Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints Which one is the most explosive Varmint bullet you've used?

Best splat for the buck - I don't mean fur I mean explosive bullets for Pdogs and such.

Spot

I shot alot of Speer 50 gr. TNTs and was happy with the "splatter factor"....

ingwe

i bought some of mid-souths varmint exterminators .223 55gr. loaded with 25g. of benchmark. They shoot very accurate , my target is a 3/16in. plate steel with a piece of 5/8 plywood screwed to it. at 100 yards they punched a pretty hole completely through my target ! Not the frag I was hoping for. Rifle is a bushmaster varminter ,24in. barrel.

I was shooting a 17 Remington when they first came out and found the factory ammo quite explosive. At that time you couldn't buy just components, so I started with factory ammo to get my brass.

Hornady had the only readily available bullets, so I used them and couldn't duplicate Remington factory ammunition in velocity or explosive results. After some time I did find a company selling Remington bullets. I tried them and the results matched the factory ammo quite well.

Since the ugly Remington bullet blew up so well I tried some of their .22 PLHP bullets which looked identical to the 17 bullet. I have never looked back. These bullets seem to be magic. They blow up at .222 velocities, yet still hold together at .220 Swift velocities until they hit the target.

They aren't pretty, they are cheaper than all the plastic tipped stuff and still bench rest accurate...

I used to have a Rem 40XB in 220 Swift. It liked 50 grain Speer TNT's loaded to 3600 FPS.

The box says not to load above 3500, but this gun had a real smooth barrel and shot them well.

Sure would make a mess out of varmits...(grin!)

Lost this rifle and many others to a home break in.

Virgil B.

Barnes Varmint Grenades, and they are also quite accurate. Speer 50gr TNT is right in there but sometimes cannot withstand the higher velocities in my large cased faster 22's, even with moly. I can run 36gr Grenades at 4300-4400fps out of my 22-250AI. FUN! FUN! FUN!

"Best splat for the buck"?

So if price plays a part?

Hornady SPSX and Sierra Blitz ($)
Speer TNT ($$)
Hornady Vmax ($$$)
Barnes VG ($$$$)

All plenty accurate.
But the Barnes do make things come apart.
I shoot them all.

Calhoun DBHP bullets have great effects on woodchucks.
Crows are not held together very well, almost anything tears them up

For me I'd go with the TNT as well, plus they're incredibly accurate.

Dober

Mark,

I was very happy with the red mist that 50 gr .224 Nosler bt made @ 3860 fps from my 22-250. I used to burgerize the tiny ground squirrels and the occasional marmot on the Wall Creek Range years ago.

A 55 gr nosler bt @ 4050 fps from a 243 made a 10" entrance and 8" exit on a jackrabbit at 180 yds. It was its "blooding" outing. Haven't had a chance to get it out in the field again. Too busy fishing.

The TNT and the Sierra Blitzking.

A couple earlier posts reminded me I used to shoot a bunch of 40 gr NBTs in a .223

they put gophers on another astral plane....


Ingwe

I bought an ammo can with 1000 rounds of 223 ammo about 4 or 5 years ago.($119.00/1000) that were reloads with 45 grain "Hornet" bullets loaded in them. It was amazing what those bullets would do to a prairie dog out to about 175 yards. If you were under 100 yards it was difficult to locate the tails to turn in at the Rapelje Gopher derby, just bits of fur and bone. I only have a 100 or so of them left and I haven't been able to find any since then at any price.

Speer TNTs work very well - both for accuracy and for explosiveness. Ballistic Tips, V-Max and Blitzkings all work well.

Bought a box of Remington 30-06 accelerators once. They would hit about 8" horizontal from where the rifle was sighted in with 150 gr, bullets. One box, so I didn't bother to readjust the scope, and still have a couple of em somewhere

Hornady VMAX, Nosler Ballistic Tip, Sierra Blitzking in that order.

I've never found the TNT / Blitz / SX class of bullets to be nearly as explosive as they're advertised to be until you push them about 300 fps faster than their maker says is ok. At the hairy edge of jacket ruptures they begin to get pretty entertaining.

Tom

What he said, and I will add the Barnes VLD,s.

VLD, or Varmint Grenade? 'cause I forgot all about those. Sad to say I have not used them .. yet. I have a box of 26 grain .204s to try out in my .204 when it comes back with its brand new barrel. I bet those put some hurt on little fuzzys.

Tom-

Hmmm..

Most folks find it to be -

Sierra BlitzKing
Horrady Vmax
and then Nolser BT..

What velocity ranges are you running thsoe bullets and on what size of vermin??

http://www.speer-bullets.com/ballistics/detail.aspx?id=1
Knew I had seen the "Hornet" bullet name somewhere.