Federal Fusion

[Jon Bischof]

Great shooting / hunting.
Which caliber and bullet weight?

Son killed 3 with .357 Magnum Fusion and 1 with 30-06. I have honestly lost count of how many I have killed with 270 WSM Fusion.

 

[Kimber7man]

@oregonmuley has killed a truckload of antelope with a 243 and 95 grain fusions

 

[CNY Yote Hunter]

Well it wasn't a fluke, I was able to get my hands on another box and just hit the range.. unbelievable

 

[DJ Fergus]

So I went to the range this past weekend and pulled the 300 wsm out of the safe for a bear hunt in the coming weeks. Went to the store for ammo as I have never shot this gun before and bought some 165 federal fushion as that is all they had. Went home and loaded some more with brass I had prior bought but yet to load. Loaded 40 rounds .005 increments from the lands to find the sweet spot over some H4350. Range day, put the scope on, used the fushion to dial in and then started with the loads. Best hand load with 180 accubonds yielded .6 moa, all 5 shot groups with barrel cooling in between groups so no problems there. Had brought an extra 5 rounds of the federal fusions with me and decided to see how those grouped, mind boggling! 5 shot group that measured .38! Maybe it was just a fluke but these have now peaked my interest as the price was very reasonable imo. Just curious if anyone has any experience with these rounds on black bear/ elk at ranges of 3-400 yards? Thanks for the input ahead of time... Gun used was a Savage 110 Bear hunter as well if anyone is wanting to know

The fusions are lead cores that are copper plated, not conventional copper swaged jacket, they hold together very well. They are very consistent in form due to how they are constructed. I've shot them in factory loaded ammo 4 different rifles all of which shot sub moa. One of those rifles would shoot nothing else sub moa. My son shot a deer last season with A 140gr 6.5 fusion @ 300 yards. It performed nicely. I did notice that they grouped very consistent out to 400 yards.... On out to 500, the groups opened up a little more than normal but still acceptable. Within 500 yards I would not hesitate a bit to use them. I think over all performance would be highly acceptable at 300 wsm velocities. Intuition tells me that they probably would be less desirable when moving on out to farther distances than 500.

 

[DJ Fergus]

I have a number of guns that shoot factory ammo fusions better than moa. I wouldn't use them for long range hunting but I have not had any issues when using fusion ammo with no more than 3000fps MV (e.g., 150gr 270). They are definitely tougher than other options like corelokt and powerpoint. Seems odd that Federal hasn't put a polymer tip on them as I know a lot of other folks that have had good luck with them.

I think if they tipped these bullets with a cavity beneath, and gave them a higher b.c. profile.... They would have a definite winner. Because they just consistently group well from what I have saw. I think they do start to yaw a little on past 400 yds due to the way they are currently pointed.

 

[MNbogboy]

Bought some federal fusion bullets on sale last winter to try in some of my 6.5 caliber rifles. Liked the first 200 and then found they are actually Speer Gold Dot. Price is right, they shot good in 4 different cartridges including 6.5-06, 6.5 creed, 260 super and 6.5/257 Bob Ackley 40°.

This is the first & only 1 shot at game (so far).
140 Speer Gold Dot (federal fusion) out of a 6.5/257 Bob Ackley on top of H4831sc. Last Friday Wyoming antelope buck 245 yards. Residual weight still 128 grains.
Early summer this rifle grouped 1.75" at 300 yards and still 5.50" at 610 yards.
Drop test showed advertised BC (.571 g1) a little optimistic. Ballistic program fit .520 as actual.
I like the results so far.

 

[CNY Yote Hunter]

Bought some federal fusion bullets on sale last winter to try in some of my 6.5 caliber rifles. Liked the first 200 and then found they are actually Speer Gold Dot. Price is right, they shot good in 4 different cartridges including 6.5-06, 6.5 creed, 260 super and 6.5/257 Bob Ackley 40°.

This is the first & only 1 shot at game (so far).
140 Speer Gold Dot (federal fusion) out of a 6.5/257 Bob Ackley on top of H4831sc. Last Friday Wyoming antelope buck 245 yards. Residual weight still 128 grains.
Early summer this rifle grouped 1.75" at 300 yards and still 5.50" at 610 yards.
Drop test showed advertised BC (.571 g1) a little optimistic. Ballistic program fit .520 as actual.
I like the results so far.
View attachment 217363
[/QUOTE
Thank you for sharing. I am definitely going to give them a go on the black bear and at this point elk as well. Hopefully I will be putting pics with results of both up soon!

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

I have a 300 WSM from christensen that absolutely loves them. Most groups between 0.4 and 0.8 at 100. Almost as good as my best handloads so you're definitely not the only person a bit ashamed about getting beat by cheap factory ammo

fed factory ammo can be some decent stuff. I'm not that fond of their brass in certain chamberings, but in the standard stuff like 243 and 30-06 it is fine.

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

On a side note, not sure if others have ever seen this or not? I loaded up some 1x fired fusion brass for my neighbor's gun two years ago, the brass was fired in his 30-06 ruger, it was so soft that it would not extract near max! Wasn't a hot load either using 55.5/W760 with Sierra 180 GameKings. This is listed max in Hodgdon's manual for that bullet, but not in Sierra's manual: Sierra only lists 51.0, and a max of 52.8.... which is where I started. I stopped and went out and bought him some new Winchester brass and loaded it back up to 56.5 and settled on 55.5/W760 with that same bullet. Federal Brass has been known to be soft, so if you decide to reload the Fusion 1x brass use caution!!!

Prolly just a batch of soft brass.... Usually I never have a problem with my 30-06 unless old mil brass is in the mix... I load ww, r-p, and fed interchangeably using 4350 and 165 hdy interlock pills.

 

[73driver]

Bought some federal fusion bullets on sale last winter to try in some of my 6.5 caliber rifles. Liked the first 200 and then found they are actually Speer Gold Dot. Price is right, they shot good in 4 different cartridges including 6.5-06, 6.5 creed, 260 super and 6.5/257 Bob Ackley 40°.

This is the first & only 1 shot at game (so far).
140 Speer Gold Dot (federal fusion) out of a 6.5/257 Bob Ackley on top of H4831sc. Last Friday Wyoming antelope buck 245 yards. Residual weight still 128 grains.
Early summer this rifle grouped 1.75" at 300 yards and still 5.50" at 610 yards.
Drop test showed advertised BC (.571 g1) a little optimistic. Ballistic program fit .520 as actual.
I like the results so far.
View attachment 217363

I went to the Speer website and their is no such Speer product as 6.5 140 gr Speer Gold Dot in their listings.

 

[FEENIX]

I went to the Speer website and their is no such Speer product as 6.5 140 gr Speer Gold Dot in their listings.

Here you go ...

https://www.speer.com/bullets/rifle_bullets/gold_dot_rifle_component_bullet/19-264140GDB.html

 

[DJ Fergus]

I went to the Speer website and their is no such Speer product as 6.5 140 gr Speer Gold Dot in their listings.

They were being sold in different places. They were being called Speer gold dots and their was some being called a TAC bullet or something of sort. I believe I saw them on Midway a long while back. 6.5 creedmoor federal nontypical ammo had these 140 fusion bullets loaded in them. I pulled a bullet and verified.

 

[Polocowboy]

I have had great success with the 165 gr Fed Fusion. Not unusual to get 5 shot .5moa groups. The most accurate factory ammo that my 300WSM Browning A bolt likes is Win 150gr Ballistic Silvertip. Always under .5 MOA 5 shot groups.

I should add. The Win Silvertips are not as consistent from batch to batch as the Fusion.