200gr Accubond comparison test of sort

[Brent]

I shot these AB's into water filled jugs at 15' and also a combination of jugs backed by compressed dry magazines, and some just shot into the magazines themselves. I forgot to wright down the MV beside the bullet in the pix but I'll list it here.

These were tested in a 26" bbl 300 Ultra Mag. and were done while working up loads with 4 powders, each loads two grains apart.

1) 2961 fps Retumbo 86,88,90gr pressure was 57,60,64 kpsi respectively.
2) 3011
3) 3082

4) 3017 fps RL22 82,84,86gr pressure was 64,67,71 kpsi.
5) 3090
6) 3170

7) 3013 fps IMR4350 77,79,81gr pressure was 64,71,72 kpsi.
8) 3100
9) 3134

The following additional loads with RL25 were tested with two different powder lot #'s. They were both tested with 84,86,88gr.

10) 3076 fps RL25 lot 25180 pressure was 65, 67, 71 kpsi.
11) 3121
12) 3201

13) 3009 fps RL25 lot 25057 pressure was 62,65,67 kpsi.
14) 3108
15) 3150

OAL was 3.835" and pressure would likely be higher if seated at 3.660" to fit in the magazine. Start low and work up, your gun may be different.

Sorry about the picture size, Imagestation reduced the 500kb images size to 15kb...

Good luck reading the wrighting on them.

Refer to the larger pix below that Jon posted for me.

[ 06-20-2003: Message edited by: Brent ]

[ 06-21-2003: Message edited by: Brent ]

 

[remingtonman_25_06]

Very interesting. What other bullet would say is a close match of the 200g Accubond? I was originally thinking of using it in my .300 RUM, but after reading so much about SMK's on here, I bought the 200g SMK's instead. I usually do all my bullet testing expansion/penetration tests in soaked newspaper compressed in cardboard boxes. I usually set it out at 50 yards.

 

[Brent]

I saw a article in the Shooting Times magazine I just recieved, it had some of the same type info on the new Accubonds too. I was surprised my test at just 15' vs. theirs at longer distances had fairly close to the same results.

I had some milk jugs and magazines pilling up for some sort of test like this and figured this bullet would handle the up close punishment well.

Getting the load data was really all I was after on the outing.

I'd say the 220 and heavier match bullets would compare closely to the 200 AB, although they may perform in a different way. The match bullets should tear em up good with a broad wound channel in the first 1.5' or so and the bonded bullets less so, but penitrate farther, especially after encountering bone. If I felt I needed it, I'd go with a 240 SMK as it would keep more weight if bone was hit first. Myself, I kind of like the fact that the Accubond looses a bit more weight up real close than what people might think it would, I know i thought it would be a little slower opening up and hold a bit more weight. At LR it should work absolutely perfect though, a bit better than the Ballistic Tip when hitting bone first... a little more left after it gets through.

I recovered the 178gr A-Max I shot at 807 yards the other day and it wasn't real pretty. It hit the sand behind the target and weighed 95 grains... jacket came loose when I picked it up and wasn't much lead in it. They open up pretty easy, that's for sure. I don't think I'd use it on anything but a great shot for Moose now.

I never have used wet paper yet, just clay and sand mainly but I'm switching to a water tank soon! Bullet comparisons at different terminal velocities are what I'm interested in for the most part.

 

[Jon A]

Good stuff, Brent. If you email me the pics ([email protected]) I'll try to post them up full sized. I'd like to take a closer look.

It might take me a while though, I'm on dialup at the moment.

 

[Brent]

Jon,

I emailed you the pix. I know what you mean, I'm on dial up delay too.

 

[Jon A]

Here ya go. I "trimmed" them a bit to be more dial-up friendly.

 

[Brent]

Thanks Jon, much better!!

I have three 20 second vidio clips of the first 3 shots, there's no sound but the effect are cool on the first two!!

I had limited distance to shoot into the bank so my chrono screens took a good beating from the water blast/shock. Don't do that with your Chrony brand chrono, I doubt it'd survive that brutality.

If you want Jon, I'll send them to you also. They're 3.1 MB, 3.1 MB and 1.09 MB vs. the 500 KB pix I sent you. It takes a few minutes each on dial up for these ones.

 

[MAX]

Brent, thanks for taking the time to post this. Very nice!

 

[Jon A]

I've never hosted a video before, Brent but I'm willing to give it a shot. How about you send me the best one of the three and I'll see if I can get it working.

Anyway, thanks for doing the test. It looks like this will be a fine all around bullet.

Dry magazines at the muzzle is a torture test. I did the same years ago and Nosler Partitions would hold together (of course) but they would be all flattened/twisted/distorted. The biggest part of a Ballistic Tip you'd find would be the solid base/boattail. The fact that these held together keeping an average of over 50% of their weight tells me you don't ever have to worry about them comming appart.

The water is probably a more realistic test. Those you shot into water look about exactly how I would want them to look. They held together well but they expanded down a long way on the shank. This tells me that there was a whole bunch of expanding going on to get the bullet to that point which is what you'd want at the muzzle. If they weren't expanded that far down I'd worry that they wouldn't open up sufficiently at long range.

It will be really interesting when you do this test at various ranges when you switch to the water tank. Then you could take a pic of recovered bullets fired from the muzzle, 200 yds, 400, 600, 800, etc.... That would be cool.

Thanks for the load data as well. That's the most I've seen for this bullet. Did any of those loads give you noticable pressure signs (bolt lift, ejector mark, etc)?

 

[Brent]

Jon,

I'll email you the vidio of the first shot there.

The expansion up close pushing the nose all the way back and leaving a descent shank length below indicates to "me" it will work at most any range well. Beyond what range it leaves something to be desired is yet to be determined. Up close it should work great still. If it would have held 70% weight up close like that, I'd be using a more fragile bullet at closer to 1000 yards for sure but all looks well so far.

Don't hold your breath for the 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,900 and 1000 yard water test... it may take me some time to get all set up for it yet. I'll be testing other bullets types at the same time too, so it should be very interesting to say the least. I'd like to make a setup that I could stick cardboard or poster board baffles across the container at 6" increments to see just what's happening in the "wound channel" and how far the bullet and it's fragments each penitrate. This could require a fiberglass lined wooden box with retainers siliconed in place... could take some time but, I already have the glass and wood to make it up.

PSI signs:

I didn't mention it above but, all those loads were using Fed 215M primers too. It also bears repeating that the OAL is real long too!! Any reduction in OAL and pressure could climb, and in my experience it would climb substantially if reduced to merely 3.66", maybe by as much as 5 to 10 kpsi so be carefull with the data provided here. I'll test it at a shorter OAL of 3.66" as soon as I can and let you all know what happened.

Bolt lift was absolutely normal on all loads tested but, it usually is up to about 70-75 kpsi though. These were FL sized cases with minimal shoulder bump, NK sized cases may have shown stiffness signs a bit sooner, but not very much sooner... in my experience.

Slight primer cratering was all I could make out, that was only "felt" on the top load of each RL22, 4350 and RL25 (lot # 25180). By sliding (rubbing) the tip of your index finger across the caseheads, you can feel a snag if there is any "edge" to the crater in the primer. The sensitivety in your fingertip will pick the raised edge up instantly if it exists, and more often than not it shows up just before stiff bolt lift starts to occur, this is with the 210 and 215 primers in "most" of my rifles anyway.

I mark all the case heads and primers completely with a black marker before doing load work up. The amount of black wiped off after they're fired and extracted indicates how much bolt thrust is rising "relatively" and shows a clear ejector mark if present. Prior ejector marks or "protrusions" will show up "shiny" on a lower load and give a false indication if not indexed to the ejection port side before firing so a new one will be made over the ejector plunger.

I did get a slight "showing" of brass color under the ejector with the top load for RL22 and 4350, barely more so than the color showing on the rest of the casehead from the thrust itself. PSI was just starting to get high enough to exibit this but, it would have been unnoticable without first marking the casehead black.

 

[Jon A]

Well, I have no idea if this will work or not, but try this link:
http://www.jonaadland.com/Accubond.avi

 

[Brent]

Hey Jon, thanks!

I downloaded it to see how it worked, took ten minutes on this slow *** dial-up connection but that was over twice as fast as it took me to send it to you.

Norton scanning all the incomming and outgoing mail must slow it down I guess.

It works.

I've not figured out how to load them up onto Imagestation yet??????

It seems it's an .AVI type format and I have not a clue how to convert it to MPEG or something else that works, if one even can, so I gave up on it.

Don't laugh when ya all see how bad I torture my sky screens.

[ 06-23-2003: Message edited by: Brent ]

 

[Guest]

BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!