Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 30 cal bullet test, cow femurs and newspaper part 1

Good stuff. Thank you for taking the time to share.

I thought the barnes original would do better as would the 195gr bonded chinchaga. I was very impressed with the 168btip.

Was thinking the same. It would be not trick to drive that bullet at 2900 from my -06.

Expat

Thanks for posting all your hard work, I bet you had fun doing it. I really like how some of the lead bullets did like the 200 gr Partition, Accubond and Lapua Mega bullet, the 180 gr Swift and 168 gr Ballistic Tip. While I prefer lead core bullets, it is easy to see how a hunting load with the 168 gr Ballistic Tip and one of the mono bullets could do anything a guy would want.

Thanks for the results kman. Just picked up 100 of the 168 NBTs to run in my shamwow.

This.

Looking forward to part 2.


P

Curious to see how the 208 Amax does !

PART 2

I finished my test of what I had set out to do. Same exact test procedure as before, just did the bullets I was still missing.


Results

Bullet: .308 208gr Hornady AMAX
Penetration: 8.5"
Weight retention: 82.1gr (39.5%)
Expansion diameter: .956"
Impact speed: ~2800fps

Bullet: .308 180gr Nosler Ballistic Tip (OLD jacket as per picture posted above)
Penetration: 7.5"
Weight retention: 87.5gr (48.6%)
Expansion diameter: .720"
Impact speed: ~2900fps

Bullet: .308 180gr Winchester Power Point Factory load
Penetration: 7"
Weight retention: 103gr (57.2%)
Expansion diameter: .803"
Impact speed: ~2950fps

Bullet: .308 165gr Hornady GMX
Penetration: 14.5"
Weight retention: 164.6 (99.7%)
Expansion diameter: .657"
Impact speed: ~3100fps

I also tested the .375 270gr Barnes TSX and the .375 260gr Nosler Accubond. Same test conditions.

Bullet: .375 270gr Barnes TSX
Penetration: 22.5" (Blew all the petals off. Never would have thought that would happen.)
Weight retention: 169.4gr (62.7%)
Expansion diameter: .483"
Impact speed: ~2800fps

Bullet: .375 260gr Nosler Accubond
Penetration: 11.5"
Weight retention: 147.2gr (56.6%)
Expansion diameter: .706"
Impact speed: ~2800fps

Bullets L to R
.375 270gr Barnes TSX, .375 260gr Nosler Accubond, .308 208gr Hornady AMAX, .308 180gr Winchester Power Point, .308 180gr Nosler Ballistic Tip (OLD jacket), .308 165gr Hornady GMX

Many thanks from me too. I wonder if this place good use a "bullet tests" section so things like this would stick around a little longer.

All that said....I think the mind boggler is the little 55 grain gmx. It got as wide as some of the 308s and penetrated as far. to me this is a pretty stunning advancement in bullet performance. We always knew you could go to lighter wt monometals....but no one talks of dropping 3-4 calibers!!

The 165 GMX was impressive.

Agreed.

The old PowerPoint doesn't look so bad.

Awesome work! Love to see a 130 ttsx at 3000+

So the 168BT penetrated within a half inch of the 200 accubond? Wow

a+

Can't see a real clinker in the bunch.

Neat work - and a lot of it.

Thanks for sharin'.

Almost makes you wonder why bother going with the 200 accu vs the 168bt? Little better BC I suppose... I guess this is only one test, but it is a heck of a test!

I can't see much wrong with the way that 208 Amax performed as far as shooting the likes of deer or pigs goes.

Surprised me a bit.

Yeah, the two that kinda caught my attention were the A-Max (for what it did do), and the Barnes Original (for what it didn't do).

Thanks. Pretty neat results.