6.5 156 EOL

You bet!!

About the only time I'm seeing a large amount of meat damage is when heavy bone is hit, mainly neck/spine hits, but that is with any bullet I have used. Performance has been consistent and predictable, with behind the shoulder hits resulting in 1.5-3" exits with minimal meat damage, and lungs pouring out the hole as with my niece's doe in one of the first posts photo. On centered up shoulder hits, you can see how the bullet performed on my deer. Again, minimal meat damage and good overall performance, though the bullet was under the hide on the off side. Lungs were bloody jello. In later November/early December we will be doing a doe whitetail beatdown in northern Wyoming (an annual trip for my cousin, myself and our friends) and get more deer with them, as tags are unlimited and OTC, though they will be similar to all the pronghorn, just more testing. What I am really excited about is elk season. I got my eyes on this guy!!
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I have a 6.5x55 Ackley I built for F Open. I won our 1K Open match last weekend with the 156's. I haven't finalized a load yet but they are very easy to work with and insensitive to seating depth. I'm using RL23 for the temp stability and the burn rate is very appropriate for the case. 7.5" Brux. Here's rough 100 yard development.

Powder charges, primer, bullet jump? I have a 6.5x55AI and a lot of RL23 laying around. Very interested.
 
156 still doing work!!


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My co-worker at the Sheriff's Office had only ever shot 1 deer while road hunting, and really wanted to go on a good deer hunt. I know her well, she has more work ethic and more try than 10 average people combined, so I figured she earned it.

I took her up to one of my secret spots, and we picked this guy out of several other good bucks. He may not have scored quite as good as a couple other we looked at, but he was an OLD brute, and had the biggest body of any deer I have ever seen.

Due to the contour of this basin, we were as close as we could get, 940 yards. Any further forward was a cliff drop off, around and lower and we couldn't see him. I am the firearms instructor for the county, and I know that she follows instruction to a T and does it right, I was confident that she could do it. I had her take a bunch of dry fires waiting for the buck to step out of the timber, and when he did this went down.

The first shot, she was so focused on making a good trigger squeeze she didn't notice that he stepped about 10" forward, and hit the liver. She reloaded, got back on target, and her second shot was on point with a narrow target zone. Her excitement was pretty awesome. I recovered both bullets under the hide on the off side, though I lost them in the snow because it was blizzarding when I was cutting the deer up. I would guess they were around 80-100 grains, and mushroomed beautifully. Normally I may be concerned, but this was a huge deer, and a long ways away. Of ONLY meat and no bone, I packed out over 100 lbs, and we didn't take the lower leg shank meat, cut off probably 10+ lbs of fat, and a little meat loss from the shot. Here is meat damage on exit side of second shot.

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Not bad, total we lost around 5-6 lbs of meat, so I was happy with them for sure. Impact velocity was 2075 fps, with 1492 ft-lbs of retained energy. I may do another thread in the mule deer hunting section detailing the hunt more, it was a lot of fun and an adventure. Look for it there in the next day or two if interested.

I love this bullet guys!! Excited to try it on elk.
 
Used the 156 on a deer and 2 antelope the last 3 days. Buck deer was a mature whitaile at less than 25 yds. Entered just above shoulder and exited on the off shoulder. It actually was mostly under the skin. Deer dropped and never twitched. The first antelope at 279 yds. Hit a little low' Went less than 25 yds. Down and dead.
Last antelope was a doe at 314 yds. Behid the shoulder and exited cleanly. Doe dropped in her tracks.
Bruce
 
Man I'm ready for you guys to start dumping elk with these. I've got another month to wait till I can give it a go
 
Maybe I missed it but what velocity are you launching these at. I have a load at 3040fps that I'll be trying to get an antelope with this weekend. Doubt I'll be picky on the size of the antelope
 
Ive got a 5 year old that's pretty anxious about going antelope hunting so the first buck we see is going to be in trouble
 

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