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

Very nformative post to say the least !
Sounds like you are plent busy already BUT if you find time I sure would be interested in seeing what the 60 Grain .223 Nosler partition would do at 3000-3100.

Thanks again for the post
Craig

The tsx's and noslers are still the way to go for penetration it seems.

Man, this is a great thread. I saved it to my favorites so I don't forget where it is.

Super interesting and enlightening! Confirms all that I've read about monolithic bullets, pretty impressive difference between them and the rest.

Kman, I was talking about hunting moose as a "labour of love"" in another thread, and this is right on up there!
I'll chime in and say great work and most importantly thanks for sharing your results with everyone here-I know it's appreciated. Keep up the good work.
I know they beefed up the b-tip for the 338 cal but didnt know they had done the same with sub 338 cals. Also what's up with the grand slams,(165g), seems like they really took a step back on that one! Disappointing considering they're touting it like the premiun bullet that it once was with dual cores.

Awesome thread, Kman! Muchas gracias!!!

Eric

This was a great piece of work. I played with the numbers to do a comparison of penetration to published SD and then to the SD of the recovered bullet after the shot. Makes it clear to me that published SD is NOT an indicator of penetration. Bullet construction, as seen by the recovered bullet SD (how far it opened and how well it retained weight) directly correlates to penetration. (Note: the slope of the curve, not the fact that it's overlaying the penetration shows the correlation). I probably should have left the 80 TTSX and 55 GMX off as they were a slightly different test.

Changed chart.

Part 4 338 bullets

I tested the 300gr Berger OTM, 300gr Sierra Match King, 285gr Hornady BTHP, 265gr Barnes LRX and the 250gr Nosler Partition Gold (they no longer make these, where moly coated and have longer shanks than current partitions). I will test the remaining 250gr Sierra Match King and the 250gr Hornady BTHP along with some 6.5 bullets later this fall.


L to R: 250gr Nosler Partition Gold, 250gr Sierra Match King, 250gr Hornady BTHP, 285gr Hornady BTHP, 300gr Sierra Match King, 300gr Berger OTM, 265gr Barnes LRX


L to R: 300gr Berger OTM, 300gr Sierra Match King, 285gr Hornady BTHP, 265gr Barnes LRX, 250gr Nosler Partition Gold


L to R: 300gr Berger OTM, 265gr Barnes LRX, 250gr Nosler Partition Gold




Results

Bullet: 300gr Berger OTM
Penetration: 15.5"
Weight retention: 165.2gr (55.1%)
Expansion diameter: .840" (HUGE wound channel)
Impact speed: ~2750fps

Bullet: 300gr Sierra Match King
Penetration: 11"
Weight retention: 121.6gr (40.5%)
Expansion diameter: Broke in half
Impact speed: ~2750fps

Bullet: 285gr Hornady BTHP (Match)
Penetration: 9"
Weight retention: 19.3gr (6.8%)
Expansion diameter: N/A
Impact speed: ~2800fps

Bullet: 265gr Barnes LRX
Penetration: 19"
Weight retention: 256.8gr (96.9%)
Expansion diameter: .763"
Impact speed: ~2840fps

Bullet: Nosler Partition Gold
Penetration: 16"
Weight retention: 194.1gr (77.6%)
Expansion diameter: .667"
Impact speed: ~2925fps

Just for fun I also tested my 44 Magnum 1894 Marlin shooting 265gr wheel weight cast Ranch dog mold with gas check bullets. Same test as all the others.



0.340" Meplat (aka flying trash can)


[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/Kman338/20130810_172650_zpsc84e0ee0.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/Kman338/20130810_172638_zps1dbce40f.jpg[/img]

Bullet: 265gr Ranch Dog (ww air cooled)/gas check
Penetration: 22"
Weight retention: 168.7gr (63.6%)
Expansion diameter: .701"
Impact speed: ~1700fps

Thanks for looking.

Any of the new Nosler ALRs slated for testing? This is really good stuff. Thank you, mtmuley

Kman, you came up with the goods again!

Thanks.

Outstanding write up! Thanks for the hard work. I like the pistol bullet, big, fat and slow gets over looked these days for sleek and fast. I am really liking to looks of the Berger bullets now, I might have to brake down and try em.

Great thread....these media tests seem to consistently show the same things.....Barnes and Partitions out penetrate everything else.

I use whichever shoots best in my rifle. PT or TSX both solid performers.

Thanks for the comments. I am incredibly pleased with the way the 300gr OTM performed. The wound channel was absolutely incredible and the bullet held together. That 300gr OTM beat every single 30 cal and 375 bullet I tested, for wound channel and penetration, and only a few barnes that blew petals off penetrated deeper. Needless to say the barnes shanks had no wound channel to speak of.

I am waiting for the .264 129gr nosler long range accubond and will test it when I find some along with 140gr berger vlds and the new hybrid version. Will post my results as usual. I will also test both those .264 bullets at 500 yards and see what they do but that won't be until the lakes are frozen in the winter.

Thanks again for the kind comments.

Kind of shocked how poorly the 200 gr. Speer .308 performed. I have used it in Africa and here in the states and they performed perfectly for me, Hmmmmm.

Could have been an anomaly.

One would expect it to at least hold together as well as the 208 Amax. At least I would.

Bullets do some strange things in these tests. Eg I did two separate wet newspaper tests with the same bullet, but used two different impact speeds to simulate close and longer range impacts. At the lower speed, the same bullet shed more weight and penetrated less, the opposite of what was expected.

This is why more testing is great for verifying results. It also explains a lot of incidents where bullets don't act the way you think they will on game.

Impressive test. I have killed a couple elk and a bear with the 200gr sierra SPBT. 30-06 2600fps muzzle velocity. The 2 elk where both about 200yrds, the bear 150yrds. My conclusion, They need more impact velocity to get good expansion. All three needed follow up shots to speed up the death process.

Very informative tests. Thanks for posting this and doing the tests. The info is great. There were a few that surprised me on their performance; both good and not so good.

Reno

The all copper (or whatever alloy) look like they are the best cutters.