What caused the Rokslide shift to smallest caliber and cartridges?

[Mike Islander]

I deal with terminal ballistics for a living, both on the performance and countermeasure ends.

A number of anecdotal experience is not a scientifically valid test, nor has a quantifiable performance criteria been established to test against?

How many inches of bone blind performance is acceptable?

How many inches of penetration in calibrated medium?

Retained weight?

Velocity window for optimal performance and thresholds for failure?

External ballistic goals…aerodynamics, internal ballistics-sensitivity to distance off the lands, etc?


The thing is this- A small, but vocal, group seems to think that any of this is new information. It’s not. You can read books from Ruark to Boddington with everyone in between and get thousands of anecdotes on bullet performance, both good and bad. Weatherby wrote and promoted a very similar idea- velocity + fragmentation = shock/death. It worked very well…but not all that consistently on difficult targets.

It’s not that you are wrong…a 223 is lethal on many animals under optimal conditions. The problem is that a lot of field shooting involves sub optimal conditions. That doesn’t mean the 223 is wrong…just that it has performance limitations.

There is a long history, with literally millions of rounds fired, that created modern bullets and their respective performance objectives. If you want to research, go study on what events lead to the Nosler Partition…The Bear Claw…The X bullet…The now defunct Bitterroot Bullet Company who pioneered bonding technology. There is a “why” to those items. That why has not changed.

If you truly want to dig into 223 projectiles, you might be able to google some of the publications that Crane released during the Greatest War on Terror. They did a ton of testing on 855, MK 318/ SOST, Brown Tip (a 70 gr X bullet), and 855 A1. They usually contrasted 77gt SMKs in most tests as it’s the standard projectile in MK 262. You can see all of these in gel if you dig around.

Here’s some dated, but good, baseline. https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2008/Intl/Roberts.pdf

Hmmmm, doesn't sound like you kill animals under variable conditions for a living, nor do you train others in actual hunting terrain to kill animals under variable conditions.

You don't appear to have killed or seen killed thousands of the types of animals we hunt (i.e. the objective in question) in the field under variable tough conditions for literally decades. We've already got an expert here that does exactly that.

And we've now got hundreds of folks here who have put the 223 and other smaller calibers to the test in real world conditions, including some of the least optimal, and found them as effective at killing as larger magnums, and better for field shooting due to lower recoil.

And real world conditions and results are literally the only actual measure of performance.

You're not the right tool for this particular job.

 

[PistolPete]

What do you call a series of anecdotes?

Data.

 

[Dirtbag]

Maybe I justy oversimplify things for the folks on forums but I couldnt care less about tests, ballistics gel, and other meaningless nothings. There is no test out there that can adequately replicate the imperfect dealings of death. Call it anecdotal all you want, but when I hit an animal with a .22 centerfire they die, and die quickly. They can only get so dead so what difference does it all make. The last deer I shot wasn't on his feet another 10 seconds after I hit him.

I'm going to continue using .22 centerfires. They work.

 

[Dirtbag]

 

[Marshfly]

I articulated it clearly-

Set a defined threshold for performance. The ones I listed are generally considered a baseline. If there is going to be a claim of good or bad performance, there has to be a standard that can be measured and repeated.

The SMK has a ton of data on it, in gel and on barriers. It’s not anything special…non bonded cup and core tech with an inconsistent open tip that occasionally folds over rather than opening, causing the bullet to turn in whatever direction rather than fragment. Its barrier performance is terrible and basic barriers like glass will totally alter its trajectory by breaking it apart.

Every ballistic research facility in the western world studies this. They all reach the same conclusion. For 5.56 on a large mammal, you need barrier blind, rapid but controlled expansion, rapid early upset (short neck length in the wound channel), 12-18 inches of straight line penetration, and retained weight around 80% to retain sufficient energy so that it penetrates.

In layman’s terms, those factors are what created modern 5.56 duty loads. The Brown Tip load made by Black Hills that domed Osama is a 70g X bullet with an improved velocity window. FBI T3 is a Bear Claw with a few tweaks and bonded. The Marine Corps came up with MK 318 SOST (Special Operations Science and Technology) and it’s basically a Bear Claw that has a boat tail and was made lead free via a dead soft copper core up front.

There are more, but each of those rounds came from programs that were specifically tasked to make 5.56 as lethal as possible. Every one of those groups already had MK262 5.56 on hand and found the 77grSMK to be problematic.

That said, it likely doesn’t matter on a broadside lung shot on most animals as almost any modern bullet will work.

Why do you keep referencing the SMK? What does that have to do with this discussion?

 

[ElPollo]

I articulated it clearly-

Set a defined threshold for performance. The ones I listed are generally considered a baseline. If there is going to be a claim of good or bad performance, there has to be a standard that can be measured and repeated.

The SMK has a ton of data on it, in gel and on barriers. It’s not anything special…non bonded cup and core tech with an inconsistent open tip that occasionally folds over rather than opening, causing the bullet to turn in whatever direction rather than fragment. Its barrier performance is terrible and basic barriers like glass will totally alter its trajectory by breaking it apart.

Every ballistic research facility in the western world studies this. They all reach the same conclusion. For 5.56 on a large mammal, you need barrier blind, rapid but controlled expansion, rapid early upset (short neck length in the wound channel), 12-18 inches of straight line penetration, and retained weight around 80% to retain sufficient energy so that it penetrates.

In layman’s terms, those factors are what created modern 5.56 duty loads. The Brown Tip load made by Black Hills that domed Osama is a 70g X bullet with an improved velocity window. FBI T3 is a Bear Claw with a few tweaks and bonded. The Marine Corps came up with MK 318 SOST (Special Operations Science and Technology) and it’s basically a Bear Claw that has a boat tail and was made lead free via a dead soft copper core up front.

There are more, but each of those rounds came from programs that were specifically tasked to make 5.56 as lethal as possible. Every one of those groups already had MK262 5.56 on hand and found the 77grSMK to be problematic.

That said, it likely doesn’t matter on a broadside lung shot on most animals as almost any modern bullet will work.

No offense, but I think you are in a different conversation than most of the other people in this thread. What I’m hearing is 1) You’re smarter than us. 2) You’re arguing about ballistics for combat and we are discussing unarmored game animals. And 3) None of this matters because any bullet will work on game.

I can’t comment on #1. I don’t get how #2 relates to this thread. And #3 is obviously not correct. I would still suggest you get out and hunt some animals instead of citing other people’s work that is not relevant.

 

[Slick8]

Man, I'm new here so I didn't receive the smaller is better memo...

I'm a bigger is better guy for a few reasons. A big VLD bucks the wind better and I'm a fan of no replacement for displacement. Meaning at long range I feel like a high BC Big Heavy VLD will do more work then a little bullet.

We spend a great deal of money and time in the endeavor of hunting (killing game). I feel like the last thing I'm going to take to minimums is the part that does the killing, bullets.

FWIW, I shoot the following and yes I love to handload and tinker.
30-28 Nosler
7mm SAUM
6.5mm Creed (a great long range trainer and mid range hunter)
6mm Dasher (a fun target gun built from all used parts that's taken two deer)

 

[Ranger 692]

Tikka .223 on the way. Took the time to read through all of this over the weekend finally after ignoring this for a few years(truly thought it was an elaborate troll). Overwhelming empirical evidence thanks @Formidilosus

 

[wind gypsy]

Man, I'm new here so I didn't receive the smaller is better memo...

I'm a bigger is better guy for a few reasons. A big VLD bucks the wind better and I'm a fan of no replacement for displacement. Meaning at long range I feel like a high BC Big Heavy VLD will do more work then a little bullet.

We spend a great deal of money and time in the endeavor of hunting (killing game). I feel like the last thing I'm going to take to minimums is the part that does the killing, bullets.

FWIW, I shoot the following and yes I love to handload and tinker.
30-28 Nosler
7mm SAUM
6.5mm Creed (a great long range trainer and mid range hunter)
6mm Dasher (a fun target gun built from all used parts that's taken two deer)

Inside 500 yards if you're shooting for $, which of those rifles do you have best odds of hitting closest to your POA?

 

[BjornF16]

Inside 500 yards if you're shooting for $, which of those rifles do you have best odds of hitting closest to your POA?

…and seeing impact for follow up shot?

 

[Thegman]

I deal with terminal ballistics for a living, both on the performance and countermeasure ends.

A number of anecdotal experience is not a scientifically valid test, nor has a quantifiable performance criteria been established to test against?

How many inches of bone blind performance is acceptable?

How many inches of penetration in calibrated medium?

Retained weight?

Velocity window for optimal performance and thresholds for failure?

External ballistic goals…aerodynamics, internal ballistics-sensitivity to distance off the lands, etc?


The thing is this- A small, but vocal, group seems to think that any of this is new information. It’s not. You can read books from Ruark to Boddington with everyone in between and get thousands of anecdotes on bullet performance, both good and bad. Weatherby wrote and promoted a very similar idea- velocity + fragmentation = shock/death. It worked very well…but not all that consistently on difficult targets.

It’s not that you are wrong…a 223 is lethal on many animals under optimal conditions. The problem is that a lot of field shooting involves sub optimal conditions. That doesn’t mean the 223 is wrong…just that it has performance limitations.

There is a long history, with literally millions of rounds fired, that created modern bullets and their respective performance objectives. If you want to research, go study on what events lead to the Nosler Partition…The Bear Claw…The X bullet…The now defunct Bitterroot Bullet Company who pioneered bonding technology. There is a “why” to those items. That why has not changed.

If you truly want to dig into 223 projectiles, you might be able to google some of the publications that Crane released during the Greatest War on Terror. They did a ton of testing on 855, MK 318/ SOST, Brown Tip (a 70 gr X bullet), and 855 A1. They usually contrasted 77gt SMKs in most tests as it’s the standard projectile in MK 262. You can see all of these in gel if you dig around.

Here’s some dated, but good, baseline. https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2008/Intl/Roberts.pdf

No offense meant, but this is kind of weird...

It's as though you're gaslighting people with,"Look, here's the gel data, here's the barrier blind performance, and retained weight information, these bullets will not work reliably. All the dead animals? A fluke, merely anecdotal, which the gel blocks clearly indicate is the case."

Don't get me wrong, gel block data etc. is interesting and useful, but it's a beginning, not an end. Actual performance is the end, and there seems to be enough anecdotes presented at this point to indicate the bullet/cartridge combo appears to work pretty reliably...for killing and recovering things.

The option for everyone, every time, everywhere? Probably not, but a reasonable option, and maybe most importantly, probably more reasonable than a lot of people previously thought before the many, many, anecdotes.

 

[Anschutz]

Inside 500 yards if you're shooting for $, which of those rifles do you have best odds of hitting closest to your POA?

I'm picking my 6BR that was purpose-built for putting bullets in a 1MOA circle from a sling (30" Barrel, Eliseo Stock, etc). I could stretch it to 1k but there are better choices. I'd have no issues putting a Tikka 6BR together for deer. I think it'd be a good little killer. That being said, there are many on this site that I'd put money on with a .300 Super Duper Master Blaster Magnum (wildcatters, get on it) against most shooters with a .223.

…and seeing impact for follow up shot?

For many, this is a non-issue. Terrain and fauna won't allow it for many hunters. I will concede that at those ranges if you don't know where that bullet went, you need more range time. But, I will say that after seeing the results from a 223/77TMK, if you're taking the shot you should know when the shot breaks if that animal is about to have scrambled lungs or not. I also understand that certain situations make follow-up shots desirable. My wife shot her caribou three times. All three were in the lungs and at least one hit the heart and would have killed that Caribou. What I didn't want was it to head 800-1000' downhill. She used a 7mm-08 with 140ABs so not super small but smaller than what a lot of bou get shot with.

 

[Thegman]

I'm picking my 6BR that was purpose-built for putting bullets in a 1MOA circle from a sling (30" Barrel, Eliseo Stock, etc). I could stretch it to 1k but there are better choices. I'd have no issues putting a Tikka 6BR together for deer. I think it'd be a good little killer. That being said, there are many on this site that I'd put money on with a .300 Super Duper Master Blaster Magnum (wildcatters, get on it) against most shooters with a .223.

For many, this is a non-issue. Terrain and fauna won't allow it for many hunters. I will concede that at those ranges if you don't know where that bullet went, you need more range time. But, I will say that after seeing the results from a 223/77TMK, if you're taking the shot you should know when the shot breaks if that animal is about to have scrambled lungs or not. I also understand that certain situations make follow-up shots desirable. My wife shot her caribou three times. All three were in the lungs and at least one hit the heart and would have killed that Caribou. What I didn't want was it to head 800-1000' downhill. She used a 7mm-08 with 140ABs so not super small but smaller than what a lot of bou get shot with.

On occasions, I've shot animals (moose, bears, caribou, deer) multiple times with my 308s and 30-06s because either I needed to, or felt I needed to. I notice for myself I've never thought "maybe I need to be shooting a more powerful cartridge". I "know" the 308/30-06 is more than adequate. I think if I'd been shooting a 223 in those cases I would have thought exactly that. Not necessarily rational, but I do think we (including myself), aren't always completely rational about the results we see/get. To some extent, we excuse the bigger cartridges when a follow up shot is needed, or perceived to be needed, but maybe don't give the same latitude to smaller cartridges.

That said, I personally don't have enough experience using smaller cartridges to know for myself either way, but so far the results have been "encouraging ".

 

[JohnJohnson]

Because of his post, I'm now worried about all the game that are hiding behind brick walls, or auto glass, or other ungulate made barriers

Real hunters wait for the deer to exit the vehicle otherwise it's not fair chase.

 

[Anschutz]

No offense meant, but this is kind of weird...

It's as though you're gaslighting people with,"Look, here's the gel data, here's the barrier blind performance, and retained weight information, these bullets will not work reliably. All the dead animals? A fluke, merely anecdotal, which the gel blocks clearly indicate is the case."

Don't get me wrong, gel block data etc. is interesting and useful, but it's a beginning, not an end. Actual performance is the end, and there seems to be enough anecdotes presented at this point to indicate the bullet/cartridge combo appears to work pretty reliably...for killing and recovering things.

The option for everyone, every time, everywhere? Probably not, but a reasonable option, and maybe most importantly, probably more reasonable than a lot of people previously thought before the many, many, anecdotes.

I'm going to start by saying that I agree with what you are saying. All of the "small caliber" threads show a mountain of successful hunts with X bullet and Y cartridge at Z impact velocity. I know they are effective at killing game. What often doesn't get shown, and this applies to any cartridge/bullet combination, is the game that wasn't recovered, game that was recovered after the meat was bad or eaten by other animals, or game that was tracked an excessive distance before being found. We can get data from the last two if the hunter decides to post the results, it's that first one where there is no animal to examine, that we lose valuable data. I think most of us have seen enough sob stories to know the bullet likely didn't hit where the guy says it hit. But I think most of us have also experienced weird situations ourselves where it took longer to find than what the skinning process said it should have been and maybe another hunter wouldn't have found that animal.

 

[BjornF16]

I'm going to start by saying that I agree with what you are saying. All of the "small caliber" threads show a mountain of successful hunts with X bullet and Y cartridge at Z impact velocity. I know they are effective at killing game. What often doesn't get shown, and this applies to any cartridge/bullet combination, is the game that wasn't recovered, game that was recovered after the meat was bad or eaten by other animals, or game that was tracked an excessive distance before being found. We can get data from the last two if the hunter decides to post the results, it's that first one where there is no animal to examine, that we lose valuable data. I think most of us have seen enough sob stories to know the bullet likely didn't hit where the guy says it hit. But I think most of us have also experienced weird situations ourselves where it took longer to find than what the skinning process said it should have been and maybe another hunter wouldn't have found that animal.

How about all the unrecovered wounded game shot with magnums?

Or do you believe that they are all DRT?

 

[wyosam]

How about all the unrecovered wounded game shot with magnums?

Or do you believe that they are all DRT?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Anschutz]

How about all the unrecovered wounded game shot with magnums?

Or do you believe that they are all DRT?

What part of "and this applies to any cartridge/bullet combination" did you miss? Or did you take that as meaning only non-magnums?

P.S. I've never hunted with a magnum and all but one game animal has been killed with a cartridge with less recoil than the 6UM (That cartridge looks like it performs amazingly).

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

It's a far cry from ego from where I stand, and I don't give a rip what anyone hunts with. Fact is when someone posts contradictory "facts" to Formid, he starts his rants about posting pics to back up what you say. If it's good for him, it's good for everyone else, right?

I don't want pics, but if he's even close to 50 animals per year for a decade that's obviously 500 head, not "thousands, plural" of animals as he stated. Not even remotely close. Still not sure how a guy gets 20 elk tags every year either. He says " more than a hundred pics of dead animals on this board from me alone.".....once again a fraction of "thousands of animals I've killed, or seen killed beside me". Sorry, I'm calling BS on "thousands, plural".

You can always turn the channel. Gee whiz... You're starting a pi$$ing contest because you think you're a bigger bad ass killer? Frankly, I don't care if Form has killed 500 or 2,000, its likely at least 400 more than 99% of the guys on this site.

 

[Slick8]

Inside 500 yards if you're shooting for $, which of those rifles do you have best odds of hitting closest to your POA?

It's close but I'll go with the 7 SAUM mainly because I've been shooting it the longest and have lots of consistent data. I'll likely be there with the other two but the creed is a step behind in scope quality so would likely remain my 3rd option.

I'm still tinkering with the 30-28 but will be there soon.