Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters any difference between 165 and 180 grainers in 30'06

Alpine-

The S.D. "rule" applies more aptly when you are shooting bullets of similar construction. Here, a 180-gr Nos Part which loses 40% of its mass probably won't out penetrate a 168-gr TSX because it loses little if any significant weight. This is assuming of course similar speeds and hits.

Back when I did my wet, packed newspaper penetration tests with my .340, the 225-gr Nos Part was out-penetrated by the first generation Barnes X of 210 grains and significantly more by the 225-gr Barnes X.

This is not an indictment of the Nos Part but just points out their different construction and how S.D. does not automatically corrolate with greater penetration.

Mindful there are no "hard and fast rules", I understand the differences between how a TSX is designed vs a Partition. My experience is that bullets with higher Sd tend to be more consistent in regards to terminal performance on game. There seems to be many factors that occur between ballistic gel and wet or dry newspapers/phonebooks, logs, etc, and when a bullet hits a critter.

Between my own elk, family, friends and guiding, I guesstimate I've witnessed a 100 or so elk killed in the past 40+ years.

Velocity may have a lot to do with it, but higher Sd, driven at reasonable velocities seem to perform more often in a manner I expect. I have seen lower weight/Sd bullets (often being driven at higher velocities) perform in a unexpected manner on the critter.

Most of my personal experience has been with 150, 160, 180gr bullets in 270W, 280Rem/7mmRM, and 30-06/30-06AI. These bullets are ballistic triplets of one another and are normally driven in a fairly narrow velocity range. When I see lighter bullets driven at velocities approaching hyper-velocities, sometimes they produce spectacular kills, sometimes they don't do what one expects.

As has been pointed out by others before, the true test of a bullet is when we're shooting at something up close and personal and as I have expounded on before--that's where one will most likely find his elk.

Sd isn't just about penetration, it appears to me to be also how "straight" the bullet tracks through critter, does it consistently penetrate roughly the same distance each time?--given similar impact velocities; Does it retain weight consistently? (I don't care whether it retains a lot of weight or not--it's the consistency I'm looking at); If does hit bone--was its penetration and weight retention consistent with other similar kills? ;Or if it doesn't hit bone--was it consistent with other shots that didn't hit bone?

Mule Deer has pointed out that penetration has a lot to do with frontal area--the frontal area of a 165gr TSX isn't much different from the frontal area of 180gr Partiton once they are recovered. They differ in how they "mushroom".

I have a container full of bullets I've taken out of my own elk over the years, out of all my Partitions--from 100gr 243's to a bunch of 150gr 270's, to a number of 180gr and 200gr from my 06's and 06AI, they look almost identical. The differences between those recovered bullets are usually the whether the bullet hit bone or not. When I look at my lower wieght bullets--of similar construction--they are not nearly as consistent in appearance or weight retention. That has been my observation when dissecting other hunters elk kills too.

Casey