Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Favorite, (economical) big game bullets for 223 and 22-250?

I have and old BDL 22-250 with a 1-14 twist. Anybody know if the 50gr TTSX will stabilize with a 14 twist?

Greg

I have and old BDL 22-250 with a 1-14 twist. Anybody know if the 50gr TTSX will stabilize with a 14 twist?

Greg

I recently had a brief email exchange with a Sierra technician about the suitability of the SGK .224 65 grain bullet for hunting Whitetail Deer. The feedback was essentially that they were initially manufactured for an Australian company for use on Kangaroos. Afterwards this bullet was made available to the public in 2004. He noted that the SGK 65 grain is the toughest .224 bullet in the Sierra lineup.

I had the opportunity to cull a few feral goats today. I thought I'd test the three bullets I've been doing a lot of testing with of late, in the form of the Hornady 75g BTHP Match; the 65g Sierra Gameking and the 55g Gameking.

Luckily I got onto a couple of mobs in some brushy spots on a hill. None of the shots were further than 30y and the below were the results of 4 bullets I recovered from under the skin on the far shoulders of these fairly modest sized animals (between 25 and 35kg in weight)...

Retained weight is the first figure and expanded diameter is the second. There were two of the Hornady and one each of the 55 and 65g Sierras

75g Hornady:
1) 30g 0.504 2) 14g 0.420

55g Sierra GK
1) 14g 0.436

65g Sierra GK
1) 22g 0.462

Launch speeds of the bullets were 2750fps for the 75g, 3100 for the 55g and 2900 for the 65g, so impact speeds would not have been diminished much from those velocities.

Here's what the recovered bullets looked like; 2 x Hornadys at left, 55g SGK at centre and the 65g Sierra on the right.



Kind of surprised the Hornadys did not exit, given in wet newspaper testing they've penetrated a lot further than the other bullets. Then again animal skin is so tough and elastic, it it amazing how well it pulls up bullets of all sorts when their speed has been slowed down by going through a couple of shoulders.

Not sure what may be deduced from these results. Pretty harsh tests on little bullets: close range double shoulder bone shots. All bullets killed well though.

Thanks.

- Bob