
Andrew
