Badlands Precision Bulldozer - performance on game?

[tdot]

I keep seeing awesome results of the these bullets on paper. But not alot of results on game. Now that hunting season is well underway and these bullets are being used by more hunters. What are your results? What do you think their performance compares to? Pics?

(Impact speed, caliber and bullet would be good info too)

Thanks!

 

[codyadams]

.277 128 bulldozer going 3210 did pretty good on a couple california blacktail, both shots were sub 200 yards though. Both dropped within 20 yards I believe, but I wasn't there, my cousin killed them out in california. Seem decent though.

 

[codyadams]

Just got a recovered bullet from an elk. Same load and bullet as from my previous post. Large 5x6 bull, about 80 yards hard quartering away shot. Bullet entered square in the shoulder, went through shoulder and spine and was under the hide on the off side neck. elk dropped in tracks and didn't flinch, though it was a spine/neck shot. here is the remainder of the bullet vs an entire bullet. Also on a different note, a broadhead that was found in the scapula of this bull elk. Reinforces how heavily constructed these critters are!!

 

[codyadams]

One thing I noticed specifically about these 128 Badlands, and I have HEARD that some of the bullets won't reach the velocity potential for comparable lead core bullets. I was only able to reach about 3250 before max pressure with several different powders and a 24" factory Ruger barrel with a .270 Sherman chamber, which should have been able to push these around 3400+ fps. I will say it was super easy to get an accurate load. Just loaded .025" off and loaded a little under max and they printed 6 shots in a .4" group at 100 yards with the factory Ruger barrel in an unbedded factory wood stock. A little tuning to the stock, a good pillar bed job, and maybe a little load work no telling how good they would do.

 

[elkaholic]

Hi Cody. were you able to tell anything about how the petals tore anything up inside or was the high hit making that difficult to tell? I also wonder if there is a difference in the 128 and the 145 that they are running in the 7 ss up to 3400' with short barrels? I too was surprised that it pressured out that soon. Kind of a head scratcher?

 

[codyadams]

Hi Cody. were you able to tell anything about how the petals tore anything up inside or was the high hit making that difficult to tell? I also wonder if there is a difference in the 128 and the 145 that they are running in the 7 ss up to 3400' with short barrels? I too was surprised that it pressured out that soon. Kind of a head scratcher?

I personally didn't see this elk, my cousin Blake was there and told me about it, I'll ask him what the inside looked like when I can. A possibility as far as the velocity, if you look at the 128 badlands, it only has one relief groove, where as the 145 has two groves. These possibly relieve pressure/surface friction enough that the higher velocities can be achieved. This is just a guess, I don't know anything for sure of course.

 

[elkaholic]

I personally didn't see this elk, my cousin Blake was there and told me about it, I'll ask him what the inside looked like when I can. A possibility as far as the velocity, if you look at the 128 badlands, it only has one relief groove, where as the 145 has two groves. These possibly relieve pressure/surface friction enough that the higher velocities can be achieved. This is just a guess, I don't know anything for sure of course.

ya, that could be although its a big difference in velocity!

 

[codyadams]

ya, that could be although its a big difference in velocity!

Absolutely. Once season is over we are going to load up the 117 Hammers and see how they do, we should be able to get 3550+ pretty easy, and likely break 3600, if they pressure out at 3350-3400 then last resort I will try some of the 170 EOL's, though they won't stabilize, I will be able to see if they pressure up the same as in other .270 Sherman's, should be able to get around 3000 or so, the other one we built maxed out around 2980-3000 with rl26 and an 8 twist 24.5" barrel. If they pressure out at like 2800 or so, then I will assume it's the barrel, and just live with the slow velocity until he can set aside enough money to get a new one. That is the current plan ha ha.

 

[codyadams]

Hi Cody. were you able to tell anything about how the petals tore anything up inside or was the high hit making that difficult to tell?

Ok so I talked to them a bit more. It was a very hard up hill shot, steeper than 45°. The bull got up around 65 yards and sterted walking away and turned and looked back, at a pretty hard quarter. The shot entered center shoulder, went through just a small section of the front of the chest cavity, then center punched the spine in the neck/shoulder junction area, and continued to punch through meat until it was under the hide center neck on the off side, penetrating through around 2+ feet of elk. The blood shot wasn't that bad, and the elk dropped and didn't move at all. If it would have it would have rolled down the hill. As far as petals, they didn't find any, but even just grazing into the chest cavity, the lungs were mostly jello.

They said the bullet looked like a roller bearing, with the completely flat frontal area that they look for with these specific mono bullet designs.

After reading, according to some high tech ballistic studies, a smaller but flat frontal area traveling at higher speed creates a larger permanent wound channel than a larger traditional rounded mushroom bullet. What it says is that it takes more energy to mushroom a lead core bullet than for a mono to shed its petals, thus slowing the bullet down more, creating less of the hydrostatic shock and wound channel due to lower velocity, and also the rounded front causes less damage traveling through the animal than a flat one. The monos with this design shed their front petals rapidly and do not use as much energy doing so, and the flat fronted shank going at a high velocity creates a shock wave in the internal tissues, thus leaving a large permenant wound channel and generally getting deeper penetration.

This is how I understand it so far, and it seems to make sense.

 

[codyadams]

Here is the bull.

 

[tdot]

Thanks for all the details Cody. Congrats to your Cousin on a great bull!

 

[Copper Guy]

I keep seeing awesome results of the these bullets on paper. But not alot of results on game. Now that hunting season is well underway and these bullets are being used by more hunters. What are your results? What do you think their performance compares to? Pics?

(Impact speed, caliber and bullet would be good info too)

Thanks!

Look on the Badlands Precision LLC FB page. The bullets have not failed me. Try hitting an Elk at 80 yds with a lead core bullet under 150 gr going 3200 fps and see what you get. Lead is too soft to penetrate well at high impact velocity. Also the high BC of the bullets make 500+ yds very effective. See the video on YouTube Badlands 150 Bulldozer vs Blue Wildebeest. That was the first animal killed with our first generation bullet. Notice the puff of dust about 75 yds beyond the animal

 

[codyadams]

Look on the Badlands Precision LLC FB page. The bullets have not failed me. Try hitting an Elk at 80 yds with a lead core bullet under 150 gr going 3200 fps and see what you get. Lead is too soft to penetrate well at high impact velocity. Also the high BC of the bullets make 500+ yds very effective. See the video on YouTube Badlands 150 Bulldozer vs Blue Wildebeest. That was the first animal killed with our first generation bullet. Notice the puff of dust about 75 yds beyond the animal

That is great, I am on the page. I will look for the video. They seem to work good up close from what my one cousin that lives in california has seen, I'm more interested to see how they perform at extended ranges! The last several years between me, my wife and my cousin that lives here in Wyoming, elk ranges have been 713, 600, 703, 710, 814, 845, 865 and 910. I'll be ising the 270 SBD out of my .338 Norma, muzzle velocity of 2840, to see how they perform with lower velocity impacts.

 

[codyadams]

This is the thread where I am starting to compile my experience, some friends on this forum also gave me some of their insight to add, and hopefully others as well. Would like to get a broad opinion of these bullets from a wide range of uses

Badlands Precision Bullets thread - From BC to terminal ballistics

There seems to have been rising interest in these bullets, but information is spread out and somewhat limited, so hopefully this thread will help consolidate information. I would like to keep this thread somewhat organized, accurate, and to the point. If you have first hand experience please...

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