Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Fast twist = faster death?

Now I wanna try a 1-3" twist .223AI and see how it would do on squirrels with a 40 vmax.

I'm used to you punching me. So it wouldn't matter.



Travis

I'll see your 1-3" 223 AI and raise you a 250 Savage AI tapped to 1/4"x20 NC. Do you reckon fouling will be an issue?

Make sure you order a 3 groove PacNor as it solves any potential issues that might arise.

Yes there is a difference. May be noticeable and may not be depending on target, bullet and just how different the twist is.


In both ballistic testing and extensive use in animals, differences in twist can be seen. Now with some bullets out off 223's you can see the difference in small animals like Prairie dogs, coyotes, etc., but normally not on bigger animals such as deer. Monos do seem to be more consistent, or I should say show less inconsistencies with faster twists. Granted the differance between a 1/12in and 1/14in is slight, but between a 1/12in and 1/7in does show a difference with some bullets.


With most bullets it's hard to see a differance on bigger game like deer, but you can recreate the same as with 22's and varmints by using big varmint bullets. As an example- the 30cal Hornady 178gr Amax is really a big varmint bullet. It can produce very graphic wounds on deer when started around 3,000 FPS and normal 1/10 twists. With the same impacts velocity using 1/8in twist barrels wounds are noticeably bigger. Have done crop damage with two identical rifles using that bullet with the only difference being twist rate- 1/8 and 1-10. There is no mistaking which did what when looking at the deer. We're not talking a couple of animals either. Well into three figures with both. Anyone that looked at the animals could tell the differance between them, and the butcher even could figure out which was which.



There are no downsides to faster twists. However slight the differances may be, they are real, have been proven in ballistic testing and sometimes can be seen in tissue.


I'll take fast twists please.

Hammer forged or button rifled?

Bingo.

This is not a "new" conversation and guys like Billy Steigers at Bitterroot did the testing and proved this stuff 30+years ago. (A lot of posters were not around for that) If you bought the bullets,and used fast twists, you saw the results.

Velocity matters; twist matters. In conjunction they both contribute to bullet expansion and will help expand tough hunting bullets. If you want to see the chest cavity of a bull elk reduced to pudding,start 165 Bitterroot from a 300 mag at 3300 fps in a 9 twist barrel ( if you have any).

I don't shoot Barnes only because I don't need them (I have BBC's). But I have a funny feeling a lot of the erratic results people have seen has been a result of too little velocity and too little twist resulting in the bullets not staying point on in the animal,and not enough force to cause expansion of tough jackets.I spoke with Steigers about this very thing years ago when the Barnes first came out...he said people will drive them too slow,won't use enough twist, and have expansion problems. Turns out, he was right.

Fast twist will help keep the bullet point-on as it travels through an animal and encounters different levels of resistance(hide,bone,flesh,fat,muscle etc) and will help facilitate more rapid expansion with tough bullets,provided the bullet is made of the right materials.

It will also tear up thinner jacket designs (like what Formid explains above),and what the varmint hunters are seeing.


If I used monos I'd drive them fast and use a faster twist for consistent results.If all we ever used was standard C&C bullets from standard twist,we might never see much difference....but if you use a tough premium and shoot them into enough animals, the differences in twist will show up.

It's no accident that guys are getting a lot of wounding effect from long, heavy target bullets of high BC,and at distance as well.....these bullets are all being started from very fast twist barrels.

The RPM formula will show some dramatic differences when a fast twist barrel is employed.

Here are a few examples of rifles my friend and I have:

1 in 7 30" STW 160 at 3375 = 347,142
1 in 7 twist 30" rem mag 140 accubond @ 3410 = 350,742 rpm
1 in 7 twist 30" rem mag 180 vld @ 2950 = 303,328
1 in 9 26" 7 RUM 180 berger vld @ 3100 = 260,000

The Berger 115 VLD has been known to come apart with the necessary twist of 1 in 7.5
6mm-284 1 in 7.5 105 berger hybrid 3445 fps= 330,732 RPM
6mm-284 1 in 7.4 115 VLD 3250fps =312,000 RPM

This...

Soup...that looks nice!

This is where these conversations always go. The slow twist crowd stating they can have the same results with their rifles.

But that is not apples to apples.

What is being asked by the OP is if other people have seen a difference between a standard twist and "fast" twist, all things being equal.

People that have similar rifles (with the exception of twist rate) shooting similar loads will see a difference in terminal performance. The smaller the test media the more evident it becomes.

That does not mean a 1-14" Swift shooting 40gr bullets @ 4300fps won't flip a prairie dog. It simply means if you shoot a 1-12" twisted .223 against a 1-8" .223 (as long as everything else is equal) the shooter will more than likely notice the faster twist flings and flies schit more better.

Not exactly a reason to choose a faster twist in and of itself, it's just an observation made by those that have rifles in both twist rates.



Clark

This is purely a case of " the perception is the reality"...

We can take a poll at the next PD Invitational. First morning with a 1-12" .223, and the second morning with a 1-8".

The decision will be unanimous. Minus the host of course...



Travis

I have 223AIs .....one in 12 twist, one in 8 twist. They both like 50 vmax...same load. I will check them on gophs this spring side by side and see which one kills stuff more deader.

Who is "we"?

There is no Travis in "we"...

Like feeding a stray dog, you can't get rid of me that easily.




Travis

O.K. But I want my sweater back...

deflave: "Faster death" is an elusive standard, and hard to prove...

Death of game animals is sometimes an elusive thing and hard to replicate precisely one shot to the next...we don't get to "kill" the same animal several times to prove a point since no two shots are ever precisely the same.What we can hope for is to see a general trend....unless of course you are a cull hunter in Oz or Africa but few of us get to do that sort of thing.

JWP called me this morning to remind me of this,and said maybe a better way of looking at this is as creating more cavitation,more extensive wounding....which
sometimes leads to faster death...at least as far as BG is concerned.

It may be helpful to look at the whole twist and terminal performance thing as a "contributing factor" rather than "sole cause"....but lots of people have noticed it over the years,as far back as John Jobson, who observed it and wrote about it 3-4 decades ago.

This my way of saying I agree with you BTW.

Speaking of Oz, don't listen to the man behind the curtain...