Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 9.3 185 grain Lapua Open Tip

I recently bought 5 boxes of the new 9.3x62 load from Lapua featuring a 185 grain open tip match bullet.

Unlike Scenars that I’ve used it is a flat base design.
In my Cz 550 it chronographs over 2800 fps in 95 degree Alabama heat.

Sighted in 2.5 inches high at 100 yards, it was only about 3 inches low at 270 yards.

Lapua says this bullet is for targets and varmits but I’m going to try it on trapped hogs to see if it will work for deer and pigs.

Has anyone else used these bullets on game? If they are anything like Scenars, which they should be, I suspect they will work well.

The sectional density is about the same as 180 grain bullets made for the 35 Remington and those work well on deer and pigs.

Just use them for field practice and when on the hill trails looking down on coyotes pestering the field mice.

I'd imagine there quite explosive

Yup. I'm not there for the hides, just for the field practice. When I nab one, I just text the farmer to let him know where to find it.

Sectional Density (SD) is not really relevant in this case. It's about bullet construction and impact velocity in this case.

SD is simply the ratio of a projectile's weight to its transverse section. It has often been used as a proxy for penetration but that is only true if we are talking about bullets of the same construction and of the same shape.

ruraldoc,

I would shoot at least a couple into dry (not water-soaked) stacks of newspaper/phone books, etc. to test them, alongside whatever other 9,3x62 ammo you have, before trying them on game.

I will do that this weekend. Also will compare to a 308 with 150 Ballistic Tips to see how it compares to a known standard for me.

Will be interested hearing the results!

Tested the 9.3x62 185 grain Lapua in expansion media made by stacking 16 inches of glossy magazines in a cardboard box.

Compared the 9.3 bullet to a couple of bullets known to give very good results in game animals, a 160 grain Nosler Parttition from a 7mm Remington Magnum and a 35 caliber 200 grain round nose corelokt at 35 Remington velocity( actually a 360 Buckhammer, same bullet and velocity).

Results as follows at point blank impact range.

200 grain .358 round nose Corelokt. 6 inches straight line penetration. Core and jacket still together

185 grain .366 Lapua Open Tip. 8 inches of straight line penetration core almost all wiped away.

160 .284 Partition. 10 inches of straight line penetration front core gone but rear intact

Huh, didn't see that depth of penetration happening

Not in my experience when the paper's dry, whether magazines, or newspapers/phone books. And I have shot thousands of bullets into various kinds of test media, which is why I eventually decided stacks of dry paper were the best simulation for testing big game bullets that might encounter heavy bones.

But when water-soaked both glossy and pulp paper (newspaper) do tend to leave cores intact, which is why some bullet companies used to use "wet-lap"--which is water-soaked paper pulp before it's turned into paper.

In fact much of the non-paper test media, whether ballistic gelatin or the wax-based Test Tube, have more tendency leave cores intact--and result in higher weight retention.

All of this is detailed in Chapter 5 of the first Big Book of Gun Gack, "Pre-Testing Big Game Bullets."

My question is - where did you find the bullets?? I'd love to get a couple hundred

They are available at several online retailers.

You can even buy them by the thousand.

Which I might do to get a lifetime supply.

I type in G574 every other week and get out of stock everywhere except in Europe.
Which retailers?
I want the bullet - not loaded ammo

Thanx. I guess Lapua discontinued the G574. This looks similar, but different bullet number.

For other reloaders that live in the People's Republic of New York like I, please note that EuroOptic is confused and considers bullets for reloading as "ammo" and will not ship to NY. When their Chat window popped up and asked if they could help with my order I asked why they couldn't ship bullets to NY since they aren't ammunition, instead of replying, they simply erased my order. Guess they taught me a lesson!

I'll wait until Graf & Son has them in stock.

I’ve no experience with the 9.3 or this bullet, but I’m inclined to believe that just about any 185 grain cf rifle bullet should kill a deer. Would be interesting to know if the bullet fragments or not though. I suppose, given the OPs results, that this bullet would fall into the fragile category, even though it penetrated well.