I feel obligated to put this disclaimer out before anything else: None of the tests I do are scientific, or representative of any sort of real-world, on game results. I do these tests for my own enjoyment and to satisfy my own curiosity. I have hundreds of pictures and notes that I never post because they just aren't that interesting to the majority of people. These are all just relative comparisons. There are literally hundreds of highly effective and proven bullets out there. If you have one that works for you, great! Nothing I say or do is intended to badmouth the reputation of any other maker. I have a pile of different bullets on my shelf and I'm not loyal to any single brand. None of the stuff I post is a personal attack against any company. It's ridiculous that I have to actually post any of that, but it somehow always comes up. I just thought I'd address that from the start.
Over the last 10+ years, I've tested a ton of different hunting bullets, 173 to be exact. These have been different brands, different materials, different styles, different bore diameters, at different velocities, and with varying rates of twist. I really wanted to do low-velocity expansion testing, but the challenge has always been getting low-impact velocities while maintaining adequate bullet stability. This has been a challenge since most of my guns use pretty conventional twist rates. The only way to get low-velocity impacts with full stability was to shoot into the test media at long range. That gets tough when I might only have 5-10 samples of a bullet to work up a load, get it zeroed, and hit an 8" gel block at 800+ yards. I finally got around to solving that problem! I picked up a pair of Encore barrels, one 300 Blackout and one 300 Savage, both with 1-7" twists. Now I should be able to test any .308 bullet up to roughly 1.8" long down to muzzle velocities as low as 1000 fps, and still have an SG of at least 1.5.
This is where the fun starts! The first bullet I tested is the Apex 161 Haymaker designed for the 300 Blackout and other low-velocity applications. Hopefully, Mark ( @mcdil ) will chime in with some more details. Here's the Haymaker on the right next to the 153 Apex Afterburner, and a picture of the 161 loaded into a 300 Blackout case.
I shot the Haymaker into 10% gel at 50 yards with muzzle velocities of 2200 fps, 1200 fps, and 1100 fps. This video has impacts at all three velocities.
I was pretty confident that the bullet would perform well with the 2200 fps muzzle velocity, and it did. The shank penetrated roughly 20" in a straight line before stopping. The petal fragments are really more like "shards". Instead of taking pictures of the gel block, I'm going to start taking short videos showing the blocks. Here's the 2200 fps gel block video.
The really interesting test was the 1100 fps gel test. The shank penetrated 17" before stopping and the bullet showed 100% expansion and fragmentation, identical to what I saw at 2200 fps.
These pictures are all of the 1100 fps gel block and the bullet recovered from that gel block.
That's some pretty impressive expansion at an impact velocity below 1100 fps! I know this bullet was designed for the 300 Blackout, but my first thought was that it would be a great bullet for handgun hunters using something like the 30 Herrett, 309 JDJ, and 308 Win out of the TC pistols. It should work well in reduced loads in bigger 30 calibers as well. No more worrying about getting good expansion below 1800 fps! LOL I'm going to do some more work at higher velocities with this bullet to see how it does with impacts up over 3000 fps too. I'm curious to see this particular copper alloy behaves at higher velocities.
My plan right now is to start collecting a bunch of different .308 bullet to test at velocities below 1800 fps to see how they all perform. I have a handful of different ones sitting around left over from the other tests, but as always, give me suggestions and I'll try to track the bullets down. I think I have some mid-weight Hammers on my shelf that I'll test, and I'll probably pickup some Cutting Edge and Badlands bullets too. This should be a fun way to waste components!
Over the last 10+ years, I've tested a ton of different hunting bullets, 173 to be exact. These have been different brands, different materials, different styles, different bore diameters, at different velocities, and with varying rates of twist. I really wanted to do low-velocity expansion testing, but the challenge has always been getting low-impact velocities while maintaining adequate bullet stability. This has been a challenge since most of my guns use pretty conventional twist rates. The only way to get low-velocity impacts with full stability was to shoot into the test media at long range. That gets tough when I might only have 5-10 samples of a bullet to work up a load, get it zeroed, and hit an 8" gel block at 800+ yards. I finally got around to solving that problem! I picked up a pair of Encore barrels, one 300 Blackout and one 300 Savage, both with 1-7" twists. Now I should be able to test any .308 bullet up to roughly 1.8" long down to muzzle velocities as low as 1000 fps, and still have an SG of at least 1.5.
This is where the fun starts! The first bullet I tested is the Apex 161 Haymaker designed for the 300 Blackout and other low-velocity applications. Hopefully, Mark ( @mcdil ) will chime in with some more details. Here's the Haymaker on the right next to the 153 Apex Afterburner, and a picture of the 161 loaded into a 300 Blackout case.
I shot the Haymaker into 10% gel at 50 yards with muzzle velocities of 2200 fps, 1200 fps, and 1100 fps. This video has impacts at all three velocities.
I was pretty confident that the bullet would perform well with the 2200 fps muzzle velocity, and it did. The shank penetrated roughly 20" in a straight line before stopping. The petal fragments are really more like "shards". Instead of taking pictures of the gel block, I'm going to start taking short videos showing the blocks. Here's the 2200 fps gel block video.
The really interesting test was the 1100 fps gel test. The shank penetrated 17" before stopping and the bullet showed 100% expansion and fragmentation, identical to what I saw at 2200 fps.
These pictures are all of the 1100 fps gel block and the bullet recovered from that gel block.
That's some pretty impressive expansion at an impact velocity below 1100 fps! I know this bullet was designed for the 300 Blackout, but my first thought was that it would be a great bullet for handgun hunters using something like the 30 Herrett, 309 JDJ, and 308 Win out of the TC pistols. It should work well in reduced loads in bigger 30 calibers as well. No more worrying about getting good expansion below 1800 fps! LOL I'm going to do some more work at higher velocities with this bullet to see how it does with impacts up over 3000 fps too. I'm curious to see this particular copper alloy behaves at higher velocities.
My plan right now is to start collecting a bunch of different .308 bullet to test at velocities below 1800 fps to see how they all perform. I have a handful of different ones sitting around left over from the other tests, but as always, give me suggestions and I'll try to track the bullets down. I think I have some mid-weight Hammers on my shelf that I'll test, and I'll probably pickup some Cutting Edge and Badlands bullets too. This should be a fun way to waste components!
