MO-KS_hunter

Sabotloader

Now that you mention it, I think I had a hornady SST strip out on me a few years ago, but it happened on a whitetail. I shot this buck with my .270 using the hornady SST (130 grain) lightmagnum and he was about 40 yards out. I hit him a little far back and I actually had to put a second one in him to put'em down. When I was cleaning him, I found a couple pieces of the guilding metal jacket close to the exit wound from my first shot. I estimate the bullet was moving at around 3200 ft/sec when it hit him which may have been more than a non-bonded bullet can handle without coming apart. Also, the SST is supposed to be a rapid expanding bullet which, being unbonded, may have had something to do with the bullet coming apart at high-bullet speeds. I kept the metal jacket and if I can find it, I'll take a pic and share it.

Sean

Big Z

'Long as they penetrate a bit before exploding, there shouldn't be a problem. Get farther out and they're going too slow to separate but will still expand. Win/win

spaniel

The easy solution if the shape is desired is to use the bonded version.

The game really makes a difference. I shoot the 200SW but most of my friends shoot the 250. After many years and a couple hundred deer between us (generous midwestern bag limits and a crew of meat hunters trying to save their crops) it is obvious a) that the 200 holds together better at any range, and b) even the 250 kills the deer you just find fragments more often.

It really is possible IMHO to use too hard of a bullet on deer. The ones I recovered that stripped do not bother me, it did not make a difference in their ability to put the deer down and was a good sign that I was getting enough expansion.

I agree that the frequency with the 250 is somewhat high. I consider that particular bullet a little frangible which is why I recommend either the 200 or 300 to people.

Personally, I have found my deer to go down quicker with the SW than they did with the HTP/XTP design. Those were/are good bullets respectively, but in my experience hold together a little too well, some more expansion would transfer more energy to the animal.

Like I said, if it's being used on an animal tougher than deer it's another story. Bonded or different bullet for sure.

This brings up a test I want to do this summer assuming my daddy duties leave enough time. I have been saving gallon milk jugs forever and have quite a pile. Unlike newspaper at, water makes a very uniform medium that unlike gel is not temp-sensitive. I plan to shoot a few bullets into lines of jugs at various ranges out to 500 yards or so and see how they perform.

sabotloader

spaniel

I totally agree the 200 is far better at holding together than any of the others. Of course I am talking about the 200 XTP - it can be stripped even blown up but it takes some doing...

Shoot! the shape has nothing to do with it - it is the performance on animals that really counts. Especially when making a difficult shot. I want a bullet that does a very clean humane harvest and one that I do not chase the animal after being shot. If a animal runs 100 yards after being shot the bullet and the shooter did not do their job. In all the animals that I have shot I can remember one 60 yard run by a big bull and that ticked me off but I was shooting a 308 at the time.

Proper expansion is a strong point but 'not the point' - I normally shoot a 45 cal bullet that expands to near 3/4" that is all it needs because that allows the bullet to continue to drive at a decent velocity and creates a tremendouse amount of Hydrostatic shock.... and normally exits the other side even on elk. I shoot another bullet that kinda doesn not expand at all it just leaves a 45 core of a bullet acting like a 'Keith Nose" that accomplishes the same thing by causing 'hyrostatic shock' - create enough internal shock and you will over ride the animals 'flight' response.

IMO only - there are much better bullets out there for harvesting game than Hornady - and again that is just my opinion - but I do not trust them and I do not want to track the results. I also would agree that a LOT of animals are harvested very well with Hornady's - I just don't want the one that isn't... Hornady went to the interlock for a reason.

Then asking another straight up question - has anybody had any experiance with a Sierra stripping? When I was big into centerfire hunting - after my experiances with the Hornady's I did switch to Sierra and I do not recall ever having a Sierra strip even from the Win Mag....

spaniel

The reason I brought up shape is that if you don't care about BC and don't plan on shooting much over 100yds, why is a SW/SST/FTX on the top of your list anyways? They are my main bullets but when I'm hunting closer situations there are other better options.

I'm just trying to put some real-world experience with the bullets on game into the discussion here. I've shot dozens and dozens of deer with these Hornaday bullets, I'd conservatively estimate 40, may be as high as 60 as I quit counting a long time ago. Typically 3-5 per year. I'm just saying your concern about their ability to fail and do a poor job putting down game don't manifest themselves in my experience. I have never lost one, and never had one go over 150 yds. I cut one's heart in half this year and because he was so close he covered about 100 yds at a dead run on adrenaline alone.

I'd be much pickier as to what I throw at an elk, but I have yet to find a ML bullet that would really cause me concern on deer. I think most of it is marketing and us trying to judge a bullet's performance based off tests that don't really replicated shooting animals very well (very tough to do!).

With so many good bullets, if you don't trust Hornadays you have plenty of options left ;D

sabotloader

spaniel

Believe me they are not on top of any of my lists... I just have a box and know I would never use them for hunting - so thought I would shoot them at paper - testing a BP conversion. I didn't know they had even came apart until two days later when I was out running another test and I looked in the shot trench and there it lay - right on top about 1/2 way up the trench.

I would also suggest that 200 yards is my personal high range - i do not do enough shooting at ranges longer than that to have the confidence go past that.

And honestly Andy i have no problem with them being your main bullets... they certainly would not be mine in a ML or a centerfire from the experiances I have had with them.

Why in the world would you even consider a bullet that allowed an animal to 150 yards a success. That is a lot of suffering that is not necessary. I can not stand an animal going more than 20 yards and even that ticks me off. I have hunted since a kid and i also have no idea of the number of deer I have shot, I know I am at 25 or 26 elk and yet the longest animal I have tracked that I can remember is 60 yards (other than one deer). Here you just can let an animal go far or you really could loose it in the terrain we hunt.

I certainly do not rate the bullet by the number of animals that I fail to find - I rate them by terminal performance -do they create enough internal damage to over ride - the flight response... 10-15 yards is enough distance for me. The deer I shot two years ago at 25 yards went about 5 ft - he did not have a heart lungs or anything in that cavity - it had all turned to jello - and the bullet did not hit all of those organs but it certainly casued a tramatic effect on them.

I have often heard of the deer death circle but have never seen it before except 2 or 3 years ago when I shoot a nice 5x5 Whitetail with a Hornady 300 grain XTP Mag @ 10-15 yards... He ran the circle - i guess that it what it was - we found him 300 yard down the gulley laying the the next skid road down. Now that I really felt bad about. There is no reason for that other than the bullet went straight through never slowed down enough to expand I guess - but he had two nice neat holes back of the shoulder and ahead of the diaphram.

I agree... that is exactly why I went to Sierra's in centerfire... the only reason I shot these FTX's was a guy gave them to me because they did not work that well for him. I figured I could always shoot them at paper, and heck! if I had not seen that one laying on the surface i would not have said a thing about it - but it just confirmed what I thought i already knew.

spaniel

Remember the differences in species and terrain we hunt. When you shoot a whitetail that knows you are there and is nervous, on flat, wide open fields, the blast of the shot will spook them and they take off at full speed. How long does it take a whitetail to run 100-150 yds at top speed? Just a few seconds, no unneeded suffering required. Like I said, my buck this year ran 100 yds and change with no recognizable heart left, lungs tore up, liver hit, and the bullet continuing to his back quarter. Nothing short of an RPG would have brought him down any faster. I once shot a button buck broadside from 6 FEET with a shotgun slug, liquifying the chest, and he made it 90 yards on adrenaline alone.

Perhaps out west where deer see fewer people they don't run as fast or far. My limited experience with muleys and whitetails in MT is that they seemed a lot "tamer" than our deer here, who are probably each spooked 3-4 times a day the beginning of the season and looking for an excuse to high-tail it.

Deer shot at longer ranges, where the sound of the shot does not give them the adrenaline shot and they are less sure of what is going on, typically don't run much at all. All of my 200yd+ shots have been DRT.

The only way around here to guarantee you won't have a deer run 100 or on occasion 150 yds (although shorter is more typical) is to anchor them with a shoulder shot, which I don't like to do as the meat damage is more. Bullet type doesn't make a significant difference. Since the deer would usually need to cover 400+ yds to get out of sight, it is not a concern for me.

lemoyne

Mike is that the FTX designed for the cartridge gun or the FTXml designed for muzzle loaders as a replacement for the SST?

sabotloader

Lee

10-4, but for me it makes no difference - I was just using it to make holes in paper and plywood. Can not imagine using any of the pointy's for hunting - I just do not shoot far enough. The 200 yard mark is my personal max and here in northern Idaho those shots are rare...

lemoyne

The reason I ask is because I was sent 250 of the Bushmaster design .452 -250 gr and I have not started to do any testing on them yet. It might make a difference on what I try to do with them. I do know the lead in ML version is softer and I am guessing that the 10-4 means they were the ML version. Lee