Hunting with the Lapua Scenar bullet (muzzle velocity above 3000fps)

[RockyMtnMT]

Awesome! Pass through at that distance means it maintained its weight and a single structure. Awesome vital damage too... Was the kill quick? With vital damage like that it must have been a violent stop.

I have notice on many occasions that the inclination to fragment is not necessarily due to bone impact. I have had shots pass through between the ribs with PMP ammo here (similar to Hornday Interlocks in toughness and structure) and they have broken apart and deconstructed.

I have also seen quite a few failures on monolythics in respect of expansion... You can't afford narrow wound channels on titans like gemsbuck, eland, kudu and bluewildebeest (even the zebra is a machine with a sub-optimal wound channel).

I shot a zebra stallion a few years ago at around 230 yards in Ograbies (Kalahari) with a 300 Winchester Magnum and the monolythic bullet of choice entered on the shoulder, glanced off of the shoulder bone, turned to run along the ribcage (after nicking a lung and sending bone fragments into the chest cavity) toward the rear-end, exited from the back rib (tearing a massive hole in the rumen causing stomach contents to fall from the side) re-entered at the hip and exited out of the rear-end with a massive jagged wound...

Sub-optimal penetration is also an issue at longer distances on larger game (and bullet fragmentation), which is what I fear when using match-style bullets (even in heavier weights)... The shotgun effect may be problematic when hitting a rib squarely from 400-500 yards as the reduction in energy may cause these tiny bullet fragments to cause sub-optimal wounding to the vital organs and lower velocity may reduce the wounding and hydrostatic shock to have very little effect.

I personally choose the Hornady Interbond and Sierra Gameking as my bullets of choice and have taken over 30 heads of game with both bullets (mostly Gameking).

The rest of the game that I have hunted have been with PMP ProAmm or standard factory ammo.

I think this may have been due to not enough stability for the mono. The mono bullets are long for their weight or light for their length. How ever you want to look at it. Either way they require more twist for good stability in terminal ballistics. If they are low on sg then they will tend to tumble and not stay on the intended path. Also may not open as they should if the point deflects at all.

This is why we have been so diligent about the required minimum twist for our bullets. Marginal stability will still shoot very accurately but cause problems in terminal performance. I thought that I understood stability until we did low vel impact testing. Learned a lot. Fortunately we did our learning on test media. Hollow point bullets need hydraulics to make them open. This goes for tipped bullets as well. They are hollow point too, they just have a piece of plastic stuck in the hole. Sometimes the tip inserted into the hole can impede the expansion if the hydraulics can not get into the cavity.

Our North American game animals are not as hard to kill as yours, so our guys don't see the need for what you are talking about. Keep up the good conversation.

Steve

 

[FEENIX]

Was the kill quick? With vital damage like that it must have been a violent stop.

Aye Sir!

 

[M Rosslee]

Very interesting.

I have noted a few things and studied different bullet effects out of interest. Perhaps you will be able to shed light on a subject for me.

When you recover a jacket in amongst organs or soft tissue, is there a tendency for the lead core to have maintained shot direction whilst fragmenting or does it branch off unpredictably?

Secondly, when a bullet adopts a certain.angle of attack at muzzle exit, I understand that a certain twist.is necessary to overcome the tipping moment of the centre of pressure over the centre of gravity. Now, do I understand correctly that the further apart the COP and COG, the better the form of.the bullet and the higher the BC? I suppose different velocities and bullet lengths require different gyroscopic intensities/frequencies to stabilisie them.in flight. So length, velocity and twist effect stability more than mass?

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Very interesting.

I have noted a few things and studied different bullet effects out of interest. Perhaps you will be able to shed light on a subject for me.

When you recover a jacket in amongst organs or soft tissue, is there a tendency for the lead core to have maintained shot direction whilst fragmenting or does it branch off unpredictably?

Secondly, when a bullet adopts a certain.angle of attack at muzzle exit, I understand that a certain twist.is necessary to overcome the tipping moment of the centre of pressure over the centre of gravity. Now, do I understand correctly that the further apart the COP and COG, the better the form of.the bullet and the higher the BC? I suppose different velocities and bullet lengths require different gyroscopic intensities/frequencies to stabilisie them.in flight. So length, velocity and twist effect stability more than mass?

I would say that fragments tend to move out ward from the direction of bullet travel. What I have seen happen with the stability is like a top. As long as it is spinning fast enough it can over come the heaviness of the larger part wanting to pass the point or tip over. What we found is that when bullets were tested for impact at low velocity with reduced loads is the stability went down with as the velocity was reduced. We figured out what was going on when testing a .243 bullet at 1800fps muzzle velocity from a ten twist barrel. This slow vel reduced the stability factor down to about 1.3 sg, if I remember correctly. Technically enough stability for good accuracy. I knew this was happening to the stability before we started testing the various bullets, but did not think it would matter since we were shooting into media at about 10 yards. We were trying to find the velocity floor for the little bullet but could not get it any faster with the reduced load powder in the 243 win. We had a project barreled action sitting there waiting for a stock to come in that is chambered in 6-284 lapua. Little bigger case so we thought we could get a bit more velocity out of it. We loaded it with the first test load and it ran the same muzzle vel as the 243 1800 fps. So we went to dig it out of the media before we loaded another a bit hotter. Low and behold the bullet functioned perfectly at the same vel as before. Only difference was the second rifle had a 7" twist so the low vel sg was still very high well above 1.5 sg. That is when is dawned on us that the faster spinning bullet could maintain orientation on impact and keep the intended path point forward and allow the hollow point design to do as intended.

I am not sure if I can answer the COP vs COG question with good intelligence. I can say that the secant ogive with tend to give better bc than the tangent ogive but be more difficult to tune. This may be due to the amount of twist with the ogive type, but I can not say that for sure. We have and will probably stay with the tangent ogive design that we have for the fact that it has been so easy to tune. I will take accuracy over bc all day.

I am sure that you have seen bullets recovered that the nose is a bit bent like a banana. This from the lack of stability and as the base of the bullet overcomes the point in orientation the weakness of the thinner tip will bend. This is what can cause a bullet to head in a different direction than original. Often tumbling bullets will stay on the correct path and do heavy damage appearing to be great bullet performance. Only if you recover that bullet can you tell if it opened properly or tumbled though and out of the animal.

The best explanation I can give with my limited science back ground. I learn all my stuff by doing it wrong.

Steve

 

[WildRose]

Our warthog bores don't have "shields" as per say but are one of the toughest species to hunt in our country.

They are incredibly stocky, muscular beasts with a tough frame that absorbs energy as a wild bore would (transferring it through the frame into the ground).

Their bone structure is also tough and I have seen warthog bores take hits with 300gr SP's out of 375 H and H's and go crashing through the bush after a vital (heart/lung) shot only to expire near to 100 yards away. Incredible stuff.

They are very much like our BWB, with a strange will to cling to life... Unlike the softer giant eland who, when hit in the box, expires quite swiftly.

If and when you meet Francois he would tell you that the warthogs cause my brain to melt down. I had a couple of opportunities on very large boars but just couldn't get it together and get the job done.

I was very fortunate though in that the sow I shot was really magnificent. We caught just a momentary glimpse of an absolutely huge boar with the kind of tusks that are a trophy hunter's dream but I needed another five or ten seconds to get on him than I had before he disappeared forever into the bush.

We hunted 21 of 25 days and it just wore me out. Next trip though we won't be trying to jam a lifetime of hunting into just one trip and hopefully the slower pace will do the trick.

I definitely understand why wildebeest are termed "The Poor Man's Buffalo".

Both the Blue and the Black would have been happy to eat my lunch. The black never could figure out where I was shooting from and both shots were fired from the same position. The first shot was perfect through both shoulders splitting the heart and lungs and yet it just seemed to make him mad. He started spinning and circling looking for me and fortunately the follow up put him down hard.

The Blue went down three different times over the course of the near half mile he traveled and he still had enough left to try and get up to come straight at me. The follow up was a head shot that put him back down pretty hard.

I was however using the Swift Sirocco and it didn't penetrate well enough to brain him and he came back to life while we were trying to get him quickly posed for pictures.

At that point Francois and I both decided I was through shooting the Siroccos because It also failed to penetrate on the first shot on the warthog.

I love the accuracy of the bullet but can't tolerate that kind of terminal performance. I don't know if I'm just unlucky or what because most people seem to really like them and only a couple of guys I've come across had the same problems with over expansion and under penetration with the bullet taking very odd terms instead of tracking true.

 

[WildRose]

Very interesting.

I have noted a few things and studied different bullet effects out of interest. Perhaps you will be able to shed light on a subject for me.

When you recover a jacket in amongst organs or soft tissue, is there a tendency for the lead core to have maintained shot direction whilst fragmenting or does it branch off unpredictably?

Secondly, when a bullet adopts a certain.angle of attack at muzzle exit, I understand that a certain twist.is necessary to overcome the tipping moment of the centre of pressure over the centre of gravity. Now, do I understand correctly that the further apart the COP and COG, the better the form of.the bullet and the higher the BC? I suppose different velocities and bullet lengths require different gyroscopic intensities/frequencies to stabilisie them.in flight. So length, velocity and twist effect stability more than mass?

There are several things that contribute to the BC of a bullet with sectional density being one along with the drag coefficient, velocity and RPM's.

The RPM's are dependent on two things, the rate of twist and the muzzle velocity.

The spin is necessary to prevent both wobbling/yaw and tumbling/flipping end over end.

There are some fairly complicated formulas for calculating the ballistic coefficient and there are different BC's as well. We generally talk in terms of the G1 and G7 BC's here.

Also, the calculated BC will be different than true BC because as a bullet slows down the BC goes down. The calculated BC is basically an estimation.

Here's one pretty good article on it.

http://www.exteriorballistics.com/ebexplained/articles/the_ballistic_coefficient.pdf

 

[M Rosslee]

A few annoying consumer suggestions in respect of monolythics after a lot of shooting of my own would be research around:

1. Better form with lower drag and better BC (longer nose/point from ogive to tip of bullet and higher angle in boat tail) with a reduced bearing surface (there is surely no reason for a turned/CNC'd bullet to have a different construction to the match-style bullets) ;

2. Dual-metal bullets - with a heavy, hard-turned base with the bullet house's style and a softer metal nose/tip for reliable but robust expansion and folding around the turned base (steady expansion will assist in maintaining course during travel through soft tissue and organs);

3. Higher sectional densities (heavy for caliber bullets) rather than the lighter stuff which tends to deflect change course of travel easily due to standard rifle twist ratios being unmatched for that bullet performance and the majority of hunters using standard factory rifles.

Have there been dual-metal experiments? And would Hammer ever consider advancing the idea?

 

[M Rosslee]

A few annoying consumer suggestions in respect of monolythics after a lot of shooting of my own would be research around:

1. Better form with lower drag and better BC (longer nose/point from ogive to tip of bullet and higher angle in boat tail) with a reduced bearing surface (there is surely no reason for a turned/CNC'd bullet to have a different construction to the match-style bullets) ;

2. Dual-metal bullets - with a heavy, hard-turned base with the bullet house's style and a softer metal nose/tip for reliable but robust expansion and folding around the turned base (steady expansion will assist in maintaining course during travel through soft tissue and organs);

3. Higher sectional densities (heavy for caliber bullets) rather than the lighter stuff which tends to deflect change course of travel easily due to standard rifle twist ratios being unmatched for that bullet performance and the majority of hunters using standard factory rifles.

Have there been dual-metal experiments? And would Hammer ever consider advancing the idea?

 

[M Rosslee]

If and when you meet Francois he would tell you that the warthogs cause my brain to melt down. I had a couple of opportunities on very large boars but just couldn't get it together and get the job done.

I was very fortunate though in that the sow I shot was really magnificent. We caught just a momentary glimpse of an absolutely huge boar with the kind of tusks that are a trophy hunter's dream but I needed another five or ten seconds to get on him than I had before he disappeared forever into the bush.

We hunted 21 of 25 days and it just wore me out. Next trip though we won't be trying to jam a lifetime of hunting into just one trip and hopefully the slower pace will do the trick.

I definitely understand why wildebeest are termed "The Poor Man's Buffalo".

Both the Blue and the Black would have been happy to eat my lunch. The black never could figure out where I was shooting from and both shots were fired from the same position. The first shot was perfect through both shoulders splitting the heart and lungs and yet it just seemed to make him mad. He started spinning and circling looking for me and fortunately the follow up put him down hard.

The Blue went down three different times over the course of the near half mile he traveled and he still had enough left to try and get up to come straight at me. The follow up was a head shot that put him back down pretty hard.

I was however using the Swift Sirocco and it didn't penetrate well enough to brain him and he came back to life while we were trying to get him quickly posed for pictures.

At that point Francois and I both decided I was through shooting the Siroccos because It also failed to penetrate on the first shot on the warthog.

I love the accuracy of the bullet but can't tolerate that kind of terminal performance. I don't know if I'm just unlucky or what because most people seem to really like them and only a couple of guys I've come across had the same problems with over expansion and under penetration with the bullet taking very odd terms instead of tracking true.

I think a lot of the time in the field we are just unlucky with ballistic outcomes. Even the best bullet may have a defect, and even the best rifle house may make a production mistake.

I'm pleased that your recovered both black and blue. And congratulations on harvesting two fantastic species. It's tough hunting, but makes for a tremendous picture, doesn't it?

I have started writing to bullet houses. Despite the answers, the guys want feedback (as annoying as consumer opinions may be). Also write to them about the successes and good performance. Make suggestions. That's my stance. We're all passionate and it can only advance the field and knowledge.

I have made a logbook recording bullet performance on different species and shot placement. Mostly American bullets. And most bullets perform well the majority of the time.

 

[M Rosslee]

There are several things that contribute to the BC of a bullet with sectional density being one along with the drag coefficient, velocity and RPM's.

The RPM's are dependent on two things, the rate of twist and the muzzle velocity.

The spin is necessary to prevent both wobbling/yaw and tumbling/flipping end over end.

There are some fairly complicated formulas for calculating the ballistic coefficient and there are different BC's as well. We generally talk in terms of the G1 and G7 BC's here.

Also, the calculated BC will be different than true BC because as a bullet slows down the BC goes down. The calculated BC is basically an estimation.

Here's one pretty good article on it.

http://www.exteriorballistics.com/ebexplained/articles/the_ballistic_coefficient.pdf

Mister Litz knows his story... I've read all the Applied Ballistics books and manuals. The guy is very diligent about his science and testing, which I enjoy. If you go onto Applied Ballistics, read a very interesting bullet regarding flight stabilization on "Epicyclic Swerve". Very interesting!

Thanks for the material suggestion.

 

[M Rosslee]

I think this may have been due to not enough stability for the mono. The mono bullets are long for their weight or light for their length. How ever you want to look at it. Either way they require more twist for good stability in terminal ballistics. If they are low on sg then they will tend to tumble and not stay on the intended path. Also may not open as they should if the point deflects at all.

This is why we have been so diligent about the required minimum twist for our bullets. Marginal stability will still shoot very accurately but cause problems in terminal performance. I thought that I understood stability until we did low vel impact testing. Learned a lot. Fortunately we did our learning on test media. Hollow point bullets need hydraulics to make them open. This goes for tipped bullets as well. They are hollow point too, they just have a piece of plastic stuck in the hole. Sometimes the tip inserted into the hole can impede the expansion if the hydraulics can not get into the cavity.

Our North American game animals are not as hard to kill as yours, so our guys don't see the need for what you are talking about. Keep up the good conversation.

Steve

With all the negative comments I must add that I did recover the animal (see zebra below). That's actually what it's all about.

I shot this gemsbuck in the chest (many years ago) with a monolythic projectile with a 7mm Remingtion Magnum (175gr bullet) at around 2700fps. The impact was at about 200m.

The notable exit wound was after the bullet shattered the opposite side's shoulder and turned to exit on the left. The carcass was an absolute mess with copper and bone fragmentation all over the place.

What I'm trying to say is, is us bullet consumers will bitch and moan about everything and then the bullet house will compromise and we'll moan about that too...

The crisp point is that that trophy bull went down RIGHT THERE and I can only be thankful for that. The bullets job was to kill its target animal, and that primary objective was achieved. All the satellite factors can only carry that much weight.

 

[M Rosslee]

If and when you meet Francois he would tell you that the warthogs cause my brain to melt down. I had a couple of opportunities on very large boars but just couldn't get it together and get the job done.

I was very fortunate though in that the sow I shot was really magnificent. We caught just a momentary glimpse of an absolutely huge boar with the kind of tusks that are a trophy hunter's dream but I needed another five or ten seconds to get on him than I had before he disappeared forever into the bush.

We hunted 21 of 25 days and it just wore me out. Next trip though we won't be trying to jam a lifetime of hunting into just one trip and hopefully the slower pace will do the trick.

I definitely understand why wildebeest are termed "The Poor Man's Buffalo".

Both the Blue and the Black would have been happy to eat my lunch. The black never could figure out where I was shooting from and both shots were fired from the same position. The first shot was perfect through both shoulders splitting the heart and lungs and yet it just seemed to make him mad. He started spinning and circling looking for me and fortunately the follow up put him down hard.

The Blue went down three different times over the course of the near half mile he traveled and he still had enough left to try and get up to come straight at me. The follow up was a head shot that put him back down pretty hard.

I was however using the Swift Sirocco and it didn't penetrate well enough to brain him and he came back to life while we were trying to get him quickly posed for pictures.

At that point Francois and I both decided I was through shooting the Siroccos because It also failed to penetrate on the first shot on the warthog.

I love the accuracy of the bullet but can't tolerate that kind of terminal performance. I don't know if I'm just unlucky or what because most people seem to really like them and only a couple of guys I've come across had the same problems with over expansion and under penetration with the bullet taking very odd terms instead of tracking true.

The bores in Namibia are MASSIVE. You should set your sights on a Safari there too sometime.

Unfortunately old photo's - but take a look at the structure of some of the larger beasts here - to give you an idea of why we rant about bullet performance.

 

[WildRose]

Mister Litz knows his story... I've read all the Applied Ballistics books and manuals. The guy is very diligent about his science and testing, which I enjoy. If you go onto Applied Ballistics, read a very interesting bullet regarding flight stabilization on "Epicyclic Swerve". Very interesting!

Thanks for the material suggestion.

Without question he's one of the very best in the industry. He drops in here to see us occasionally and help out.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

A few annoying consumer suggestions in respect of monolythics after a lot of shooting of my own would be research around:

1. Better form with lower drag and better BC (longer nose/point from ogive to tip of bullet and higher angle in boat tail) with a reduced bearing surface (there is surely no reason for a turned/CNC'd bullet to have a different construction to the match-style bullets) ;

2. Dual-metal bullets - with a heavy, hard-turned base with the bullet house's style and a softer metal nose/tip for reliable but robust expansion and folding around the turned base (steady expansion will assist in maintaining course during travel through soft tissue and organs);

3. Higher sectional densities (heavy for caliber bullets) rather than the lighter stuff which tends to deflect change course of travel easily due to standard rifle twist ratios being unmatched for that bullet performance and the majority of hunters using standard factory rifles.

Have there been dual-metal experiments? And would Hammer ever consider advancing the idea?

I can only answer for us. Here goes.

1. I think the fact that the cnc kind of allows the ability to make what ever you can dream up perhaps makes some get too creative? I think some mono manufactures try to compensate for the fact that copper is less dense than lead by tying to make the bullet more sleek in order to get the higher bc. BC is a function of weight and form. The weight is a very big part of the bc equation and just can't be overcome. In my opinion. We have designed our bullets only with a tangent ogive. This is the more traditional ogive. It is easier to shoot but not as good for bc. We have intentionally made our bullets a little heavier in form rather than sleeker. With a little more forward weight. We have one goal....accuracy and terminal performance. Let the bc fall were it may.

2. Dual metal....interesting thought. I will not rule anything out. The only other metal that I have ever considered would be tungsten. It is heavy so it would help with bc. There are companies using plastic or other material tips inserted into larger hollow pt. holes. I don't like the idea of plugging the hole that needs hydraulics for expansion. With a lead core bullet the lead kind of acts like the hydraulic material because it is so soft. The other thing that comes to mind here is that any time you add another process to manufacturing it makes the cost of the product increase.

3. Because of the lower density of copper compared to lead there really is no choice for the bullet to be lighter for the same size. Only two ways to make them heavier. Add mass to the nose or make them longer. Stability is the concern here. Stability is a function of weight, length, and twist. A heavier bullet of the exact same form needs less twist to be stable. So for a mono to stabilize in standard twist rifles it has to be lighter. This increases muzzle vel. We design our bullets to keep more % of original weight than most bullets, so after impact and deformation they are then bigger than the conventional bullet as they continue through the animal.

One other thing. Sectional density has very little to do with form. The formula for sectional density is the same for all bullets. Weight in grains divided by 7000 divided by caliber divided by caliber.

Steve