Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Target/Hunting Bullet for lower velocity 6.5

I have a newer 260 rem in a Tikka CTR. I have been working up loads with 140 Amax's, but am looking for one bullet to use for both shooting steel at 1k, and for hunting from 50 out to 500 or so.

Game will be deer, Mouflon and Aoudad, hogs.

Velocity wise, I can get better than 2750 with the Amax's, but have been shooting them at 2700.

I considered trying the 140 LRAB, as it seems like it might be perfect, even if the BC is probably in the lower 600's, not 7's as advertised. But I am reading too many comments about how unbelievably soft these are so that they will open way out there, so I am concerned about that, even though my velocities will be moderate. When I talked to Nosler, they warned me about being careful about how hard you push them as the tech said they are so soft that the ogive is easily deformed, leading to poor accuracy.

Amax's would be great, they shoot well and are cheap. But reading online, I can't find a consensus on whether they will blow up or just pencil through!

Berger..I just talked with them. Having bought a box of 140 Match Hybrids, they don't recommend it. The tech says some people find them to work, others, they just pencil through. He recommended either shooting into a shoulder bone (don't like that, wastes meat) or trading/selling them and trying either the 140 VLD hunting (with it's finicky seating depth) or trying the new 130 Hybrid AR.

All in all, for target shooting, I want a high BC that will keep me supersonic to 1k at least, maybe 1250 as one class I will take this fall goes to 1250. For hunting, I like a bullet that will pass through, leaving a decent hole. I don't like ruining too much meat, but a pin size hole going through is not good either.

Maybe there just is no way to get both, I don't know. But if that's the case, I'll have target bullets for long range shooting, but then have to resight to hunt with another load. But I'd definitely prefer a solution to cover both, if possible.

Thanks!

I'd run the Amax and call it a day.

The A-Max will work, but I have not found Berger Hunting VLD's nearly as hard to get to shoot well as many people seem to. In a chamber where the lands aren't longer on one side of the throat than the other, they usually shoot well just just slightly shy of the lands. I have also found them to work very well on game, in exactly the way Berger suggests: They penetrate a couple of inches before even starting to expand, whether on skin or bone, then do massive damage to the internal organs.

The 139 Scenar runs circles around all other 140-142 class bullets I've tried, including the 140 A-Max, 142 HPBT MK and 142 LRAB.

Are you talking for accuracy or killing or both??..

Accuracy. I have not killed with them yet, but have followed the annals of ScenarShooter in that regard.

I hear the Scenars are a fairly "hard" bullet on lungs and such, even though many here hunt with them to good effect. Sounds like they are good penetrators though.

LRI is barreling me a 6.5x47L today and I really like the looks of the LRAB as a bullet that is fairly sleek, fairly soft, yet not prone to absolute nuking on hard impacts.

This is particularly good news, as I already have a good load that works in this rifle with the amax's, and I would prefer to just stick with it.

What are it's characteristics and your impressions of how it should be used...in otherwords, with impact velocities between probably 2700 and maybe 2000 fps, would you charactize this as a fast expander needing to avoid bone or deep penetration shots, slow expander needing some hardness to open, or just generally in the middle like an interlock?

Or would you say it is worth developing a load and changing over to the Berger hunting VLD overall?

In my 260 Rem I have yet to find anything the 129 Hornady Spire won't do well.

Mark in GA

Try the 130 Berger Hunting VLD.

In my experience the 2700 fps you're getting is very good for A-Maxes, especially for general hunting of the size game you're after. That velocity range is why all sorts of moderate 6.5's have long had a good reputation for consistent performance on game, because it doesn't put much strain on the bullet.

They've always seemed to me to perform more like the SST than the Interlock, so you might want to avoid bone or angling shots on the first few animals and see what the results are. That's what I tend to do when first trying a new-to-me bullet, or even bullets I'm familiar with when tried in a different cartridge. A lot of people think all bullets of a specific brand/type act the same, but bullet companies often tweak certain bullets depending on what cartridge they're mostly use in.

They're soft, though at those velocities you'll have no issues with the game that you stated. They will penetrate through shoulders on deer without much fuss however, you will lose a bit of meat. On soft tissue hits (lungs) they're awesome and depending upon how large the deer are and whether or not you hit bone, will determine how big the exit hole will be. I would expect anywhere from 1in diameter up to soft ball.



For your stated use I would shoot the 140gr AMAX mad start filling arks.

Form, what do you recommend for basketball sized exits?]

Perfect, thanks for the info. I have used SST's only one time in the past out of my 270. They made a bit too much of a mess for me, but they were going 400 fps faster and the shot was at about 30 yards.

At 400 fps slower, and it should work out nicely, so I'll give these a try this season to (hopefully!) see how they work out.

Thanks for the help!

Why not try the Berger 130 VLD? Both target version and hunting.

I am shooting the 105 berger hybrid in my 243. It is extremely accurate, and I have shot 2 deer, 1 antelope, and a bunch of coyote with it. It opens up well on all, from 25yds to 450yds.I bet the 6.5s would work equally well. Shooting at 2950 fps.

I may do that, but as I already have a working load with Amax's, I'd love for those to work.

That said, if I decide to go with another load, I will probably go with the 140 hunting VLD's. I don't have to push those very hard to meet my goals, which is a similar drift to a 300 win mag using a 180 accubond.

But again, if the Amax's prove unsuitable for some reason, the Bergers will be my next stop, and frankly, probably should have been my first.

My suggestion is to spend some time looking at pictures of expanded Swift Scirocco IIs on this here internet thing. The 130gr 6.5 has a .571 BC, so it'll stay fast way out there. The SII holds together at high impact velocities, typically retaining high 9X% weight. I've seen one or two guys comment that the SII, because it mushrooms so well and retains the expanded geometry of its mushroom, rather than the lead washing away and leaving a smaller core as it does on ABs and Partitions, may in some cases not penetrate as far as those do, but it's also retaining almost all its weight to continue driving that mushroom. I've never heard of a Swift bullet coming apart.

Especially for hogs encountered at close range, I'd also look into the 120gr TTSX. It won't have the legs of the SII and various 140s, but you won't have to worry about it hitting Mr. Piggie too fast to get the job done.

According to Bryan Litz's tests, the 130 Scirocco II has an actual G1 ballistic coefficient of .517 at 6.5x55 velocities.

I have used (or perhaps should say tried to use) a bunch of SII's over the years in calibers from 6mm to .30, and have found them far harder to get to shoot than, say, Berger VLD's. Sometimes you luck out and it's relatively easy to find a good-shooting load. One of my .243's loves the 90-grain SII, and several other rifles will shoot them OK. But finding the sort of accuracy commonly found with Bergers, A-Max's, Sierras or a bunch of other bullets is, in my experience, not exactly common.

Don't be surprised if you have an occasional shoulder splash with an Amax.