First Hammers

[Seabeeken]

Received my first Hammer bullets in 257 and 7mm today. Any experience/advice as to loading compared to the Barnes I've been using? I hope to use the same powders in my 250AI, 257AI, and 7x57AI.

 

[JMW67]

which hammers absolute or hunters

 

[ButterBean]

Yep , need to know which ones as they are totally different critters and you can look in the reloading forum there is a ton of info there

 

[adam32+P]

Received my first Hammer bullets in 257 and 7mm today. Any experience/advice as to loading compared to the Barnes I've been using? I hope to use the same powders in my 250AI, 257AI, and 7x57AI.

The hammer hunters you can use Nosler reloading data for a starting point.

 

[Seabeeken]

Shock hammers in 257 and hunters in 7mm. Definitely different shape.

 

[ButterBean]

Shock hammers in 257 and hunters in 7mm. Definitely different shape.

Look up the max Barnes Loads for each bullet of that weight, back off a grain and start from there

 

[Seabeeken]

Thanks. What about seating depth? Barnes usually work for me best in the .030-.050 range. Are Hammers similar?

 

[BEEMAN]

The hammers I've tried have not been sensitive to seating depth. Set them to fit mag length and you should be good. Or run them 20-30 thou off has also worked good for me with the hammer hunter.

 

[JMW67]

This ^^^

 

[Varmint Hunter]

FWIW - I'm running my Hammer Hunters at about .100" off in several rifles and have had good results.

I try to adjust seating depth to MAXIMIZE the bearing surface in the neck.

 

[koonazz]

I'm doing load development for a 257 Wby with the 98 gr Shockhammers right now. What I've learned so far, they don't seem to build nearly as much pressure as conventional bullets. They're very fast. I've seen almost zero copper fouling after shooting them. And so far two different powders have gone WAY over book max before hitting pressure. (like 8-9 grains over book). They don't seem to be finicky about seating depth and they seem to be very accurate. Some of my 10 round .3 grain jump pressure tests a have yielded 1.5" groups.

 

[ButterBean]

FWIW - I'm running my Hammer Hunters at about .100" off in several rifles and have had good results.

I try to adjust seating depth to MAXIMIZE the bearing surface in the neck.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
X-2 You want as much bearing surface in the neck as you can get

 

[Seabeeken]

Thanks to all. This is awesome well received information. I can thank you all enough. I hope to test them next week and will post the results.

 

[Gord0]

I'm doing load development for a 257 Wby with the 98 gr Shockhammers right now. What I've learned so far, they don't seem to build nearly as much pressure as conventional bullets. They're very fast. I've seen almost zero copper fouling after shooting them. And so far two different powders have gone WAY over book max before hitting pressure. (like 8-9 grains over book). They don't seem to be finicky about seating depth and they seem to be very accurate. Some of my 10 round .3 grain jump pressure tests a have yielded 1.5" groups.

I've found the same, but these were absolutes. 9 shots including cold bore 6.5 creed, .5gr increments, zero seating depth test, no load development, just a pressure test. Stock barreled Savage