I Hate Hammer Bullets!

[RockyMtnMT]

I thought I would add my 2cents worth to the Hammer discussion. I follow this forum often and was beginning to believe that the Hammer bullet company was sponsoring the Hammer love affair judging from the many accolades praising Hammer bullets. Maybe they are wonderful maybe not, I admit I haven't used them but have used Mono bullets quite a bit namely Barnes TTSX in Wisconsin and Africa on plains game if Hammers are like Barnes in my opinion, they work great if your rifle can push them fast, for me muzzle velocity under 2800fps is insufficient at long range push them at 3K or better plan on packing out meat. if the Hammers are as accurate in my rifles as Barnes I will be glad to shoot them but if the cost is not competitive, I see no need to switch with the cost of components today one must be frugal money wise.

Hammer bullets do not require higher or more velocity to perform well on game. We test our bullets down to 1800 fps impacts for full deformation.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Well one step at a time I guess. We are just starting into the process of creating a load data page on our website specific to Hammers. We will be taking on the chore of shooting our bullets through the Oehler bc calculation system that we purchased last year.

It would be really cool to have an app like what Hornady has for longer shots. It's probably my only complaint is not having them in a kestrel or some kind of a shortcut for longer distances. But I can imagine where something like that isn't che

 

[RockyMtnMT]

I scanned through the posts and did not find any complaints regarding load data. I know I can find information by searching through spreadsheets created by others suggestion, but it would be great if there was a manual that was compiled using vigorously tested parameters for Hammer bullets. I understand the issues and expense incurred in developing and maintaining an official manual, but it would be great to have this for reference.

Yes. We have just begun work on this.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

We'll, these hammer bullets better be the best thing since sliced bread because I'm having my Winchester 70, 25-06 rebarreled specifically to shoot the 116 grain, I tried them in the rifle with factory barrel, and they shots about a 4" group at a hundred, so we'll see.

Stay in touch. We will figure it out.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Hornady works for me.

If that is a reason for disliking Hammers I guess that is fine.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Ok. I'll bite. I have bought about 20 boxes in 6.5 and 30 cal of different weights. My experience is that these bullets are great short (0-300 yards) and intermediate (300-600 yards) range bullets, but not long range (600-1000+) bullets. Given this is a long range forum, that is one complaint. There are at least 2 reasons this bullet is not great for long range. First is that the BC is not high enough to achieve appropriate terminal velocity at long range. The second is related. That is that these bullets perform best with high impact velocity. I see it posted all the time that "speed kills" when referring to the HH.

Now for my personal experience. I consistently get 1 inch groups at 100 yards no matter what gun or load I use. Never better than 3/4" and seldom worse than 1.5". I try to tune with seating depth but as others am have stated, they are not sensitive to seating depth. Keep in mind that this can be good and bad. In my case bad because there is nowhere to go to tune the load. I tried different powder charges too. Minimal change in group size over a large range. It's like these bullets are built to shoot 1 inch groups no matter what.

I really wanted to use them in my 300 WSM but I live in Idaho and need to be able to shoot long range, and the bullets that are high enough BC are so long thst they sit way too deep in the case and consume all the powder capacity. The lighter shorter bullets have terrible BC.

I also shot in my 300 PRC. Less issue with longer bullets but still only getting about 1 MOA. Is that good enough? Out to 600 yards, yes. Beyond that, no.

I killed several game animals with the 6.5 bullet. Did it kill well, yes. But it makes more of a mess than I think a monolithic bullet should. Those petals shoot off and can go lateral 2 feet. That means we have had a broadside double lung shot that still punctures the stomach and intestines.

So in conclusion, my honest review is that these are excellent bullets for inside 600 yards as long as 1 MOA is good enough for you and you don't mind making a bit of a mess even on broadside lung shots.

Ther is your honest criticism. I really want to like them, and terminal performance is acceptable inside 600, but I am still looking for a long range bullet that I am not afraid to shoot an elk in the shoulder inside 100 yards should a quick close quartering towards shot in the timber present itself.

In the meantime I will continue to shoot my 180 grain scirocco out of my 300 WSM and the 245 Berger out of my 300 PRC.

I will probably let my kids keep shooting the HH out of the 6.5 creedmoor because they limit their shots to 300 yards and I worry they will hit the humerus or shoulder and I need max penetration out of that marginal caliber of my kid has a less than perfect hit.

This is fare.

We have loaded more rifles than I can easily count. There have been a few that simply would not shoot. Bad rifles. There have been a few that we could not get better than moa. As a general rule we are able to get solid dub moa out of the vast majority. We rarely shoot at 100y. We do our load development at 200y. We have seen barely acceptable accuracy at 100y that is very good at longer range. 200y seems to be long enough to tell if the rifle is liking the load or not. Often we will see rifles tighten up or settle down when pressure is on the higher end. If they have a tendency I would say in a lot of rifles they like to be pushed. Some rifles respond to changes in seating depth and some don't. As a rule we are more likely to change components before we tinker with seating.

As to speed. Hammers do not need extra or more speed to function properly on game. However they are capable of more speed than conventional bullets and don't have issues with high vel impacts or high velocity launches. Yes speed kills. If more velocity is available I personally am going to take it.

Usually we don't see the shed petals radiate very wide from the path of the bullet. They are odd shaped and can certainly have a mind of their own. We have seen a paunch rupture sometimes from the pressure of the impact even though there was no penetration of the diaphragm by the retained shank or the petals.

Yes a similar weight pure copper bullet is going to be 20% longer than a lead core bullet. I personally am a fan of the 300wsm as long as it is not built on a short action.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Steve, I bought a box of 50 163 gr I think last summer and the 3 rifles I tried them in did not shoot them very well, which surprised me quite a bit because they look excellent to me. Anyway, I think part of my problem, or most of it, is that I reload to hunt with and by doing so I have to push the bullet deep enough so it'll load out of the magazine box.
I ran out of bullets before I found something that worked but I was swapping out powders & primers because I could not experiment much with setting the depth. One gun was a Rem Model 7 in 300 WSM, yea really short, the other was a Mauser 98 in 300 WSM, and the last was a Rem Model 700 in 06. Two of the three I had a little more room for experimenting with the seating depth, but I was running low on bullets by this time, and hunting season was coming up fast. I was able to find some known bullets I used in the past for the 2 WSM and I loaded them for our hunt.
I had a Rem Model 700 in 458 Win Mag in the safe and I pulled the barrel and installed a factory 24" 1-10 300 WM barrel a few days ago so now I have a set-up that I can experiment a lot more on the seating depth and will give that a try. I'm hoping for < than 1" group at 400 yds. I'll let you know when I get more bullets and try them out.

Give me a call this week and let's see what we can figure out.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Due to the censoring on the site I read that as "f***ing match" I really hope that doesn't happen.


This is my only issue. I know they're expensive to make and I don't think Steve is trying to break anyone with the price but, man if they were less expensive I could afford to buy more. I have a few hundred Berger 195s for my 28N and only 50 of the 177HHs to test for it. I want to shoot the hammers but every time I stuff one in a case and then pull the trigger it's going to be $1.30 just for the bullet, the Bergers are 1/2 the price. Maybe the Bergers are an inferior product, idk, I haven't tested the differences enough.

I typed it with a "p" but it was corrected. Oops!

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Try and find a 7mm eldx from an online shop. They don't exist from any reputable company.
Or in my local gun stores that being 4 counties.

And while I am at it, the only thing I hate about Hammer bullets is that there aren't more target bullet offerings

A full line of Target Hammers is the front burner project going forward this year. For this we will push for bc. Particularly in our single feed bore rider design.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Y'all just load Hammers into Sherman something, then you can concentrate on solving world hunger.... lol

I guess this is a joke? Or you just don't like Sherman's or Hammers because others do and are vocal about it?

 

[WYOHTF]

A full line of Target Hammers is the front burner project going forward this year. For this we will push for bc. Particularly in our single feed bore rider design.

Maybe…. Just maybe…. Something in the 130ish to 155ish just one
You pic
I'll try it out on yotes

 

[nealm66]

Well one step at a time I guess. We are just starting into the process of creating a load data page on our website specific to Hammers. We will be taking on the chore of shooting our bullets through the Oehler bc calculation system that we purchased last year.

For me it's a double edge sword. On one hand it will be incredibly good for lazy people like myself. The flip side will be if you can keep up with demand. Ive got a friend on his way over with a custom 7mm so I can check the twist and rifling for hammers. It's definitely more time to get it to distance. He also wants to try in a bolt action 30-30 which I plan on giving you a call about. Luckily it will be short range

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Well this is an interesting turn of events, but not so sure how much is going to be learned from it. I personally have not shot any hammer bullets. In fact had never heard of them in any way shape or form until I started here. Have done some research on them and from what I can see they don't really perform any better than the quality mainstream bullets. It's hard to improve on 1/2 MOA groups using Federal, Sig Sauer, Sierra and Nosler especially at the inflated prices for the Hammers. Thus, I have nothing good to say, or bad to say except about the price. For those of you who love them, have at it. For those of you that hate them there has to be a reason why? For those of us who have never tried them out there is no reason to either love or hate them. In my case I have no reason to even try them out so will not squander my hard earned money to chase a rainbow that doesn't exist. That is all that I have to say on the matter.

Fare enough. Pretty negative sounding but fare enough.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

I certainly can't agree more with this Steve. We get it! You have a good product. You have a great following, you should be and I am sure are very proud of your success. But there is a fine line between Followers and Fanatics...just like the fine line between Genius and Madness! The inundation of the Hammer line here is causing the need for your question. 6.5 creedmore vs Hammer question? There's only so much Kool-aid the average person can ingest. Just me!

We have fanatics, I agree. Do you hate Ford because they have fanatics? I get getting tired of the guy at work who loves his new Ford pickup so much that it dominates his discussions. If that makes you hate Ford then you will likely only ever use products that have luke warm support.

I hope this makes sense? Not liking or avoiding a product because there is people that avidly support that product seems illogical.