150 lrab performance on deer

[elkaholic]

I am posting this for info to make your own decisions on this bullet and add my take on it. My friend shot this Whitetail last night with my 270SS. I was with him in the blind and observed the whole scene. The load was 59 grs. of RL26 with the 150 ABLR with a mv of 3142' out of a 21 inch barrel. The deer was full broadside at 175 yards and took the impact slightly below dead center of the shoulder. He took off full bore with his right leg windmilling and ran in a semi circle for about 200 yards in an alfalfa field before collapsing. I fully expected to find the heart blown apart and the bullet in the off shoulder. When I gutted him out, I was surprised to see very little internal damage except for a small portion of the very front of the lung which I think was caused more by flying bone than the bullet itself. When we skinned him out, the front end damage was amazing! The shoulder was blown to bits and I just cut it off mid way up with a knife. The bullet then changed direction nearly 45 degrees and took out everything along the rib cage and blew out a portion of the bottom of the brisket! I never did find ANY portion of the bullet.
My opinion is that if this had been an elk, he would have been long gone and probably would have died a miserable death. I do believe this bullet would perform well at longer range where the velocity was down, but I was unimpressed with the performance at this velocity. Here are a couple of pics so you can decide for yourselves.........Rich

 

[TXAoudadKlr]

Think it could just be a freak one time thing? Judging the blood spot the thing exploded on the shoulder.

 

[coyotezapper]

With a bullet that is designed to work down to 1300 fps I don't think it was meant to bust through shoulders. They do shoot great though.

 

[elkaholic]

Think it could just be a freak one time thing? Judging the blood spot the thing exploded on the shoulder.

Actually, I don't think it was a one time thing. I tested some a couple years ago and they really pancaked in media at high velocity. I think they would be great at long range though. I thought I would try them on meat, and now I know.......Rich

 

[couesaddict]

I haven't seen them on game personally but was helping a buddy work a load up with bergers the other day. He wasn't able to find brass and had bought 100 rounds of nosler loaded 210 lr accubonds for that and barrel break in. They didn't shoot that great in his rifle and we found an excellent hand load with bergers so he started pulling the factory loaded ones. I wish I had taken pics because it was incredible how they splattered when they hit the bottom of the puller. There is a huge cavity under the polymer tip. Even tried going real easy on the last swing or two and none of the bullets were even close to useable after being pulled.

 

[elkaholic]

If they do that, I guess it is no mystery why they did what they did at 2900'

 

[couesaddict]

Yeah, I can definitely see them expanding down to 1300fps like they advertise. I do wonder how they manage to keep their shape when the powder lights also. I've pulled tnt's and not had any visible distortion. They're supposed to be explosive...

 

[HARPERC]

.......Actually, I don't think it was a one time thing. .............

Neither do I. Perhaps on whitetail you might not see it again, bone can be tough especially as target size increases.

When it turned, did it turn in the direction of the rifling?

 

[elkaholic]

Neither do I. Perhaps on whitetail you might not see it again, bone can be tough especially as target size increases.

When it turned, did it turn in the direction of the rifling?

Explain please?

 

[Anschutz]

Explain please?

Most barrels are right hand twist so let's just assume yours is too. I think he's asking if the bullet took a right turn or left turn when it hit the deer's shoulder. Nice deer BTW. As for weird occurrences, I shot a buck one time that had one hole in it. No big deal, right? Wrong, it was on the off side of how it was facing. Through the skinning process all we found was that one hole and believe me, I was looking hard for a .277 hole in the hide.

 

[HARPERC]

.......Most barrels are right hand twist so let's just assume yours is too. I think he's asking if the bullet took a right turn or left turn when it hit the deer's shoulder.............

The 45 degree change of course was to the right or left?

the couple of times I've seen bullets change direction they seem to turn the direction they're spinning.

 

[elkaholic]

Ok, now I'm with you. The bullet actually turned pretty much Downward. I am pretty sure it was due to how it struck the heavy shoulder bones; but still highly unusual from the hundreds of wounds I have seen. I know bullets that do not expand, that are usually vld's or similar, will often tumble or turn depending on what they hit or if the point is bent; but for a bullet to pancake, like I know these do, it was pretty strange. I think bonded bullets, which they are, are more prone to do that because they don't come unglued but maintain some sort of shape.......Rich

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Very interesting. We just had a customer harvest a deer with our 101g blackout bullet loaded in a 308win. He is running the bullet at very high vel near 3400fps. He shot a deer in the shoulder at 60y with violent results and not much penetration. The recovered bullet was just under 70% retention. We designed this bullet to open at low vel. His impact vel had to be at least 3200fps. I am chalking this one up to high impact speed, low sectional density, with a large hollow point to quickly start expansion.

Rich,

These things don't line up with what you just had happen. To my thinking a bullet that does not stay on path after impact in under stabilized. It could possibly be due to the bullet loosing so much of its weight that the remainder was so oddly shaped that it could not maintain direction. I think it shed so much weight on impact that it lost all of its sectional density.

Steve

 

[coyotezapper]

Very interesting. We just had a customer harvest a deer with our 101g blackout bullet loaded in a 308win. He is running the bullet at very high vel near 3400fps. He shot a deer in the shoulder at 60y with violent results and not much penetration. The recovered bullet was just under 70% retention. We designed this bullet to open at low vel. His impact vel had to be at least 3200fps. I am chalking this one up to high impact speed, low sectional density, with a large hollow point to quickly start expansion.

Rich,

These things don't line up with what you just had happen. To my thinking a bullet that does not stay on path after impact in under stabilized. It could possibly be due to the bullet loosing so much of its weight that the remainder was so oddly shaped that it could not maintain direction. I think it shed so much weight on impact that it lost all of its sectional density.

Steve

.
This is a good example showing that no bullet can do it all. Like the LRAB the Hammer bullet is designed for expansion at lower velocities i.e longer ranges. The one difference to me is the solid is more forgiving at the higher velocities especially with this design.