Gel test Hammer vs Accubond

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Woodleigh makes a great 338 cal., 200 grain flat point that I shoot in my 338 marlin. No elephant or buffalo bullet there. They also make a great 264 dia., 140 grain protected point that I shoot in my 264 win mag, and soon, I'll be working up a load for my 6.5-06. No elephant or buffalo bullet there either. I tested some 130 gr sierra tipped gamekings. Gawd, them bullets are crap. The bullet core totally vaporized into powder. Only penetrated to the 3rd jug of water. Worst bullet I've ever shot. Shot 3 bullets, and gave the other 97 away.
 
How about a .452 intended for the 454 Casull. I would like to try that on elk. The Barnes and XTP mag have both performed well on elk for me.
 
From what I've been told dry newspaper is tougher on bullets that wet.

I'm kind of old fashioned, and like to test them on elk if it'll take elk down and out right now fast then to me it's a good bullet. Like clockwork I've found Mono's to generally kill just fine, if they wadcutter the deaths will come but generally a fair bit slower than other bullets.

The more tissue you disrupt the quicker things will hit the turf!
 
There is one little piece that stopped in the 1st block. The other pieces followed with the retained shank and stopped a few inches before it did. I will try and take a pic of the bigger block that stopped both bullets. It is cloudy so not very photo genic. The shed petals more often than not exit animals as well.
I've found this true in many instances Steve.......although I've yet to recover a Hammer bullet, many times there are more than one exit hole!
 
I don't know much to anything about these bullets, just curious as to why one turned into a wadcutter and one came completely unwound?

I believe they are actually two different styles of bullets, the top ones are the Hammer Hunters and the bottom ones are the Hammer Dead Blows. Due to the bullets being solid copper the way you control the petal size and weight retention is by the depth of the hollow point and shank length. They are both doing the same thing but the petals are not shown in the top picture.

The Hunters are designed for taking big game so a larger shank size is preferred to increase penetration through the animal. The Dead Blows were designed more for varmint hunting where rapid expansion is key and penetration is not so they use a longer hollow point and shorter shank to provide that effect.

I'm not sure about accubond being one of the very best hunting bullets. I'd take my swift sciroccos or swift a-frame over an accubond any day, and by the looks of the hammer bullet coming apart, I gotta say no thanks there either. My sciroccos and a-frame retain at least 90% of their weight, and as far as that goes, I have several boxes of old norma bullets that have retained 90% of their weight also in the tests I've ran.

So out of curiosity why is 90% weight retention relevant? Why is 70% or even 85% not even worth considering by your requirements?

The issue is your looking at it from the wrong perspective of how those monos work. In typical bonded bullets the bullet undergoes a rapid transformation at the point of impact quickly mushrooming out to 1.5x its diameter or more. This wide nose allows for greater hydrostatic shock creating a large temporary and permanent wound cavity however it also greatly reduces the sectional density of the bullet. The purpose of high weight retention is to ensure penetration to reach the vitals with a now much lower SD due to the mushroomed shape of the bullet.

The monos work differently, rather than mushrooming out to create the cavity they are designed to fragment the nose which does several key things. One it creates a larger permanent wound cavity, those fragments expand outward creating their own separate wound tracks, individually they aren't all that impressive but together it looks like a little shotgun ripped through the vitals upon impact. The second thing it does is convert the Spitzer point into a wide flat nose, generally considered one of the best bullet designs for terminal performance. This bullet base retains its high SD due to the maintained diameter however the flat point allows it to create a larger permanent wound cavity due to the fluid dynamics of the flat nose. All of this combined results in the Hammers providing a larger permanent wound cavity that out penetrates a bonded bullet of similar diameter and weight without the risk of the bullet failing to penetrate with high velocity impacts.
 
I believe they are actually two different styles of bullets, the top ones are the Hammer Hunters and the bottom ones are the Hammer Dead Blows. Due to the bullets being solid copper the way you control the petal size and weight retention is by the depth of the hollow point and shank length. They are both doing the same thing but the petals are not shown in the top picture.

The Hunters are designed for taking big game so a larger shank size is preferred to increase penetration through the animal. The Dead Blows were designed more for varmint hunting where rapid expansion is key and penetration is not so they use a longer hollow point and shorter shank to provide that effect.



So out of curiosity why is 90% weight retention relevant? Why is 70% or even 85% not even worth considering by your requirements?

The issue is your looking at it from the wrong perspective of how those monos work. In typical bonded bullets the bullet undergoes a rapid transformation at the point of impact quickly mushrooming out to 1.5x its diameter or more. This wide nose allows for greater hydrostatic shock creating a large temporary and permanent wound cavity however it also greatly reduces the sectional density of the bullet. The purpose of high weight retention is to ensure penetration to reach the vitals with a now much lower SD due to the mushroomed shape of the bullet.

The monos work differently, rather than mushrooming out to create the cavity they are designed to fragment the nose which does several key things. One it creates a larger permanent wound cavity, those fragments expand outward creating their own separate wound tracks, individually they aren't all that impressive but together it looks like a little shotgun ripped through the vitals upon impact. The second thing it does is convert the Spitzer point into a wide flat nose, generally considered one of the best bullet designs for terminal performance. This bullet base retains its high SD due to the maintained diameter however the flat point allows it to create a larger permanent wound cavity due to the fluid dynamics of the flat nose. All of this combined results in the Hammers providing a larger permanent wound cavity that out penetrates a bonded bullet of similar diameter and weight without the risk of the bullet failing to penetrate with high velocity impacts.
Well said.
 
I believe they are actually two different styles of bullets, the top ones are the Hammer Hunters and the bottom ones are the Hammer Dead Blows. Due to the bullets being solid copper the way you control the petal size and weight retention is by the depth of the hollow point and shank length. They are both doing the same thing but the petals are not shown in the top picture.

The Hunters are designed for taking big game so a larger shank size is preferred to increase penetration through the animal. The Dead Blows were designed more for varmint hunting where rapid expansion is key and penetration is not so they use a longer hollow point and shorter shank to provide that effect.



So out of curiosity why is 90% weight retention relevant? Why is 70% or even 85% not even worth considering by your requirements?

The issue is your looking at it from the wrong perspective of how those monos work. In typical bonded bullets the bullet undergoes a rapid transformation at the point of impact quickly mushrooming out to 1.5x its diameter or more. This wide nose allows for greater hydrostatic shock creating a large temporary and permanent wound cavity however it also greatly reduces the sectional density of the bullet. The purpose of high weight retention is to ensure penetration to reach the vitals with a now much lower SD due to the mushroomed shape of the bullet.

The monos work differently, rather than mushrooming out to create the cavity they are designed to fragment the nose which does several key things. One it creates a larger permanent wound cavity, those fragments expand outward creating their own separate wound tracks, individually they aren't all that impressive but together it looks like a little shotgun ripped through the vitals upon impact. The second thing it does is convert the Spitzer point into a wide flat nose, generally considered one of the best bullet designs for terminal performance. This bullet base retains its high SD due to the maintained diameter however the flat point allows it to create a larger permanent wound cavity due to the fluid dynamics of the flat nose. All of this combined results in the Hammers providing a larger permanent wound cavity that out penetrates a bonded bullet of similar diameter and weight without the risk of the bullet failing to penetrate with high velocity impacts.
It's relevant to me because the higher the weight retention percentage, the less bullet material I have to worry about being in the meat that I consume. If you aren't worried about that, then ok. But I am.
 
It's relevant to me because the higher the weight retention percentage, the less bullet material I have to worry about being in the meat that I consume. If you aren't worried about that, then ok. But I am.
Your worried about 4-6 pieces of non toxic copper that weigh around 30-60 grains being in your 50 to 250 lbs of meat that you cut up, clean, and package?
 
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Your worried about 4-6 pieces of non toxic copper being in your meat that you cut up and clean and package?
Everybody has their likes, dislikes. No, I'm not worried at all, because they're not there. 10 of my 22 years in the military were spent with food inspection people, civilian and military. Spend that many years with them, and get back to me.
 
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10% of your lead bullet in the meat, or 15% of a likely lighter copper bullet in your meat.....

I personally don't care either way, and not trying to argue, I'm just trying to understand the logic in your argument.
 
What logic? I just don't want it there. It's just my preference. Everybody has their own preferences from the bullets they shoot to friends they keep to the car/truck or whatever they drive, to a million other choices we have the right to decide. There is no logic. Just my choice.
 
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