Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting First deer with Hammer Blackout bullet

Steve at Hammer Bullets more or less challenged me to be the first one to kill a deer with their new CNC turned .300 Blackout 101 grain bullet. My Blackout is a little indisposed at this time so I ussed Son John's Kimber 84 18" barrel .308. I worked up approximately an MOA load with an average velocity of 3,341 feet per second for about ten or twelve shots. The last two groups at 100 yards were both 7/8” for three shots. I verified the sighting by firing a 300 yard five shot group of 3 ½” centered around the crosshair. No need to mess with it further.

I went to my favorite deer hunting place and headed up. Not long after entering the woods I saw movement! I stopped. I made the movement as two bucks just inside the woods maybe fifty feet above me slowly going up the hill. Then I lost them. Silently, due to the wet forest, I hurried forward in line with a tree so they would not see me. I looked around it and figured they would not be more than sixty to seventy yards away. Where are they?! I couldn’t find them. In order to get a clear shot below the hanging branches and twigs I layed down. I flipped up the scope covers to be ready. I searched for them by looking over the top of the scope. Alas, I still couldn’t find them.

Finally after what seemed like an hour but was maybe a minute or two I saw them. I switched off the safety and got ready for either one to give me a shot. The first one was past the opening before I could shoot. But a moment later the front part of the second one was visible. I aimed low very close to the shoulder. It was angling forward but almost broadside. At the shot the deer turned and headed down hill toward me. It fell about forty yards away, but was still moving so I fired again.

I measured it from back to brisket at 14”. A small buck by local standards. Before I started to gut it I thought due to the steepness of the hill I was going to have a whale of a hard time getting it back to the road. Then I realized I could drag it down the hill instead of the direction from which I came and work along a grassy gentle slope to the road.

I moved it away from where it was hung up and began dragging it. Immediately it caught up to me, hit my leg knocking me to me down. Both of us continued sliding. Being the smartest guy on the hill I rolled away for fear I could get stabbed by the flailing antlers. Every once in a while it would get hang up on something and need a little coaxing. That was the easiest “drag” I ever did. When I was near the road but back from it far enough for passersby not to see, I gutted it. Then I brought the pickup to it. How sweet it is!

At home I skinned it. What a discovery! The outside gave no indication what devastation the little solid copper Hammer Bullets .300 Blackout 101 grain bullets wrought. The first bullet impacted at the back of the near shoulder. It literally appeared as though a small grenade went off in the shoulder. Amazingly the first bullet didn’t even make it to the first lung. But it was severely damaged. Surprisingly under the shoulder all the ribs were broken. The second shot hit the spine a few inches back and made a hole about 2” by 4”. All nearby ribs were also broken. This little Blackout bullet was not designed for 800 feet per second faster than a .300 Blackout can fire them.

When the buck was hooked up at the processor a bullet fell to the pavement. I was delighted to recognized by the turned waves it was one of the Hammer Bullets. The petals were gone but it was still mushroomed. It measured .440” by .378”. Later I weighed it: 65.4 grains. My simpleminded thought is, That’s about 65%.

A mono-metal bullet that doesn't hold together and fails to reach the vitals on a smaller than average buck at less than 100 yards?

Wow, now there's a winner...

i know you have a hard time reading, but did you see the part where he was driving it 800 fps faster than it would go out of the rifle it was designed for ?

That's the funniest part....

I realize you're trying to be funny, and failing at it, but you do realize that the harder you push a mono-metal bullet, the deeper it should penetrate, right? If the petals strip off, as he said, then you should essentially have a caliber diameter solid. Take the little 110 TAC-X that is designed to operate in the .300BO and drive it 800-1000 fps faster than those velocities via the .308 Winchester - wanna lay odds as to whether it would penetrate to the vitals on a smaller than average buck, petals intact or not?

Steve was very curious how the bullet would perform fired from the .308. Now we know.

Yeah, it performed like schit.

Ballistic gelatin might have given him a clue - hint.

If he's going to compete in the mono-metal market, he needs a bullet that behaves like a mono-metal bullet ought to. The "oh, it's 800 fps too fast" thing ain't gonna work when the Barnes equivalent for the .300BO is also spec'D with load data for .300 magnums.