Hammer bullets

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

2 in the lungs one in the neck

Roger that.

Here's my thoughts for what its worth (not an expert but I have three or four dozen downed animals via barnes with good results). I don't shoot lungs, esp. rear lungs with barnes. I'm no expert but I tend to think of them as a high speed broadhead that can go through a shoulder if needed, lungs are gonna take a while to bleed out and require waiting or tracking the animal. I prefer crowding the shoulder to punch through the heart zone, I'm looking to hit the heart or arteries so it rapidly looses blood pressure and dies in a short distance. If needed I have no problem shooting through the shoulder to hit this zone (monos don't trash out a shoulder to the same extent a lead core does).

 

[ljalberta]

Has anyone had a chance to see what the low velocity performance of the Cutting Edge Lazers is like on animals? They advertise expansion down to 1200-1300fps, but I haven’t found any reports of low velocity use in animals myself.

 

[Go West Old Man]

Yea what barnes bullet were you using? The LRX out of my 6.5 x284 is a killing machine at almost any distance on deer, elk, moose. Always get large expansion and 90% + weight retention with animals never moving more than 20 yards give or take. I really want to try to load hammers but I keep reading bad things and the youtube videos against them are pretty convincing.

@Pacific_Fork, what’s your LRX 6.5 x 284 recipe? Thanks.

 

[muzz]

Roger that.

Here's my thoughts for what its worth (not an expert but I have three or four dozen downed animals via barnes with good results). I don't shoot lungs, esp. rear lungs with barnes. I'm no expert but I tend to think of them as a high speed broadhead that can go through a shoulder if needed, lungs are gonna take a while to bleed out and require waiting or tracking the animal. I prefer crowding the shoulder to punch through the heart zone, I'm looking to hit the heart or arteries so it rapidly looses blood pressure and dies in a short distance. If needed I have no problem shooting through the shoulder to hit this zone (monos don't trash out a shoulder to the same extent a lead core does).

I might try them again someday. I know they penetrate through anything. Are the lrx bullets a softer copper?

 

[Ens Entium]

A non-bonded cup and core lead bullet will break into hundreds of pieces exploding outward, causing serious damage. Hammer Hunters and a few others will break into a few(Hammer) says four and travel in the same direction as the wound channel. IME, these lightweight pieces of copper don't make it very far and "may" cause some damage if they break off at all, especially at longer-range impacts. So then you have a small diameter field point ice picking through an animal. Most of these nasty wound channels you see from Monos are at high speeds at 500 yards or less. If that is your wheel house that's great, it's just not mine. If I have to shoot Monos and I don't WANT to, but the writing is on the wall. I want one with a good BC that opens as wide as possible, making the biggest wound channel as possible without shedding its petal.


There is just no way to make copper bullets act or kill as effectively as a lead cup and core bullet IMO. But I have a few hunts coming up that don't allow lead, and so many of my fellow hunters are already caving to the leaf licker. We will all have to shoot monos soon enough, so I figured I should start testing them now.

I haven't had the chance to try them myself yet but I like the thought behind Badlands Precision Bulldozer/ Bulldozer-2 bullets. It has a harder tip to aid expansion at lower velocities similar to the LRX but still lathe turned and metal so less worries about bad tips

 

[Newtosavage]

How many of you use or used the Hammer bullets? I’m loading the 143 hh this year for elk in my 7mm. Getting 3390fps and 5/8” groups with them. I’m curious as if they are better then the Barnes line up? I’m not a fan at all of the Barnes form past experience with them. Are these the same or better?

If you want great accuracy and DRT performance, Hammer is your bullet. At least, that's what they did for me.

 

[SDHNTR]

I might try them again someday. I know they penetrate through anything. Are the lrx bullets a softer copper?

Yes, LRX are designed to open at lower speeds.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

I might try them again someday. I know they penetrate through anything. Are the lrx bullets a softer copper?

Don't feel pressured to use them if you don't want to, I'm merely pointing out they work fine for me with the caveats I've mentioned and the folks with different results usually are either shooting lungs or lower impact velocity.

I don't know for sure on the LRX but I suspect rather than a softer copper than the TTSX they likely just have drilled out the bullet differently to promote expansion at lower velocity (supposedly) than the TTSX. Sure would seem like an inventory headache to have two different hardnesses of metal stock on hand to make the LRX vs the TTSX. All that said despite the LRX opening at lower velocities I still like to keep the impacts over 2100-2200 fps or higher for my personal usage.


Back to the hammers, going on a muzzy elk hunt this weekend but probably will pack my 300wsm along with the 181 hammers incase we see a bear (rifle season for those), maybe I'll have something else to report.

 

[MThuntr]

How many of you use or used the Hammer bullets? I’m loading the 143 hh this year for elk in my 7mm. Getting 3390fps and 5/8” groups with them. I’m curious as if they are better then the Barnes line up? I’m not a fan at all of the Barnes form past experience with them. Are these the same or better?

I shoot 143s in my 280ai to about 3200. Killed a bunch of deer, antelope, a couple elk (out to 440 yards with 1 shot clean through) and a moose. Moose I sent 1 through lungs (scraped the heart) and then 2 through shoulders in an attempt to anchor him before he made it the wetland squish. Both of the shoulder shots went through some serious bone and were stuck on the offside skin.

180 Hammers from 300WinMag stoned a smaller black bear like lightning hit it. Loading them in 30-30 and 45-70 now but haven't shot animals yet.

I've used Etips previously with success with my 300WSM. I think they do ok but I was getting nasty pressure early and basically had a fancy 30-06. Never used Barnes but have loaded several for a friend and he's killed a handful of deer and antelope. He keeps shots within 300 so expansion seems to be a non-issue at those distances

 

[SDHNTR]

I shot a bull at 80 yards with a 280ai and ttsx. At 80 yards I should have been doing close to still 2900 fps. 3 shots he finally died

That was just a tough animal. Happens sometimes. I shot a bull moose yesterday at about 100 yards with a .338 and a 225 TTSX. Straight rib shot. No major bone. Golf ball sized hole through the heart. Dead in seconds.

 

[MuleyFever]

I shot a bull at 80 yards with a 280ai and ttsx. At 80 yards I should have been doing close to still 2900 fps. 3 shots he finally died

I would be surprised if an elk has not been shot 3 times with most bullets out there before dying.

 

[skeptic]

Like almost all bullet threads, there is a smattering of failures and successes. I have experienced good and bad results from all sorts of different bullets. I tried Hammer 124's out of my 6.5 PRC last year and got a mtn goat and a couple of elk. They worked great. I am sure I will shoot something with them in the future and not have as good of a result as had hoped for. I have just resided myself to the fact that shit moving at high speeds at different distances into different animals yields different results.

 

[gbflyer]

Like almost all bullet threads, there is a smattering of failures and successes. I have experienced good and bad results from all sorts of different bullets. I tried Hammer 124's out of my 6.5 PRC last year and got a mtn goat and a couple of elk. They worked great. I am sure I will shoot something with them in the future and not have as good of a result as had hoped for. I have just resided myself to the fact that shit moving at high speeds at different distances into different animals yields different results.

That’s very well stated, agree 100%

 

[OXN939]

Like almost all bullet threads, there is a smattering of failures and successes.

I've been using them for two years at all ranges, shot angles and environments and no smattering here. Blacktail, Pronghorn, Hogs, Whitetail all very dead very quickly. Here is some pulmonary tissue in the blood trail from my Pronghorn two weeks ago. 120 Hammer Hunter out of a 7mm-08 through the lungs from ~250 out.

 

[wyosam]

I’ve put them through a few elk, and other I load for have put them through a bunch more game from elk, to sheep and goats, and a bison. All performed as intended with quick kills.


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[wyosam]

If there are some major shifts in regulations or state law, companies like berger and hornady will throw some money at R&D for high bc monos…at least I would hope so. I am not thrilled with any of the current offerings…

You’re never going to see the BC near what you can get with a lead core. It’s just physics.


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[SDHNTR]

You’re never going to see the BC near what you can get with a lead core. It’s just physics.


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I’d think you could get better BC’s utilizing tungsten or bismuth, but that may be cost prohibitive.

 

[HeathH]

Shot a very big moose in the Brooks Range broadside at 320 yards with a 280 AI and 160 Shock Hammers. Went 30-40 yards and toppled over. Absolutely shredded the lungs and the core passed clean through with 3-4” exit. I was amazed and very pleased to say the least.

 

[z987k]

I’d think you could get better BC’s utilizing tungsten or bismuth, but that may be cost prohibitive.

And far too hard of a material to use.

Some sort of hybrid non-lead bullet in the future might be the answer.

 

[z987k]

Every shot is going to be different. The farther the shot the more issues you are going to see with monos that break apart. A couple of animals shot with hammers that I have witnessed have been Ok. The animals were dead. But the shots were perfect, so you would expect the bullet to kill. The wound channels were not impressive. I guess if I had to shoot copper bullets, I would not want my bullet to break apart like a lead cup and core bullet. I would want it to mushroom as big as possible but keep its mass. Like a Barnes or, better yet, a McGuire bullet.

Have you tested the BC claims of the McGuire bullets? Drive bands like that normally do no lend themselves to low drag.