Tejano,
My plans with this project are to shoot 120 mono metals fast enough to get expansion at my 450 yard range limit yet have a bullet that won’t blow up at close range. Up close I plan to use heart-lung. Farther out I’d switch to break some bone. There are always head & neck shots if conditions warrant. - Not original ideas of mine, I picked them up here on 24CF.
So I am thinking of one bullet to do everything on deer-class game with different shot placement based upon distance.
I think this is a realistic plan for this project, a 26” 6.5 CM built on a M70 by Redneck. Goal is enough muzzle velocity to get >= 2000 FPS @ 450 yards, around sea level with 120gr mono metals. From reading a great many posts here, most folks recommend 2000 FPS as the minimum impact velocity for expansion. That’s where I got my goal from, 24CF opinions.
My M96 has a 19” barrel and was a military rifle that someone sporterized very crudely. On it’s best day, it will do 2” groups at 100 yards. I started my kids on it years ago hunting from deer stands in the South Carolina low country. For some reason it liked IMR 3031 and Sierra 120gr the best at around 2350 FPS according to my chronograph. Killed well at 50 to 80 yards.
I bought up the tipped 120gr mono metals as they became available, thinking that I would try to them out at faster speed, but never got around to it.
