Hammer Hunters

[BigDon]

I am listening. What I hear is "they're magic, wind doesn't affect them", (don't worry about BC), concentrate on impact velocity...
I'm listening, but the answer doesn't add up. Physics matters. If velocity was all that mattered I would go load up some 60 grain pills in my 257 wby and hunt coastal bears.
My question is:
1. Do they need jump or not?
I'm not trying to bicker with you ButterBean, but BC is directly related to wind drift. 260 grain bullets are not light for caliber so they won't be traveling at 4k fps. All of the things I'm wasting my time worrying about really do matter. So pardon me if I discount a reply like "load light and drive them hard"

D
I don't think anyone has ever said Hammers are wind resistant. You are misinterpreting the discussion on effective BC. + they are light - not heavy - for caliber. What the BC taketh the high velocity gives back.

Sectional Density is another matter, referring to your 60 grainers for bears. Speed and their unique construction are game changers - they penetrate. They really have changed the rule book. They have their own chapter now.

 

[QuietTexan]

BC affects the velocity l, how fast you loose that velocity,

I think you have your causation backwards here. BC is a derived value, it doesn't have a deterministic effect on anything. It describes what happens, but that description is dependent on a series of inputs.

I'm reading Bean saying that the inputs to derive BC are more important than the resultant figure, that what a manufacturer puts on paper doesn't matter a hoot for making comparisons (I agree), and that energy is a factor of the inputs (bullet weight and speed). Speed is even more impactful than mass because energy increases at the square of velocity.

You have to actually shoot a bullet and measure the drops to determine actual BC, racing paper over BCs is useless exercise because of the number of variables. Energy is a byproduct of cartridge selection and speed - and it doesn't kill. Wound channels, destroying tissue, and exsanguination kill. More energy might make up for a bullets poor performance or placement in an animal, but more energy by itself doesn't do anything. You even admitted that, you qualified energy with shot placement and bullet performance.

So (pick the right chambering, since apparently that needed to be said), load it fast, and shoot it. Don't bring paper arguments of static BC comparisons to the table, bring results. Dead animals are results.

I've shot animals with a 30-06 and what amounts to a frangible cup-and-core bullet (SSTs) that killed very poorly compared to traditional lead-tipped bullet of the same weight out of a 30-30. The extra energy of the 30-06 did absolutely nothing. The higher BC of the SST bullet did absolutely nothing. Because the SST wasn't matched to what it was doing. So now instead of using the SST I'm changing to the AH because I want to hunt with a particular rifle that's chambered in 30-06, even though a 30-30 would work fine. The BC of the AH is largely irrelevant (other than as an input for getting my calc to match drops) because even if the SST is better on paper, the AH can't be any worse in the real world than what an SST did to an animal.

At the end of the day we're all saying basically the same thing - some guys are focusing on inputs to predict possible results, and some of us are looking at actual results.

 

[Bullmark]

I don't know exactly what your getting at here

I think what the "BC" watchers are missing is that you are not totally ignoring the Hammer's BC, you are still referencing it to give you the needed drop and drift. However, you are not making your bullet selection based so heavily on the bullet's BC.
No one has ever implied that they are "magic" and basic physics is irrelevant. But you do need to move away from the "traditional" way of categorizing lighter bullets equating to lighter terminal performance......and stop thinking of heavy bullets as the only choice for larger animals.
I have yet to try the Hammers, but I hope to bribe someone into loading me some for a new build....which is a .300wsm. Ordinarily I wouldn't look to any bullet lighter than 175gr, and would likely shoot 180-200s......because of my traditional thinking.
But, I've seen enough to give the Hammers a try and load up some in the 130-140gr range. I don't know what everyone else is having luck with, so I'll reach out and ask specifically about a .300wsm.
Ultimately it does appear that it is all about the speed.....at least to a novice like myself. If the speed (and accuracy must be acceptable) is enough, it can more than cover for a lower BC.

 

[bsnyder]

Bea

I think what the "BC" watchers are missing is that you are not totally ignoring the Hammer's BC, you are still referencing it to give you the needed drop and drift. However, you are not making your bullet selection based so heavily on the bullet's BC.
No one has ever implied that they are "magic" and basic physics is irrelevant. But you do need to move away from the "traditional" way of categorizing lighter bullets equating to lighter terminal performance......and stop thinking of heavy bullets as the only choice for larger animals.
I have yet to try the Hammers, but I hope to bribe someone into loading me some for a new build....which is a .300wsm. Ordinarily I wouldn't look to any bullet lighter than 175gr, and would likely shoot 180-200s......because of my traditional thinking.
But, I've seen enough to give the Hammers a try and load up some in the 130-140gr range. I don't know what everyone else is having luck with, so I'll reach out and ask specifically about a .300wsm.
Ultimately it does appear that it is all about the speed.....at least to a novice like myself. If the speed (and accuracy must be acceptable) is enough, it can more than cover for a lower BC.

Bean runs the 124's, I ran the 166's, I know a few guys are running the ah's now. I sold my 300 wsm. But the 166's were fun.

 

[StanleyActual]

well it's pretty obvious I misunderstood @ButterBean and the loint he was trying to make a my bad dude

were of the same mind I'm not suggesting rhe "BC" or the the "energy"!or any one things makes of breaks it . It's all relevant . The BC don't mean **** if all the other environmentalist, muzzle velocity etc etc is inputting incorrectly

I heard BC and energy don't matter I should e stoped and read into it a hit more..

 

[NorCalRiceGuy]

The actual BC is just a number given to that bullet based on how it will perform aerodynamically over distance.. now .if we're staying within a few lhindres yards and all we're concerned about it whether or not we can hit a 10" pie plate at 300 yards then yeah, who cares b it that's not what we're doing. Not only are we shootings in over extended distances,, but your trying. To kill an animal where he stands

so 1. That BC is giving you an idea as to whether or not you have the righ tool for the job.s which is why you grab that 180gn ELDM with the .780 BC as opposed to that 150gn core loc

2. It's information. It's information that you can input into your calculator with all the other information that allows you to predict what that bullets gonna do over distance in varying conditions and then compensate for it .

energy does matter. It's why there's limitations on your velocity and bullet weight / caliber when shootinnsomeone ls steel. Too much energy fucke **** up. On the flip side .if you don't have enough energy to knock over that sreel ram at 300!yards, what makes you think you're gonna be able to knock that 900 lbs elk at 1000? Your bullet (BC)'is helping you to see what your systems limitations are..Now range time , shooting steel youlre not really worried about not hitting it hard enough, so who gives a ****. Buit when you're trying to put an animal down where he stands, yeah, the energy the bullet is imparting on that animal, coupled with the terminal performance of rhat Bullet and your shot Place has a direct affect on whether that animal drops where he stands, or runs off .

so it all mattersz. you may chose to acknowledge it or not., bur that's irrelevant.

Not to be a "school marm" here, but could you please review your posts before you send them? Your typos make for very difficult reading and understanding. We would all like to know what you're expressly trying to get at but having to interpret or extrapolate between the misspellings and run-on sentences is confusing, at least it is to my 68 year old brain. Thanks in advance. Unlike Hammer bullets, sometimes slower is better when it comes to posting remarks.

 

[ButterBean]

I think you have your causation backwards here. BC is a derived value, it doesn't have a deterministic effect on anything. It describes what happens, but that description is dependent on a series of inputs.

I'm reading Bean saying that the inputs to derive BC are more important than the resultant figure, that what a manufacturer puts on paper doesn't matter a hoot for making comparisons (I agree), and that energy is a factor of the inputs (bullet weight and speed). Speed is even more impactful than mass because energy increases at the square of velocity.

You have to actually shoot a bullet and measure the drops to determine actual BC, racing paper over BCs is useless exercise because of the number of variables. Energy is a byproduct of cartridge selection and speed - and it doesn't kill. Wound channels, destroying tissue, and exsanguination kill. More energy might make up for a bullets poor performance or placement in an animal, but more energy by itself doesn't do anything. You even admitted that, you qualified energy with shot placement and bullet performance.

So (pick the right chambering, since apparently that needed to be said), load it fast, and shoot it. Don't bring paper arguments of static BC comparisons to the table, bring results. Dead animals are results.

I've shot animals with a 30-06 and what amounts to a frangible cup-and-core bullet (SSTs) that killed very poorly compared to traditional lead-tipped bullet of the same weight out of a 30-30. The extra energy of the 30-06 did absolutely nothing. The higher BC of the SST bullet did absolutely nothing. Because the SST wasn't matched to what it was doing. So now instead of using the SST I'm changing to the AH because I want to hunt with a particular rifle that's chambered in 30-06, even though a 30-30 would work fine. The BC of the AH is largely irrelevant (other than as an input for getting my calc to match drops) because even if the SST is better on paper, the AH can't be any worse in the real world than what an SST did to an animal.

At the end of the day we're all saying basically the same thing - some guys are focusing on inputs to predict possible results, and some of us are looking at actual results.

Thank you, That's exactly my point, BC is not a static number

 

[NorCalRiceGuy]

I think you have your causation backwards here. BC is a derived value, it doesn't have a deterministic effect on anything. It describes what happens, but that description is dependent on a series of inputs.

I'm reading Bean saying that the inputs to derive BC are more important than the resultant figure, that what a manufacturer puts on paper doesn't matter a hoot for making comparisons (I agree), and that energy is a factor of the inputs (bullet weight and speed). Speed is even more impactful than mass because energy increases at the square of velocity.

You have to actually shoot a bullet and measure the drops to determine actual BC, racing paper over BCs is useless exercise because of the number of variables. Energy is a byproduct of cartridge selection and speed - and it doesn't kill. Wound channels, destroying tissue, and exsanguination kill. More energy might make up for a bullets poor performance or placement in an animal, but more energy by itself doesn't do anything. You even admitted that, you qualified energy with shot placement and bullet performance.

So (pick the right chambering, since apparently that needed to be said), load it fast, and shoot it. Don't bring paper arguments of static BC comparisons to the table, bring results. Dead animals are results.

I've shot animals with a 30-06 and what amounts to a frangible cup-and-core bullet (SSTs) that killed very poorly compared to traditional lead-tipped bullet of the same weight out of a 30-30. The extra energy of the 30-06 did absolutely nothing. The higher BC of the SST bullet did absolutely nothing. Because the SST wasn't matched to what it was doing. So now instead of using the SST I'm changing to the AH because I want to hunt with a particular rifle that's chambered in 30-06, even though a 30-30 would work fine. The BC of the AH is largely irrelevant (other than as an input for getting my calc to match drops) because even if the SST is better on paper, the AH can't be any worse in the real world than what an SST did to an animal.

At the end of the day we're all saying basically the same thing - some guys are focusing on inputs to predict possible results, and some of us are looking at actual results.

Well put! My admittedly limited real world on animal experience with Absolute Hammers is that it hammers them right there. Done. Dead. Neither my elk or my muley buck took a step after I pulled the trigger. Needless to say, I'm sold on Hammer Bullets. Period.

 

[T3ninja]

They have a minimum expansion velocity of 1800 FPS. It nears that minimum velocity near 500 yards sometimes. Mine reach 850 yards before they drop below that threshold. Some people also like to put limitations on things they haven't yet proven for themselves also. Nothing to do with the bullet or performance. They also lose ft lbs of energy fast because of their lower BC. But that isn't the holy grail of data anyways. I would just run your ballistics through a calculator and see where they drop to 1800 FPS, and never plan to shoot game further than that.

Here's a small test I did myself using 5lb gummy bears from amazon. It's a VERY small sample of 1. But here is the info and result...

using a 196 hammer hunter, I loaded it in my .300 BLK and the impact velocity on the gummy bears was 1550FPS.. quite a bit less than the "1800fps" that most use as a guideline, or are comfortable with etc.

I'm not arguing this number, saying it's wrong/right. I don't care I'm indifferent. This is just what I did in my own personal "expansion" test.

This bullet fully expanded, and shed 2 "petals" all while penetrating into the 5th gummy bear.
The other bullet in the picture was fired from my .300 WM at over 3200 FPS. It penetrated into the 8th gummy. Shed all petals.

 

[nealm66]

Something I noticed, I initially went with a 160 gr bullet in my brothers light tikka 300wsm to lower the recoil which worked really good with the lead tipped spears but then a friend told me they destroyed a lot of meat so I was really excited about the hammers and then got caught up in the velocity chase. Well, lol, dam.. Also, that sweet little 25-06 is a whole different animal now . So there is a trade off, not necessarily bad and definitely not necessary but hard ( impossible?) to resist the potential.

 

[ButterBean]

Here's a small test I did myself using 5lb gummy bears from amazon. It's a VERY small sample of 1. But here is the info and result...

using a 196 hammer hunter, I loaded it in my .300 BLK and the impact velocity on the gummy bears was 1550FPS.. quite a bit less than the "1800fps" that most use as a guideline, or are comfortable with etc.

I'm not arguing this number, saying it's wrong/right. I don't care I'm indifferent. This is just what I did in my own personal "expansion" test.

This bullet fully expanded, and shed 2 "petals" all while penetrating into the 5th gummy bear.
The other bullet in the picture was fired from my .300 WM at over 3200 FPS. It penetrated into the 8th gummy. Shed all petals.

View attachment 284275View attachment 284276View attachment 284277

Yep, that's too slow, It should have shed all the petals

 

[dogz]

Here's a small test I did myself using 5lb gummy bears from amazon. It's a VERY small sample of 1. But here is the info and result...

using a 196 hammer hunter, I loaded it in my .300 BLK and the impact velocity on the gummy bears was 1550FPS.. quite a bit less than the "1800fps" that most use as a guideline, or are comfortable with etc.

I'm not arguing this number, saying it's wrong/right. I don't care I'm indifferent. This is just what I did in my own personal "expansion" test.

This bullet fully expanded, and shed 2 "petals" all while penetrating into the 5th gummy bear.
The other bullet in the picture was fired from my .300 WM at over 3200 FPS. It penetrated into the 8th gummy. Shed all petals.

View attachment 284275View attachment 284276View attachment 284277

Looks like Barnes TTSX's eh

 

[T3ninja]

Looks like Barnes TTSX's eh

Maybe, I've never messed with Barnes much. Never could get them to shoot good. Back when I was tinkering with them I didn't have the money or the patience to continue with them.

 

[StanleyActual]

Maybe, I've never messed with Barnes much. Never could get them to shoot good. Back when I was tinkering with them I didn't have the money or the patience to continue with them.

Looks like one . The only one I could ever get to shoot was their .30 cal 168 gn Mail ch TSX. easily held .5 MOA or better within 500 or so. . Never pushed them past that though.