Match bullets vs early hunting bullets

[Teaman1]

Using the eld M this fall, so trying to see for myself, but trying to understand the difference between some match bullets and early hunting bullets in terminal performance.

Does a thicker jacket at the nose or the empty jacketed space in the nose (Berger) allow the bullet to penetrate before fragmenting?

Early bullets were said to be “splashy” so the partition and other hunting designs came to be. I’ve never used any early bullets and have only used a Berger 185 grain classic hunter (didn’t like for deer).

How is terminal performance improved with match bullets vs the early ones?
Not arguing the use of match bullets, just trying to learn more about why match bullets work the way they do.

 

[swavescatter]

LISTEN — Why Smaller Calibers May Be Better for Big Game Hunting (Part 2) – The Experience Project

the-experience-project.com

 

[Unclecroc]

Match bullets as well as most other non bonded cup and core bullets work great when kept in a lower velocity bracket. This is why you see a lot of heavy for caliber bullets in standard velocity cartridges. 1) it keeps the velocity lower to reduce over expansion at close distance 2) the sectional density is very high so therefore penetration will be ample.

 

[Wrench]

Small meplat makes for a more linear pressure that delays upset. Lack of core in that zone offers no support and essentially aids upset. It's a balance.

Early cup and core bullets had wide meplat and soft core exposed thus beginning upset immediately.

The biggest problem with early bullets was the big increase in velocity with new powders and chambers.....hence why every bullet made worked well in the 270win. They were simply made to go 3k fps.

 

[Teaman1]

That makes sense. So the high bc design accidentally created some pretty bad ass hunting bullets. More or less.
Didn’t think about it like that since I heard the original ballistic tip had a reputation for shallow wound channels.

 

[Weldor]

Speer and Sierra have always made soft points and still do. The match bullett vs hunting bullet is been beaten to death. I am still learning after 50 years. I hate bloodshot meat. Always looking for the magic bullet.

 

[farmermail]

Speer and Sierra have always made soft points and still do. The match bullett vs hunting bullet is been beaten to death. I am still learning after 50 years. I hate bloodshot meat. Always looking for the magic bullet.

Agreed, match vs. hunting is a horse that has met a 1000 deaths. Personal experience using various bullets, watching others use various bullets and with most calibers one can think of: Shot placement is the single biggest influence regarding bloodshot meat.

Example: Way back in the 1900's, I was hunting pronghorn. Saw a fox (had a furbearer tag), shot it with my .300 Win. I use 168 MatchKing, MV at 3100. Anyone who has hunted with MK's know they grenade in an animal. Figured the tail and skull would be salvageable, not much else. Wrong. Bullet entered between two ribs, exited between two ribs, never expanded. Made a .308 hole right through it at roughly 280 yards. Go figure, dumb luck. Had it life sized, in my office right now as I type. Given the <incredibly> lucky shot placement, any bullet from any gun would have done the same.

 

[Lou270]

The jacket design and core/jacket materials are very similar on match bullets and original soft points which is to say they are just straight taper. Match bullets may have thinner jackets or thicker jackets but there is no means to retard expansion. Varying jacket thickness introduces variability which is bad for dispersion and thicker jackets generally result in lower BC since you have less weight for a given length. The original soft points were mostly round nose but there were early spitzers. The jackets did not taper because cartridges generally had muzzle velocities in the 1900-2300 fps range and worked fine. Rate of initial expansion was generally controlled by the amount of lead exposed. The match type come in 2 varieties tipped and otm. The tipped start expansion much like a hollow point at least the polymer tipped ones - I dont know about the newer aluminum ones. The otm, at least berger, that explicitely keep their hunting bullet jackets thin will penetrate a few inches before letting go. This is because they have a hard nose and there is nothing to initiate expansion. The nose will collapse or bend and break off or bullet will tumble and if jacket is weakened (like a canneleur) or thin the bullet will break up/frag

As noted by others controlled expansion bullets started when impact velocity increased with rounds like the 30-06 and later 270 and others. This normally consisted of a thickening of jacket or belt somewhere towards middle to halt expansion. Cores could still slip so partitions and bonded added later

The theory that SD compensates for bullet construction has been proven wrong so many times I will not address this. You can choose to believe it but history and physics is not on your side. What you generally get with high SD bullets (in a given cartridge) is more mass and that means lower velocities. Lower velocities do allow for softer bullets. However at higher impact velocties you can have shallow penetration with soft bullets whether have high SD or not. This is because of dynamic pressures involved. This is also likely why Hornady, for ex, will not recommend something like their eldm 7prc load for hunting. The bullet needs to perform at full velocity range of cartridge not just at 400 yards where slowed down some and dynamic pressures less at impact

What people are “re-discovering” is what Jack O’Connor preached many years ago. Once a bullet reaches the vitals, the faster it comes apart the more damage it does, the faster it kills. This is partly why he was a 270 fan. In his opinion nothing did better on lung shots.

That being said, O’Connor also reported that he had some cases where these early bullets fired from 30-06 and .270 were stopped by shoulders of game like mule deer, Caribou and Elk so recommended to stay off the shoulder. Later, he mostly switched to 130, 150 Nosler Partition in the 270 and 180 Corelokt in the 30-06 and had no more penetration issues even on shoulders on large African and Alaskan game at close range

So - I have always paid attention to max impact velocity as well as min impact velocity when choosing bullets and have had few problems in wounding or penetration. This includes fragmenting bullets like bergers, and “tough” bullets like barnes ttsx and eveything in between.

Lou

 

[Formidilosus]

The theory that SD compensates for bullet construction has been proven wrong so many times I will not address this. You can choose to believe it but history and physics is not on your side.

What you generally get with high SD bullets (in a given cartridge) is more mass and that means lower velocities. Lower velocities do allow for softer bullets. However at higher impact velocties you can have shallow penetration with soft bullets whether have high SD or not. This is because of dynamic pressures involved.

Do what? That is literally not what happens with fragmenting match bullets. For the same exact jacket thickness, at the same exact impact speed- heavier (I.e. longer) bullets penetrate deeper.

This is also likely why Hornady, for ex, will not recommend something like their eldm 7prc load for hunting.

This is 100% factually untrue. This belief is fuddlore.

 

[Lou270]

Do what? That is literally not what happens with fragmenting match bullets. For the same exact jacket thickness, at the same exact impact speed- heavier (I.e. longer) bullets penetrate deeper.





This is 100% factually untrue. This belief is fuddlore.

Lol. So, what makes a match bullet fragmenting?

Lou

 

[Formidilosus]

Lol. So, what makes a match bullet fragmenting?

Lou

Thin jacket and no bonding.
Your assertion that extra bullet length- which in this case means increased SD, in a fragmenting bullet doesn’t cause increased penetration is objectively false. When a thin jacketed, fragmenting bullet remains point forward, the longer it is- all else being equal, the deeper it penetrates at the same impact velocity. There is simply more bullet to fragment (lose) while still maintaining sufficient mass to continue penetration.

 

[Lou270]

Thin jacket and no bonding.
Your assertion that extra bullet length- which in this case means increased SD, in a fragmenting bullet doesn’t cause increased penetration is objectively false. When a thin jacketed, fragmenting bullet remains point forward, the longer it is- all else being equal, the deeper it penetrates at the same impact velocity. There is simply more bullet to fragment (lose) while still maintaining sufficient mass to continue penetration.

Bullet length has nothing to do with SD. Bullet mass and cross sectional area do. If you increase SD you are increasing weight and slowing the bullet down (assuming same cartridge). The lower impact velocity will potentially allow a thin jacket bullet to retain more mass if it stops deforming while some shank left. However, If a bullet is going to come apart at an impact velocity it is going to come apart right away. Bullets do not gradually expand as they penetrate. They reach terminal shape (whether a mushroom or fragment) early in penetration unless maybe something harder is hit as the forces on the bullet decrease during penetration.

Any case, all lead core hunting bullets “fragment” in the way you describe at least to some degree. There is just some means to halt the expansion and in some cases retain weight.

You folks crack me up with the fudd lore stuff when it doesn’t match your beliefs. Literally have seen this happen. The whole point of the fbi tests is to ensure sufficient penetration yet somehow it is fudd-lore anybody could possibly run into this in big game hunting where their are orders of magnitude more shots fired in anger than police shootouts

Lou

 

[Southern Lights]

Thin jacket and no bonding.
Your assertion that extra bullet length- which in this case means increased SD, in a fragmenting bullet doesn’t cause increased penetration is objectively false. When a thin jacketed, fragmenting bullet remains point forward, the longer it is- all else being equal, the deeper it penetrates at the same impact velocity. There is simply more bullet to fragment (lose) while still maintaining sufficient mass to continue penetration.

This is what I've found as well. High SD bullets like my 6.5x55 140s penetrate like crazy and fragment causing large amounts of damage.

In fact on fallow (a small bodied deer), they almost penetrate too much before coming apart. My 6.5 140s penetrate better than 150 308 and this is likely due to the higher SD as the 150 308 is going faster.

 

[Southern Lights]

What people are “re-discovering” is what Jack O’Connor preached many years ago. Once a bullet reaches the vitals, the faster it comes apart the more damage it does, the faster it kills. This is partly why he was a 270 fan. In his opinion nothing did better on lung shots.

That being said, O’Connor also reported that he had some cases where these early bullets fired from 30-06 and .270 were stopped by shoulders of game like mule deer, Caribou and Elk so recommended to stay off the shoulder. Later, he mostly switched to 130, 150 Nosler Partition in the 270 and 180 Corelokt in the 30-06 and had no more penetration issues even on shoulders on large African and Alaskan game at close range

I picked up a bunch of O'Connor's books after I bought a 270 because I wanted to learn what the fuss was all about. Turns out he had most of this stuff figured out decades ago.

Get a bullet that holds together long enough to reach the vitals, then break apart and do damage.

I think this is probably why he liked partitions. The nose is designed to break off and fragment, the back end continues total penetration. They have that consistent performance that often wasn't available in other bullets when he was around.

 

[Formidilosus]

Bullet length has nothing to do with SD. Bullet mass and cross sectional area do. If you increase SD you are increasing weight and slowing the bullet down (assuming same cartridge). The lower impact velocity will potentially allow a thin jacket bullet to retain more mass if it stops deforming while some shank left.

However, If a bullet is going to come apart at an impact velocity it is going to come apart right away. Bullets do not gradually expand as they penetrate. They reach terminal shape (whether a mushroom or fragment) early in penetration unless maybe something harder is hit as the forces on the bullet decrease during penetration.

Where are you drawing these beliefs from? This last one particularly is ridiculous- no, only at high impact velocities do bullets upset with a very short neck length. And, lots of bullets have longer permanent TC’s than other bullets (TMK vs. Berger VLD). What you are writing is factually not true.

You folks crack me up with the fudd lore stuff when it doesn’t match your beliefs. Literally have seen this happen. The whole point of the fbi tests is to ensure sufficient penetration yet somehow it is fudd-lore anybody could possibly run into this in big game hunting where their are orders of magnitude more shots fired in anger than police shootouts

Lou

I’m not sure I can decipher what you were trying to say here- but in legit ballistics testing and live tissue; the same caliber, at the same jacket thickness and same impact velocity- the longer (read: heavier) bullet penetrates deeper. It simply has more bullet to fragment and more bullet mass to continue.

 

[Teaman1]

This is what I've found as well. High SD bullets like my 6.5x55 140s penetrate like crazy and fragment causing large amounts of damage.

In fact on fallow (a small bodied deer), they almost penetrate too much before coming apart. My 6.5 140s penetrate better than 150 308 and this is likely due to the higher SD as the 150 308 is going faster.

Is this with a 140 eld m? That exact thing is what I didn’t like about the 185 Berger.

Hoping the 208 ELDm upsets more quickly.

 

[Formidilosus]

Hoping the 208 ELDm upsets more quickly.

It doesn’t. The 178gr ELD-M does, and the 174gr ELD-VT really does.

 

[Teaman1]

The 185 Berger in 2 antelope and 3 deer all gave me a pencil entrance, started upsetting roughly half way through, and a fist sized exit. Exit was very ragged like many small pieces exited.
Animal usually ran 75-100 yards before falling, all lung shots.
Was working up a 208 elem load, but with that info, may try a different bullet.

 

[Formidilosus]

The 185 Berger in 2 antelope and 3 deer all gave me a pencil entrance, started upsetting roughly half way through, and a fist sized exit. Exit was very ragged like many small pieces exited.
Animal usually ran 75-100 yards before falling, all lung shots.
Was working up a 208 elem load, but with that info, may try a different bullet.

That is normal for the 185gr Juggernaut/OTM. Were you using the OTM’s or the VLD’s?

 

[Teaman1]

Believe it was the vld. 300 wsm HSM load in 2017