What caused the Rokslide shift to smallest caliber and cartridges?

Choupique

WKR
Joined
Oct 2, 2022
Messages
706
Regarding that gel test posted earlier, is that something a guy could reliably replicate? Can a fella just mix of a tote of ballistic gel and shoot it?
 

Marbles

WKR
Classified Approved
Joined
May 16, 2020
Messages
4,588
Location
AK
Regarding that gel test posted earlier, is that something a guy could reliably replicate? Can a fella just mix of a tote of ballistic gel and shoot it?
No, it must be 10% organic ballistics gel to be meaningful, the block must be calibrated with a BB, and it must be kept within a certain temp range. The stuff sounds like a pain in the ass.
 

Marbles

WKR
Classified Approved
Joined
May 16, 2020
Messages
4,588
Location
AK
Trying to make the best argument for those who are not disciples of The Shift... If there was some way to know that Browns have a unique ability to flood their system with catecholamines (I have no idea what those are), sort of like the old stories of kids on PCP being impossible to subdue, then maybe that would support something other than a 77gr TMK. Like a 140gr TMK.

Maybe.
Catecholamines are a group hormones colloquially referred to as adrenalin.

For a body shot to a brown bear that is already mad to crumple him, you are looking for a permanent wound channel that roughly includes the entire chest cavity. Even then, rather than this being instant incapacitation from destruction of heart/lungs/arteries it is likely the damage done to the skeletal system and spinal column that results in an instant stop. I.e. you are breaking the animal down.

Off the top of my head, a 375 Cheytach pushing a 350 gr TMK type projectile north of 3000 FPS might allow a body shot to work for reliable near instant incapacitation on a large brown. Someone should test it out.

Nerd alert:
Adrenalin is a brand name of a single hormone epinephrin, like Kleenex is a brand name of tissue.

The complex neurohormonal response we typically refer to as fight or flight is not nearly as clean as taught in text books. Catecholamines are one portion of this, with the release of hormones like epinephrin, norepinephrine, and dopamine, but even this misses the role of hormones like DDAVP and angiotensin II, making it an incomplete description as well. It also misses the neuro portion of the response, which involves both sympathetic and parasympathetic activation to prepare the body.

The sympathetic nervous system is traditionally described as being responsible for fight or flight. However, pure sympathetic activation would make urination and defecation impossible. Because the body wants to shunt blood away from the guts as well as the fact that empty hollow organs (bladder, intestines, stomach) or less likely to be damaged in a traumatic encounter, the parasympathetic nervous system is frequently hyperactivated in regards to these organs to forcefully empty them at the start of a stress response so the sympathetic system can then shut down their function for more important things.
 

Gstew1930

Lil-Rokslider
Classified Approved
Joined
Jan 28, 2023
Messages
268
@Formidilosus do you have much experience with the Berger 85.5’s? I shot a couple of deer with them & they’ve done well. I’m curious how they compare to the 88’s. I haven’t shot anything with these. Shooting a 22 creed
 

Formidilosus

Super Moderator
Shoot2HuntU
Joined
Oct 22, 2014
Messages
10,430
@Formidilosus do you have much experience with the Berger 85.5’s? I shot a couple of deer with them & they’ve done well. I’m curious how they compare to the 88’s. I haven’t shot anything with these. Shooting a 22 creed

I bit, they kill well. They behave as Berger and other VLD OTM’s do. Generally 2-4” neck length, yaw and fragment.
 

PistolPete

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Dec 6, 2019
Messages
290
Love all the evidence on the 22 cal effectiveness. Just have one question I haven't seen addressed (but who can read all of this): isn't the lack of an exit hole, and thus little/no blood trail, an issue in many hunting scenarios?
 

DJL2

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
May 22, 2020
Messages
267
As long as this discussion has gone along, surely Sierra and other ammo companies have become aware of it. It seems strange to me Sierra hasn't done their own testing and evaluation and come out with a recommendation.
Look at the Federal Tactical TRU line... those are TMK bullets in both .223 Rem and .308 Win. They're fantastic performers - although there is one degree of separation there, Federal being the entity that loaded and tested them. However, given that Sierra is kind enough to supply them with a blue plastic tip instead of green, they are clearly aware of the use. The part number for the 77 TMK is T223TTMK3. The 69 TMK is T223TTMK2. The .308 flavors are T308T and T308TTMK2.

Why don't they come out and make it public? Surely, they aren't adverse to an exponential increase in sales and profit. Hell, they could probably just make that one bullet and do record levels of business.
If we weren't so set in our ways, they could discontinue legacy designs like the 168 SMK which they've replaced with the 169 SMK and 168 TMK. Both are superior in every measurable way, but the market is a funny thing...
 
Last edited:

wyosam

WKR
Joined
Aug 5, 2019
Messages
1,355
Love all the evidence on the 22 cal effectiveness. Just have one question I haven't seen addressed (but who can read all of this): isn't the lack of an exit hole, and thus little/no blood trail, an issue in many hunting scenarios?

All small bullet kills are perfect shot placement bang flops. No such thing as a blood trail.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Formidilosus

Super Moderator
Shoot2HuntU
Joined
Oct 22, 2014
Messages
10,430
All small bullet kills are perfect shot placement bang flops. No such thing as a blood trail.


Well, one could go by sarcasm, or one could go by evidence. My evidence is somewhere between 250 and 300 animals killed- from antelope to moose, and from Florida to Washington. North to south, east to west with 22 cals without issue. Quite the contrary actually. The vast majority being with a 223 and 77gr TMK. Every single animal that has had a bullet touch it has been recovered. That includes a significant amount of deer in the SE swamps and brier thickets, as well as the TX scrub brush.

In all those animals, the amount of rodeos, chases, gut shots, long tracking jobs, etc are a tiny fraction of what has been experienced in that same time frame and the same amount of animals, by the same people with larger calibers and cartridges. By far the most disasters have been with “magnums”.


These make believe “but what about _____”, scenarios are just that- make believe.
 

Formidilosus

Super Moderator
Shoot2HuntU
Joined
Oct 22, 2014
Messages
10,430
Of course, this is obvious, but that's not really very many compared to the total number of animals killed.

What?

The entire assumption is that 22 cals with good bullets are lacking in some regard compared to larger cals, and that they will result in problems that a larger cal would fix. 250 is a very statistically relevant number.
Besides that, it is a very high probability that I have killed more game animals with a single 300 WM than all the “but what about” people on this thread put together.
I am in the thousands- plural, of game animals that I have killed, or that have been killed beside me, with the first 7-8 years being almost entirely 300wm, 338wm, 300 RUM, and 308win.
 
Top