Hammer Hunters?

[Korhil78]

In my humble opinion, part of what happens here is reflective of human nature. The negative bias against (overt or subtle) something contributes to suspicion of any negative feedback about said product and perceived as active attempts to undermine it. Negative bias produces a self-fulfilling outcome while those engaged in the negative interest sit back and mock the "supporters" who come to defend. Let's not do this. It undermines objective truth-gathering. It happens on here.

I had to read that three times lol.

 

[Northkill]

Love it. Time to break out the gifs

 

[birddog 68]

Question for everyone ….. How many times are you going to continue to use a bullet after you have been disappointed with its performance?
I keep reading about hunters having poor performance with A bullet numerous times. If I am confident that I had good shot placement and the bullet didn't perform as expected, I am changing bullets.

 

[CRP003]

Question for everyone ….. How many times are you going to continue to use a bullet after you have been disappointed with its performance?
I keep reading about hunters having poor performance with A bullet numerous times. If I am confident that I had good shot placement and the bullet didn't perform as expected, I am changing bullets.

3x. I have to be able to produce a pattern. Too many variables.

 

[bigngreen]

Spinning them faster, whether they realize it or not, helps the petals peel back better/faster due to the increase in centrifugal force, even after impact. It's not all about stability after impact.

If the petals don't separate or separate evenly, tumbling is highly likely to occur, and if they don't separate or separate evenly, that's not really due to lack of stability, unless they impacted already at an angle from being unstable in flight.

That seems contradictory the way I read that, "it's not about stability after impact" "if the petals don't separate or separate evenly, tumbling is highly to occure".

Do you not view tumbling as instability?

The two are definitely linked in my mind.
When testing early CEBs I had to work with twist rates to get them to not tumble in the animal or porpous, CEB did not like that info, I was always shooting to far or tip damage, different excuse everytime.

 

[Korhil78]

Question for everyone ….. How many times are you going to continue to use a bullet after you have been disappointed with its performance?
I keep reading about hunters having poor performance with A bullet numerous times. If I am confident that I had good shot placement and the bullet didn't perform as expected, I am changing bullets.

I think this goes way back. New bullet maker comes out, people try it, some love it, some don't. People post about their dislikes, owner comes in and is abrasive towards the people who don't like them. People who love them defend it (maybe obnoxiously so). People who don't like them get mad about that (maybe understandably so). Now it's full on hate mode no matter what lol.

 

[Northkill]

Question for everyone ….. How many times are you going to continue to use a bullet after you have been disappointed with its performance?
I keep reading about hunters having poor performance with A bullet numerous times. If I am confident that I had good shot placement and the bullet didn't perform as expected, I am changing bullets.

Same here for the most part. Sometimes I just don't know for sure what exactly happened and give them more chances to perform and to observe. My hyper-velocity testing sometimes results in inexplicable outcomes that are difficult to duplicate. I refrain from making absolute conclusions or statements about a projectile, but will pass relevant information back to the manufacturer for their interest. Some of that data finds it's way onto their web pages in terms of stated parameters. I do the quiet work, and hopefully productive. Manufacturers will respond better to input from those who they know have their interests in mind and not simply out to exploit for whatever personal interests.

 

[Left Hand Dave]

I shoot the 180 GR HH out of my 300 WM and have never had an issue. In the last year I have been to Africa and taken a Kudu, Golden Wildebeest, Nyala, Sable, Eland and a Bush Buck. 5 of the 6 were one shot one kill. (Eland took 2 shots). I have been to Texas and shot a large Aoudad ram. Again it was a one shot one kill. In Utah I shot 2 cow elk. Again one shot one kill.
In my opinion Hammer bullets work exceptionally well.
On the flip side I used to use Nosler bullets out of my 30.06 - I lost a deer and an elk one season.
My personal experience with Nosler is not favorable which is what lead me to change to Hammer.

Drjones65,
We're the HH bullets purchased in the last year and can you tell if they have the oil on them or if they have been cleaned? I have used HHS in the past with excellent results so asking for some comparison not bashing or anything.

 

[Northkill]

I think this goes way back. New bullet maker comes out, people try it, some love it, some don't. People post about their dislikes, owner comes in and is abrasive towards the people who don't like them. People who love them defend it (maybe obnoxiously so). People who don't like them get mad about that (maybe understandably so). Now it's full on hate mode no matter what lol.

As a casual observer, neither interest has the high ground on this. Professionally speaking, the manufacturer took the bait too many times, but baiting isn't cool either.

 

[Petey308]

That seems contradictory the way I read that, "it's not about stability after impact" "if the petals don't separate or separate evenly, tumbling is highly to occure".

Do you not view tumbling as instability?

The two are definitely linked in my mind.
When testing early CEBs I had to work with twist rates to get them to not tumble in the animal or porpous, CEB did not like that info, I was always shooting to far or tip damage, different excuse everytime.

Think about what occurs if a bullet comes apart unevenly. It has fluids and tissues acting against it as it penetrates and moves forward through the animal. If the bullet comes apart unevenly, there will be an imbalance induced by that right away, and if there's an uneven amount of material hanging off on one side of the bullet, it will alter the path of the bullet as it gets pulled in a different direction from the opposing force.

Spinning faster creates more centrifugal force, and helps the petals open more evenly and shed more reliably. Once that occurs, it allows the remaining shank to also continue in a straight line of penetration.

If the bullet wasn't fully stable in flight, it'll impact at an angle and cause the bullet to not open evenly in most cases as well. This can occur even if it was stable in flight but the nose happens to hit bone at an angle and deforms the tip unevenly. Either occurrence typically results in the bullet not performing as designed at that point and it typically will just tumble at that point the rest of the way through the animal until it stops or exits.

Tumbling is definitely instability. What caused the tumbling isn't always from instability though, if that makes sense. Sometimes it is, like if it was unstable in flight, like I said.

 

[Petey308]

I think this goes way back. New bullet maker comes out, people try it, some love it, some don't. People post about their dislikes, owner comes in and is abrasive towards the people who don't like them. People who love them defend it (maybe obnoxiously so). People who don't like them get mad about that (maybe understandably so). Now it's full on hate mode no matter what lol.

This is called "para-social attachment" and I have a whole writeup on that as well in my hip pocket lol.

 

[WYO300RUM]

Ok. Thanks for your correction. The thread I was looking at they had problems was with the HHT line of bullets.
That bullet in the picture looks like the last Berger that I shot a deer with.
There's so many choices for bullets nowadays and everyone has a choice. If you have a bad experience, pick another.
As I said earlier, confidence is #1

You have the Berger Boys , The Hammer Heads, the Hornady .... 's , etc. I use them all and for different calibers . Nobody is forcing anybody to shoot anything.
How do we know how vital the 3 deer were hit. We've all done it and had to track. I lower my odds on having to by aiming mid shoulder most times. Done deal. I have a story on last year's whitetail buck I'll post in a bit.

 

[birddog 68]

You have the Berger Boys , The Hammer Heads, the Hornady .... 's , etc. I use them all and for different calibers . Nobody is forcing anybody to shoot anything.
How we know how vital the 3 deer were hit. We've all done it and had to track. I lower my odds on having to by aiming mid shoulder most times. Done deal. I have a story on last year's whitetail buck I'll post in a bit.

Yes sir. I use different bullets depending on cartridge velocity and average distance.
Shot placement is considered dependent on bullet also.
I don't know of a do it all bullet but I'm sure others do.

 

[bigngreen]

Think about what occurs if a bullet comes apart unevenly. It has fluids and tissues acting against it as it penetrates and moves forward through the animal. If the bullet comes apart unevenly, there will be an imbalance induced by that right away, and if there's an uneven amount of material hanging off on one side of the bullet, it will alter the path of the bullet as it gets pulled in a different direction from the opposing force.

Spinning faster creates more centrifugal force, and helps the petals open more evenly and shed more reliably. Once that occurs, it allows the remaining shank to also continue in a straight line of penetration.

If the bullet wasn't fully stable in flight, it'll impact at an angle and cause the bullet to not open evenly in most cases as well. This can occurred even if it was stable, but the nose hits bone at an angle and deforms the tip unevenly. Either occurrence typically results in the bullet not performing as designed at that point and it typically will just tumble at that point the rest of the way through the animal until it stops or exits.

Tumbling is definitely instability. What caused the tumbling isn't always from instability though, if that makes sense. Sometimes it is, like if it was unstable in flight, like I said.

Get that, I think we're in agreement just using definitions differently. I think of stability in two ways, ballistic and terminal, spinning definitely does work to keep the bullet facing forward in flight and in animal, if a petal hangs up the bullet needs enough mass and centrifical speed to over come the off center weight and drag from that petal or it goes instable and it can't hold on line.