Home Forums Lever Action Central Big Bore Levers 348 Winchester Bullet Test...6 bullets at high and low speed.

Ok Today I went out early and shot 6 different 348 bullets into wet newsprint at velocities to simulate 50 yards and 200-300 yards. It was an interesting and surprising test.



A bullet I like is the 200 Flextip. It shoots well in my Win 71 (2MOA) keeps 1700fps out to 300 yards and has the best trajectory of the bullets I have used by 2-3 " or so at again 300 yards. I worried it might be overly explosive but thought the long shank would help. Turns out that it does and the bullet actually has pretty controlled expansion.



The 200 Flextip penetrated 9 inches when driven at 2350 ft/sec( 6 of wet news print then 3" into dry catalogues and phone-books). It retained nearly 90 grains of weight and hung onto some core. At 1800fps it hung onto 158.6 grains and started expanding but the core is actually a bit hard and this bullet has less violent expansion than I thought it would.

The 200 Hornady FN. I have been taking for granted. Actually it did fairly well. It hung onto 97.4grains at high speed, and 183.3 at low. It penetrated better that the A-Frame and actually expanded better than the Flex-Tip at 1800ft/sec. Wound channels were not that impressive how-ever but it actually seems like a good all round choice.




The 200 silvertip I haven't taken a picture of but it comes apart at high speed and barely expands at low. It is seen in my video. The 200 A-Frame is remarkable. It expands nearly the same at 2350 and 1800fps,(Alert..damn..I accidently mixed up a round on this one and the low speed H4895 was accidently substituted with a full power H414 load which would have been going about 2500fps... sorry will retest) Penetration is good, but the wide expansion at all speeds limits it to a bit less penetration than the 200 Hornady. I am sure though that it would be better on tough bone. Very well built bullet, relaible +++++



Of course I was wrong about the A-Frame. I mixed up a 2500ft/sec round that I was testing for accuracy with the 1800fps one. Went out tonight and tested the 1800fps (estimated) round. It expanded much less, but still made a fairly good wound channel. Penetration increased and the bullet ran nice and straight with no tumbling. Average penetration is almost as good as the Woodleigh with adding this bullet.



The 220 Barnes Original penetrates about the same as the 200 A-Frame. It will core separate once the jacket has expanded past the cannelure but this is always after pretty good penetration. The soft core and jacket really open up nicely and this was the best expander of the test. Great wound channels.



The 250 woodleigh was the best penetrator. Interestingly one at low speed began to tumble and wrecked itself (though still weighing 197.2 grains. This is due in part because I load the bullet down to simulate long range and lose some rotational speed and stability. Good bullet for Bison... I think though I'll go 200 A-Frame or 220 Barnes for moose.


Video here if you want to see more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OaJcGjEBfo

Here is the 250 Woodleigh..forgot to post it above

Hell of a nice test North, I appreciate it greatly, I bought an old '71 deluxe from BSA here at the 'fire, my Gunsmith had 4 boxes of the old Barnes 250 gr bullets, i bought them because they were there and he sold them at the very fair price of 20 bucks a box out the door.

I developed my load with them using RL-17 powder for a vel of 2350 fps, they shoot good through the factory bolt peep, I've only shot one deer with this combo, IIRC the wt deer was around 55 yards, hit it in the shoulder, it dropped with a complete bullet pass through, so I didn't get to recover one for examination and weighing.

When I get these shot up, I'll more than likely develop a new load using the 250 gr Woodleighs.

The Woodleigh is a good bullet. Going to retest the A-Frame tonight. I accidently substituted my full power load at 2500fps for the light load at 1800fps. Wondered why the slower round had such a good wound channel and bulged the bullet back of the A-Frame when compared to the 2350fps load tested! Sorry about that. My you-tube video is going to be harder to set right.

I'll watch the youtube video when i have time to take a few notes, at the same time I'll be wishing that Swift would make a 250 gr A-Frame, talk about a ball peen hammer headed bone punch!

The A-Frame has a nice thin jacket at the opening to promote expansion but it tapers nicely to support a big mushroom... hard to imagine better construction.

North,
Nice job on the tests!
Thank goodness I am through trying different types 0f bullets in my .405 rifles! I know what works and am sticking with it.
I am just now about to drop charges of N133 into 20 cases before seating 400 grain .411 Woodies. Then off to the range to see if my .405 double likes any of the loads ( 1800, 1900, and 2000 fps).
If so, I will post the results. if not, it will be back to the drawing board.

A 405 double would be quite the rig for North America. How does it regulate?

The double is regulated with 300 grain Hornady spire point bullets at 2100 fps and does this at 100 yards:
with peep sight -


With scope sight-


In my 1895 .405, the 400 grain bullets shoot about 4 inches lower than the 300 grain bullets at 100 yards, so rather than the six o'clock hold used for the 300 grains, I just put the bead on what I want to hit and it works great(especially for big critters). If this holds true for the double, I will be quite pleased!

You guys got it going on with all things 348W North, I need to get busy and swat a timber elk with mine, I'd feel completely comfortable doing so with the old heavy jacketed Barnes 250 grainer out to 200 yards or so.

[/quote]You guys got it going on with all things 348W North, I need to get busy and swat a timber elk with mine, I'd feel completely comfortable doing so with the old heavy jacketed Barnes 250 grainer out to 200 yards or so.[/quote]

Based on the performance of the 220 Barnes I bet the 250 would be a great low speed expander!

thanks for all the work and for posting the pics here.

Charlie

You are welcome...I am surprised at the number of projectiles available for the 348. Things are looking much better than when Ken Waters did his Pet Loads article. Too bad Winchester didn't make brass on a more regular basis. Finally found some privately and it was priced according to it's scarcity.

I have a few hundred Win brass. But, Jamison is good brass, too, and available all the time. Note that Jamison has a tad less volume, so watch your powder load.

I find I have to cut loads down quite a bit in the Jamieson brass. Just got 163 rounds of mostly new 348 Brass from Winchester in the mail. Ought to keep me shooting a while.

Must be fairly old as it's loaded in the 20 round cardboard boxes originally labelled at 12.95 a box.

Great test, the hornadys and FTX both did better than I would have expected. The silvertip did as expected, stopped using it years ago. I narrowed my bullet choice to the Woodleigh and Swift A-frame, but in my rifle the Woodleigh was by far the most accurate. Have recoved 250 Woodleighs from 2 moose and they have performed perfectly. Thanks for posting! When Wincester made a run of 200gr Power points a couple years ago, bought a good supply for when hunting in area's without brown bears, so far haven't used any. Curious what anyones experience with the Power points has been?

I will add my voice to the chorus...thank you for your time and effort doing these tests. Not many of us still shooting a .348 so your tests are very much appreciated!

It was fun to do this test and a pleasure to talk to find people interested in this. Believe me when I say my friends and family are completely uninterested. I can actually hear crickets chirping when I bring it up!

The Hornady's are thin jacketed enough that the jacket can split releasing the core. Thy usually do fairly well though. The Woodleigh can also suffer a jacket split but the core still stays attached so weight retention is guaranteed. The A-Frame seems absolutely reliable but doesn't shoot as well as the Woodleigh, which is the most accurate bullet in my rifle as well.

I have found by throttling down the speed on the Hornady 200 FN's to 2400fps I have them shooting about 2 inches higher than the Woodleighs. I think I'll use these two loads and practice and caribou hunt with the cheaper Hornady FN's and use the 250's at 2250 for Moose and Bison.

My turn to say thank you for your tests. I just bought my first 71, 1937 long tang with the bolt peep. I think that you just saved me a ton of work!

My pleasure but shooting these 71's is so much fun that I don't deprive you of your own experimentation.