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Apex Outdoors Bullets - A Brief Summary

mcdil

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 31, 2019
Messages
204
Location
Magnolia, TX
Hello, everyone!

For those that aren't aware of Apex Outdoors, we are a Swiss lathe-turned, bullet manufacturer, headquartered in Texas, who began launching products earlier this summer. I thought I'd put a brief summary of Apex Outdoors and our bullet lines in one condensed post for quick reference.

Apex Outdoors
A company dedicated to providing best-in-class, patent pending, lead-free, bullets for the handloader and small ammunition provider for hunting and target shooting.

Afterburner Bullets
Our flagship bullet, designed to maximize performance across an immense range of parameters for a "no compromises", "no weaknesses" bullet. It's a low friction and fouling, ultra-high BC, petal shedding, mono-metal bullet with an incredibly impressive performance score card in EVERY category. It will correctly expand and shed petals in "tissue only" hits as low as 1650 fps, while providing maximum trauma and penetration on direct frontal hits into the brisket or skull of a charging brown bear at well over 3500 fps. Its ballistic coefficient for its weight is virtually unmatched, and it's one of the lowest friction bullets for minimal barrel fouling and wear coupled with higher starting muzzle velocities, accentuating its BC potential. We left nothing on the table with this bullet; it does it all.

30 Cal Afterburners.png 1690 fps Impact.jpg 2950 fps Impact.jpg


Haymaker Bullets
If our Afterburner is akin to the Corvette ZR1, the Haymaker is the Dodge Demon, raw and powerful. This bullet is all about absolutely maximizing terminal performance in the short to mid range operating window for the cartridges it's designed for. The Haymaker series is a more narrowed design scope. For instance, our first Haymaker, the 161gr 30 cal, is designed specifically for the 300 Blackout. No other cartridge criteria restricted the design, even though it will work well in some small 30 cal pistol platforms, like the 30-30. In the Blackout, whether a rifle or pistol platform, the 161gr Haymaker maximizes terminal performance at all ranges the Blackout would be shot at. It will open and fracture the front off at subsonic velocities and maintain that same exact terminal profile all the way to its maximum recommended impact velocity of 2400 fps, well above Blackout maximum velocities. As a midweight, it offers much improved trajectories over the heavyweights shot exclusively at subsonic velocities, and it hits harder than anything else in the Blackout. A 16" Blackout should yield roughly 1900 fps muzzle velocity near the upper end.

30 Cal 161gr Haymaker - Cropped.png 1050 fps Impact.jpg IMG-9040.jpg


Target
While this particular line of bullets is self-explanatory, we incorporated our patent pending, low friction geometry to increase muzzle velocity and reduce friction and fouling. This feature, coupled with extremely high BCs in light weight designs, changes trajectory profiles, but more importantly significantly reduces time of flight for less overall error due to wind drift. Our currently released 30 cal 166gr easily attains 3200 fps in a 24" barreled 300 Win Mag, while maintaining a G7 BC of .293. Most other target bullets for 1:10" twist rifles that yield near that BC have nowhere near that muzzle velocity due to the fact that they're much heavier.

30 Cal 166gr Target - Cropped.png


More information can be found on our website. I wanted to keep this post relatively brief. Feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help! For those that have chosen to shoot Apex Outdoors bullets this hunting season, we thank you and wish you the best! Happy hunting!
 
my vote for the next release would be a 200-225 gr 338 caliber Afterburner bullet formulated for 1:10 tw factory barrels and the usual hunter . It would be fantastic for hunting big game in all 50 states and most of the planets critters

followed up by a 250-270 gr bullet for 1:8 twist barrels .... for the long rangers
 
Our 200gr .338" is setup to run after the batch for the .264, .277, and .284, and will release in a batch by itself. We are looking forward to that bullet's release. Now it will work with a 1:11" twist, but that was more a function of SAAMI specs forcing the nose to be of a certain length. All the A and X-Bolts magazines, any true medium length actions like the Nosler 48 with a 338 Win Mag or 33 Nosler, and in reference to the 338 Federal in a short action, left us with a nose the length it is.

The next .338" after that (already released internally) will definitely be for a true 1:10" twist, and it will bust the SAAMI OAL requirements for standard cartridges. It's limiting factor is the 338 RUM utilizing a Wyatt's box. It will be a potent combo in a long range setup, no doubt.
 
No but looking for bullets is the 120-130 class weight. Similar to the Badlands Bulldozer and Super Bulldozer lines.
Okay, I gotcha now. We will always be lighter than all our competition for relative twist rates, even the Bulldozer is no exception. Some of that is due to our heavily contoured design, and some of that is due to our desire to not push stabilization boundaries. While the 102gr as a 1:8" twist does have to work at Grendell velocities, which gives up a little potential design weight (but not much) for the likes of the PRC, it will be a great all around performer in the Creedmoor and PRC. It's BC is stout for what it is, and the velocity will be very high. Only when comparing setups for dedicated long range, do the cup and core bullets designed to maximize 1:8" twist barrels start to show an advantage specifically in that category only.

Having said all that, we definitely made note of Browning's use of 1:7" twist barrels on all their various long range versions in both Creedmoor and PRC. We haven't heard too many requests for that particular offering though. That's surprised us a bit. That particular bullet, of which we also have fully designed, doesn't give up anything in long range performance.
 
Okay, I gotcha now. We will always be lighter than all our competition for relative twist rates, even the Bulldozer is no exception. Some of that is due to our heavily contoured design, and some of that is due to our desire to not push stabilization boundaries. While the 102gr as a 1:8" twist does have to work at Grendell velocities, which gives up a little potential design weight (but not much) for the likes of the PRC, it will be a great all around performer in the Creedmoor and PRC. It's BC is stout for what it is, and the velocity will be very high. Only when comparing setups for dedicated long range, do the cup and core bullets designed to maximize 1:8" twist barrels start to show an advantage specifically in that category only.

Having said all that, we definitely made note of Browning's use of 1:7" twist barrels on all their various long range versions in both Creedmoor and PRC. We haven't heard too many requests for that particular offering though. That's surprised us a bit. That particular bullet, of which we also have fully designed, doesn't give up anything in long range performance.
I currently have a 7.5 twist 260AI and would bought a 7 twist if I could have found one in stock.

My 264 Win Mag Improved has an 8 twist but it spits 156 cup/core bullets out approaching 3400fps so a 7 twist would not be ideal for cup/core bullets due to the RPM of the bullet, but would be wicked with a mono in the 125 grain class.
 
Just briefly skimmed/caught up with your 264 WMI build. Some impressive results! You bring up some good points around RPM with your particular setup, and I've seen quite a few 1:7.5" twist barrels out there recently, mostly custom, obviously. It makes us think here at Apex for sure. For the .264" caliber, in the end, we know we'll have to address the old common 1:9" twist, and we will (that design is ready as well), but we don't have the 1:7.5" gap filled at the moment. The 6.5mm segment is a bit tricky right now as the ground is made a bit of sand as it's been the hottest caliber as of late. Lots of change in recent years. We will probably review the 1:7.5" twist option this coming week, focusing on long range only setups, and at least have that ready. It will be a tussle which long range option gets released first, the 1:7.5" or the 1:7". I really think we will lean on the customer base for that decision. I can probably assume you're on the 1:7.5" bandwagon.
 
Just briefly skimmed/caught up with your 264 WMI build. Some impressive results! You bring up some good points around RPM with your particular setup, and I've seen quite a few 1:7.5" twist barrels out there recently, mostly custom, obviously. It makes us think here at Apex for sure. For the .264" caliber, in the end, we know we'll have to address the old common 1:9" twist, and we will (that design is ready as well), but we don't have the 1:7.5" gap filled at the moment. The 6.5mm segment is a bit tricky right now as the ground is made a bit of sand as it's been the hottest caliber as of late. Lots of change in recent years. We will probably review the 1:7.5" twist option this coming week, focusing on long range only setups, and at least have that ready. It will be a tussle which long range option gets released first, the 1:7.5" or the 1:7". I really think we will lean on the customer base for that decision. I can probably assume you're on the 1:7.5" bandwagon.
Well since I only have the 7.5 or 8 twist option at this moment then yes, 7.5 is where I would like to see something fall. That said what weight do you realistically see to provide if your 102 is requiring an 8 twist? I'm assuming somewhere in the one hundred teens?
 
Well since I only have the 7.5 or 8 twist option at this moment then yes, 7.5 is where I would like to see something fall. That said what weight do you realistically see to provide if your 102 is requiring an 8 twist? I'm assuming somewhere in the one hundred teens?
Hard to say without modeling it up, but I think a 1:7.5" would be hard pressed to get to the teens. However, it's BC would move up substantially, and of course we'd design it with the Creedmoor as the "least velocity potential" cartridge. That helps a little as well with adding some mass.

As a side note, we mentioned this on another thread, but we don't subtract the nose, or part of the nose, when we calculate for stability. I know some calculators allow that as an option, but we don't use that functionality, making our results probably a bit more conservative than some others.

Furthermore, if we are really splitting hairs, a cup and core option has its densest material near the centerline and its least dense material out at the perimeter, which, by "percentage of mass", means the rotational inertia has less authority over the bullet than a bullet that has a hollow point, or no mass at the centerline, with the majority of its mass closer to the perimeter. None of the calculators account for this phenomenon, and it just makes our results even more conservative.

We prefer to remain conservative and see our customers shoot shorter, lighter bullets with ideal accuracy and terminal performance rather than pushing the weight/length envelope and seeing erratic accuracy and subpar terminal performance. It's the laws of physics as they relate to copper bullets (not just ours), and we try and stay on the right side of the fence in that regard.
 
Hard to say without modeling it up, but I think a 1:7.5" would be hard pressed to get to the teens. However, it's BC would move up substantially, and of course we'd design it with the Creedmoor as the "least velocity potential" cartridge. That helps a little as well with adding some mass.

As a side note, we mentioned this on another thread, but we don't subtract the nose, or part of the nose, when we calculate for stability. I know some calculators allow that as an option, but we don't use that functionality, making our results probably a bit more conservative than some others.

Furthermore, if we are really splitting hairs, a cup and core option has its densest material near the centerline and its least dense material out at the perimeter, which, by "percentage of mass", means the rotational inertia has less authority over the bullet than a bullet that has a hollow point, or no mass at the centerline, with the majority of its mass closer to the perimeter. None of the calculators account for this phenomenon, and it just makes our results even more conservative.

We prefer to remain conservative and see our customers shoot shorter, lighter bullets with ideal accuracy and terminal performance rather than pushing the weight/length envelope and seeing erratic accuracy and subpar terminal performance. It's the laws of physics as they relate to copper bullets (not just ours), and we try and stay on the right side of the fence in that regard.
Interesting. I'll be interested to see and try some of your 6.5 bullets when they come available.
 
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