Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Sierra... Why no premium bonded bullets?

Am I uninformed or behind the times? Does Sierra have them?

I was reading on some other forum that Sierra prefers to focus on accuracy and that manufacturing premium bonded bullets is not conducive to super accuracy.

I have not got a clue...

Whats the truth?

Not a gun writer but thye sell everything they produce and the premium bullet market is saturated.

You want the truth?

See rule #1

"Questions From You
When is Sierra going to make a premium bullet?
All Sierra bullets are premium bullets or they wouldn't shoot as well as they do. But the answer to your question is no, we don't intend to offer an enhanced construction bullet. The key to proper bullet performance for conventionally constructed bullets is to select the proper bullet in the first place. It makes absolutely no sense to use a rifle capable of clean kills at 600 yards to harvest animals at 75 to 150 yards. Furthermore to expect a bullet to perform well at 100 yards and the accompanying high impact velocity then ask that same bullet to exactly duplicate that performance at 600 yards and the drastically reduced impact velocities is asking way too much. There is a point there where the shooter has to stop and think about what he is trying to accomplish. And as is so often the case, it is far too easy to over-specialize and become woefully ineffective in one or the other phase of performance criteria." Rich

http://www.sierrabullets.com/resources/x-ring-newsletter/index.cfm/xid/28/That-First-Gun/

To paraphrase rule 1. It states that a player shall play the ball from the teeing grounds to the hole through a stroke or series of strokes with a club.
I don't get the connection to premium bullets.

B -

according to some, ' any ole bullet ' in the vitals will kill. No need for premium.

Jerry

Why offer the bullets that will be shot at African/exotic big game when you can own the market of bullets used to work up all those loads? Lots more volume because it takes a bunch of shooting to get accurate loads narrowed down. (And you can use Sierras to hunt most American game,)

This is a good point. Sierra bullets are also priced very well, which helps, no doubt.

If you check the descriptions of the various bullets on the Sierra website, you'll find recommendations as to the suitability of each bullet for specific puposes. Many of the Pro Hunter slugs feature heavy and/or tapered jackets that help them hold together, but limit their usefulness as game bullets in small-capacity cartridges. I've used the 165gr .308 HP on several deer with excellent results and plan to try the 100gr 6mm PH on deer next season. I sectioned one of 6mms and found, as claimed, a jacket that gets quite thick towards the base. Reviews on this bullet, posted on the Midway site, indicate that it penetrates very well.

I've killed a few deer with NPs and like them very much (especially when I find them as cheap blems and overruns), but ordinary bullets work just fine too as long as you don't ask them to do stuff they're not designed for.

A PH friend of mine owns a big sportings goods store in Kimberley, South Africa. They sell a bunch of different kinds of factory ammo, but also a lot of handloading components, though American-made bullets cost about twice as much as they do here, regardless of brand. (Or at least that was true the last time I was in the store.)

A few of the bullets are "premiums" made over there, but the two most popular brands are Nosler Partitions and Sierra GameKings/ProHunters. The Sierras are most popular in heavier weights for the caliber, and often used by meat hunters who shoot game for sale at local markets, because they allow more profit. I got to know several of those guys while there for a month one year, and they have no problems taking the bigger, tougher plains game species with Sierras--though of course they're very good shots and don't take the tougher-angle shots American hunters over for a week or two often choose to.

" but ordinary bullets work just fine too as long as you don't ask them to do stuff they're not designed for."


That, in a nutshell, says it all.

And I am a huge Barnes fan, having used Barnes exclusively for big game, and in my 22 Hornet on coyotes, since 1992.

Do they have to pay $1600 trophy fees if one gets away...

I find that to be a remarkably short sided business approach. I do find Sierra Matchkings fly well. However, I also found that 215 Gamekings don't open (at all) at reasonable speeds and Sierras engineering was rather lacking in that example.

No, they wouldn't, because normally half of a trophy fee goes to the landowner, and half to the safari company. And even then animals considered real trophies aren't taken on meat culls.

But some of the animals are indeed mature males (or in the instance of gemsbok, females) who don't qualify as trophies because of a missing or deformed horn. And the landowner might charge some sort of fee for animals wounded and lost, because the meat is part of his profit too. And a wounded and lost 500+ pound animal represents a big chunk of change to a local biltong hunter or professional culler.

So no, they're not using Sierras because they hope they'll work.

In the interests of helping this thread wander a bit...

I've found at times that the concept of using premiums (Partitions for example) to compensate for less than ideal shot angles can be a wobbly one.

Quite often taking a shot at a big pig, with a 3/4 quartering away shot or similar with a NPT or Accubond, I've regretted it. Usually I've thought later I'd have been just as well off with a NBT or Interlock, and far better off waiting for a side or front-on shot.


(Not a GW; just a hick from the sticks.)

I'm a hick from the states..... bobnob not directed at you. Just using the opportunity to rant...

There has to be at least a psychological difference between an African or Australian cull hunt where game is so abundant that it needs to be "culled" in the first place...and a hunt where a selective hunter is restricted by law or conscious or pocket book to take a single representative specimen he may have hunted a while for, and also waited several years for the opportunity...possibly in a lifetime he may get to do it once.

This is hard for some folks from Cull Country to grasp when it comes to shot selection. Personally I never considered premium bullets to be instruments utilized in case something went "wrong",since bad shot are simply that....bad shots regardless of bullets .

And I never understood the attitude some have that reliable expansion and some extra penetration ( the REAL advantages of premium bullets regardless how it's accomplished) is some how a "bad" thing and anyone using them is a reckless nut. This is twisted logic.

So, I never regarded a mildly angling shot (coming or going) as the least bit risky with a bullet suited to the task.

I guess some Sierra's are capable of this, while some are not and therein lies the difficulty in choosing...which is why after using some and watching others perform, I shoot the hell out of them on paper and varmints but leave them home on BG hunts.That they do not make a premium is of no concern to me. I like them anyway for certain things.

I will leave the experiments and frugality to the cull hunters. We aren't playing the same game...at all.

Bob, in the last few/many years I've become what I consider much less of a culler and more of a "hunter". The joy of shooting 40 pigs under a spotlight over a crop in a couple of hours wore off many many years ago.

And with life getting busier, my opportunities are becoming a little more limited of late...

I've no doubt there's a different mentality Bob, as I feel I've trodden both paths. The pursuit and dispatching of a desirable animal with a single, well placed shot is a lot more satisfying.

But I explain this to some of my mates and they look at me like I have two heads...

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbth...s/4237948/Re_sierra_gameking_vs_prohunte

So the Pro Hunters with a lesser B/C are a tad tougher than the Game-Kings and prone to a tad better accuracy out to 300 yards etc.????

I don't.

Sierra's reputation was built upon accurate bullets. Bonded bullets are inherently less accurate than a traditional cup and core design.

Sierra is just choosing to play to their strengths as opposed to trying to be all things to all people.

Sierra doesn't produce anything that can touch the Partition in it's niche, and Nosler still can't touch the SMK.

P,

What cartridge, impact velocity and game etc have you been shooting when using the 215 SGKs that weren't opening?

I'm assuming you're talking about the .338 cal version?

Could be the 215 was designed for 338 Win Mag speeds since that's clearly a far more popular 338 than the Federal. I don't see that as a failure of Sierra engineering. Increased speed and rpm's still count with some designs.