Hammer hype?

[HARPERC]

.....That is interesting. The 2 things a mono has going for it are weight retention and a comparatively long shank behind a sharp expanded surface/surfaces. A mono will maintain its SD and momentum far better than jacketed lead. I wonder what makes them turn so drastically on the ones that hit shoulder and exited the front?...........

I "THINK" it's a combination of: 1) Twist being enough to keep bullets "square" to the target, and the bullet stable while it changes form. 2) Material hardness, too hard and the bullet doesn't change form when it needs to. 3) Hollow point diameter helps changing to a flatter meplat sooner, or could be just a flatter profile to begin with. Spitzer shapes being more prone to changing direction.

 

[Calvin45]

Having spent several years working in Barnes ballistics lab and fielding thousands of complaint calls in the early 2000's about no expansion ok'd the X bullet, bullet diameter entry and exit, yet they are telling me about they're dead animal. Back then people didn't realize the X was expanding, petals simply sheared off due to impact velocity, dead is dead right? To make the customers happy, copper composition was adjusted so the TSX would retain 100 percent weight at 25 yds from muzzle in gelatin. Problem solved. Just curious why 20 years later people are willing to pay premium prices for a product they may have tried, and condemned, for poor performance and the Hammer performs exactly like the much earlier X bullet's did, and the Hammer is such an amazing product. I have not used Hammer bullets, wondering if I can be swayed to try them. Thanks in advance

to be fair I've heard no shortage of complaints about Barnes, hornady gmx, Nosler e tip, and such, from those who did not recover the animal or shot it multiple times or recovered it after tracking over a mile and discovering ice pick style wounds.

I have yet to encounter one such complaint about hammers (or gs custom for that matter).

I have no experience with monos of any kind so my opinion ain't much, nor will it be: LONG LIVE LEAD BULLETS!!!!!

I will Of course agree with you that people complaining of bullet failure after examining swiftly killed animals are kind of ridiculous. I hear the same thing about good old cup and cores "really disappointed, total bullet failure, fragmented really bad, no weight retention, etc..." after it drops a deer like it's been struck by lightning.

no absolute extreme terminal ballistic philosophy is sound or in acknowledgment of real field results. You don't need a certain weight retention. You dont need to "dump all the energy in the animal and not the hill behind it". You need adequate penetration with as broad of wounding as can be had while ensuring that penetration. for myself I like exit wounds but that's just me.

 

[Rich Coyle]

Calvin45,

I used to love G.S. Custom. They're the most accurate bullet I used. I fired many boxes of them. Then I used them on game. Three animals took ten bullets kill them. All should have been one shot and down. Two of them needed a finishing shot when I walked up to the animals.

I still have a box of 6.5 mm I will give a good deal for someone.

 

[Killertraylor]

I love Hammer Bullets. I've got about 30 kills with them now, mostly on hogs, but my wife dropped her elk with the 124 Hammer hunter out of a 6.5 creed at 325 yards this past season. Outstanding bullet performance. I use them in almost all of my hunting rifles. Exceptional accuracy too. What's not to love?

 

[stx]

I load Hammers in 8 different cartridges. Changed over to them 2 years ago for all my hunting cartridges. They are devastating on game and very accurate. Couldn't be happier with performance and the customer service I've received from Steve. I've shot quite a few hogs and Texas white tails with them. If they aren't DRT, they are within about 5-15 yards. They just destroy the vitals. According to Steve, I'm the first to take a mountain goat with a Hammer. Had to put it through both shoulders. Using my 338 Lapua and the 213gr Hammer Hunter, the goat jumped and did a 180 upon impact, then fell over dead before I could rack another round. Can't wait to use the 143 gr in my 280 AI for my NM mule deer hunt.
Im sure STX will chime in at some point. He's killed a pile of game with Hammers in multiple cartridges. Hammers live up to the "hype" in my opinion.

Absolutely Doug! I also shoot Hammers in 8 different cartridges....220 Swift, 257 Roberts, 25-06, 6.5 CM, 264 WM, 280 Rem, 280 Ackley, and 300 Wby. I've shot Barnes since the old X bullets but was never completely satisfied with them.....in the South Texas Brush Country, if you don't break down both shoulders with a Barnes, you may be competing with coyotes for the deer. I went to VLDs in several cartridges and love the accuracy and the DRT effect with most shots.....but we've had quite a few that were shoulder shot and left no blood trail.....once again, not good in South Texas heavy brush. To me, the Hammers are the best of both worlds! With the petals shearing off, you get the shrapnel effect of the VLD along with the penetration of the Barnes, only better! 2 years of using Hammers and killing a ton of animals with them and we've yet to recover a bullet! And as many have already said, I've never seen a bullet so easy to develop a load for. The first rifle I tried a Hammer in was one of my 25-06s....with the 98 gr SH. It only took 9 shots to pressure test and shoot for accuracy....starting at .020 off as Steve recommends. Attached pic is 3 shot group with that rifle during development.

 

[Spd522]

I have used Barnes for several years. Mostly in my 300 WM with the original 180gr X bullet and the newer TSX in 165 gr. I have also used the 165 gr TSX in my 308 AR10 and the 62 gr TSX in a AR pistol. Neither deer nor elk traveled more than 50 yards and most dropped on the spot. Shots ranged from 35 yds to 447 yds. Anything in the path of the bullet was scrambled mush. I haven't tried Hammer because I see no need to when the Barnes works just fine for me.

 

[nicholasjohn]

I have to say I have noticed this in the past, when a barnes sheds petals it's a failure and they are garbage, when a hammer sheds petals its wonderful and they are magical.

To be clear I have no problem with either. TSX's do great on coyotes and Bobcats for me and I want to give the hammers a shot at bigger game but out here in nm I just cant get any rifle tags. I just think its interesting that the same phenomenon is percieved as the opposite for each.

I think that it's likely because Barnes advertises their bullets to peel back into the X-shaped frontal cross section, and retain nearly all of their original weight. Hammer says right out of the chute that the front part is supposed to fragment, and the cylindrical portion stays intact for full penetration. When a Barnes does that, people who want the near-100% weight retention that was advertised think of it as bullet failure, even though it will kill the animal sufficiently dead. When a Hammer does that, it is behaving as advertised. I think that if the general hunting public wasn't so hung up on weight retention, there would be no "problem" with the Barnes bullets. We have the magazine writers to thank for this.

 

[ButterBean]

Absolutely Doug! I also shoot Hammers in 8 different cartridges....220 Swift, 257 Roberts, 25-06, 6.5 CM, 264 WM, 280 Rem, 280 Ackley, and 300 Wby. I've shot Barnes since the old X bullets but was never completely satisfied with them.....in the South Texas Brush Country, if you don't break down both shoulders with a Barnes, you may be competing with coyotes for the deer. I went to VLDs in several cartridges and love the accuracy and the DRT effect with most shots.....but we've had quite a few that were shoulder shot and left no blood trail.....once again, not good in South Texas heavy brush. To me, the Hammers are the best of both worlds! With the petals shearing off, you get the shrapnel effect of the VLD along with the penetration of the Barnes, only better! 2 years of using Hammers and killing a ton of animals with them and we've yet to recover a bullet! And as many have already said, I've never seen a bullet so easy to develop a load for. The first rifle I tried a Hammer in was one of my 25-06s....with the 98 gr SH. It only took 9 shots to pressure test and shoot for accuracy....starting at .020 off as Steve recommends. Attached pic is 3 shot group with that rifle during development.
View attachment 198409

I'm putting a 25-06 AI together now centered around the 92gr HH

 

[nicholasjohn]

I used Barnes for years with only one hiccup. Right off the bat, a .30 cal/180 gr. for a whitetail doe is way to much bullet. Even for elk, all I shoot is 165 gr. Dropped the last one at 600 no problem. The only one I had trouble with was from the very first batch of TTSX they made. Shot an elk at 400+ from an '06. The bullet didn't expand, and I recovered it. Turns out those bullets were designed strictly for magnums. No issues since. Shot a Coues at 95 yds. a year ago with my RUM. It had full performance even at that range.

I have shot a boatload of whitetail does ( and bucks ) with 180-grain 30 caliber bullets, and they have worked beautifully for me. I can honestly say that I have never had a problem with them. I used to shoot 150-grain bullets, but found them to be too destructive. The 180's, in both the 308 and the 30-06, just work better. They don't make a mess of the meat like the 150's do. I have mostly used standard cup & core bullets, but have also used some fancy premium bullets for the last twenty years or so. The Swift A-Frame was a favorite, and the Nosler Partition is also a gem. They used to load it in the Federal 30-06 High Energy load. ( It chronographed 2880 fps, just like it said on the box.) I wish that I had bought a case of that stuff when it was still available. I shot everything with that load, and never had anything but stellar performance - long range or short. They always expanded well, as did the Swift. The last few years I've been using the 165-grain Hornady GMX, in their Superformance 30-06 factory loaded ammo. Works just like the 180-grain premiums; shoots a bit flatter trajectory. I've never tried the Barnes bullets, but I would think they would perform similarly to the GMX.

 

[Bravo 4]

Hammer bullets are only really popular on this site, which is ironic since its a long range hunting site and past 500 yds its like pulling a parachute with hammer bullets.

Dang, you got something against parachutes too? Or have you never used one of those either and talking from the sidelines? They are a horrible way to fly (fall), I'll give you that.
I get what you're saying, but then again that whole naysayer thing keeps popping up. So you are just categorizing all their bullets into one. Will my .338 RUM loaded with a 236 Hammer Hunter bullet at 3050 have the same performance on paper at my self imposed 800 yard limit (with that load) as say a 300 grain Berger at close to 2800? No, it does give up any velocity advantage around the 600 yard mark. If you're saying it doesn't have the velocity, energy, penetration, whatever at 800 yards to kill an elk then you are sadly mistaken. Maybe you don't consider 800 yards long range. Or how about selling the idea that the 395 grain bullet with a BC of over .8 that I've been playing with and launching 3,000 fps won't kill anything at long range. Come on now...
I see you pushing the Creedmore for LR hunting on animals up to elk size, you saying that it will out perform my .338 load at 800 yards? Well, I feel the same about the Creedmoor as you do Hammer bullets. Just tired of hearing about it. I guess the difference is that I have actually shot several of them.

 

[Stiltsville]

Hey guys when will you ADMIT that any premium bullet designed for hunting will kill any Elk that walks the earth ?

Anyone know what the most popular cartirdge was at the last great Elk stampede in the 19-teens at Yellowstone ?

I thought not.

You are aware that untold 1000s of Elk have been killed with unbonded cup-n-core bullets and many will be this fall as well ?

One thing great about this site. I learn about things no one has ever heard of.

 

[UplandFreak]

Dang, you got something against parachutes too? Or have you never used one of those either and talking from the sidelines? They are a horrible way to fly (fall), I'll give you that.
I get what you're saying, but then again that whole naysayer thing keeps popping up. So you are just categorizing all their bullets into one. Will my .338 RUM loaded with a 236 Hammer Hunter bullet at 3050 have the same performance on paper at my self imposed 800 yard limit (with that load) as say a 300 grain Berger at close to 2800? No, it does give up any velocity advantage around the 600 yard mark. If you're saying it doesn't have the velocity, energy, penetration, whatever at 800 yards to kill an elk then you are sadly mistaken. Maybe you don't consider 800 yards long range. Or how about selling the idea that the 395 grain bullet with a BC of over .8 that I've been playing with and launching 3,000 fps won't kill anything at long range. Come on now...
I see you pushing the Creedmore for LR hunting on animals up to elk size, you saying that it will out perform my .338 load at 800 yards? Well, I feel the same about the Creedmoor as you do Hammer bullets. Just tired of hearing about it. I guess the difference is that I have actually shot several of them.

I don't own a 6.5 creedmoor - having said that I would take a creedmoor with a 140 berger over a 338 with a 236 hammer for an 800 yard elk shot any day. It isn't always about velocity, it is the wind that will get you out past 600. That is where the true value of high BC bullets come in.

This has been addressed on other threads, but I worked up a load with a hammer in a buddies 28 nosler and the stated BC on their website was significantly over stated - It was much closer to Brian Litz's BC. If you never shoot out past 500 yards, hammer away. There are much better options if you do. Just my opinion.

 

[crystalgayleguy]

what happened to the fail safe bullet by Winchester it was a top line bullet back then

 

[Rich Coyle]

There's one thing not mentioned but maybe implied here. It is why I switched to Barnes and now use Hammers. There's no lead in my food.