Sierra Matchkings for hunting

LOL, I am sorry, I am still laughing about Ric's last post.

Depends on what fieldpoint your using, weight of arrow and speed your "flingin" her out at I suppose.... Yet again I
"fling" my field points off my long bow, some would say its unethical though, 750gr Arrow @ 197fps, buuut I dont know.
 
Bill

Not the laughing stock by any means... it's a real common question and your reply is the fairly standard answer for someone that hasn't used them for hunting. You were just the unluck fella to broach the dreaded "SMKs won't work as a hunting bullet".

The regular SMK users are just standing by as they sort of enjoy these regular discussions. Use of these bullet for hunting has made history for several of the longest threads on some hunting boards, a hot topic.

The SMK's I've recovered were virtually indistinguishable from a Sierra GameKing. Very high impact speed and they lose their jacket and/or break up, slower impact and they just suffer some jacket separation on occassion. I have a picture of a 300gr 338 I dug out of a moose I shot at 439 yards with a 338 RUM...not too much digging really as it was on the off-side at the skin.

338-300_308-180_1.jpg


I've many times set out to recover 175 and 168 SMKs from deer but it seems it's either a simple double-lung, I'm too hurried (crop damage shooting) or the impact site destroys the bullet (SPINE shots). I do have a few more recovered bullets around the house, maybe I can find some and post pictures.
 
APB,

Yeah true Parrot Head here... guilty as charged....
All I had was beer... a few boat drinks in me and I mighta said more than I should ;-)
"Changes in Lattitudes, Changes in attitudes, nothing remains quite the same..."
"If we wern't all crazy, we might go insane"
"I'm growing older but not up"
"wrinkles only go where the smiles have been"

Mr. Baily... not the laughing stock ... your "well they didn't work one time" they can't work at all attitude is typical....
The guys here have been doing this for a long time .. me just 7 years or sooo.. but I havn't had a matchking fail EVER... even had to put one deer down after a Partition bullet kinda forgot to expand enough....

water has never been a good test for any bullet... even though the makeup of most of the things we hunt is primarily water based and bullet not expanding in a jug of water does not represent and accurate test to the bullets expanding ability....

if you decide to spend enough time here.... you'll soon realize Matchkings Just Plain work...

now where is that Cajun Bloody Mary I was woking on....
 
I'll make one last stand here.

I never said these bullets wouldn't work. I just think there are better, more effecient hunting bullets out there. I will choose to use these.

I realize the jug of water does not accurately simulate flesh. However I do know I watched my buddy put three rounds in the same jug full of water, and he thought he had missed as did I, wathing through a 6.5-20 Zeiss Conquest.

If you use the SMK and are happy with the results, fine. I'm not telling you to stop using it. I'm simply saying I won't be using it anytime in the near future.
 
Bill
I will make one quick surmise that the first hit probably emptied the water for starters. The next 2 only had plastic to stop 'em otherwise you would have at least seen a impact mist. To each his own - I use hundreds of SMK a year on small game because of their superior accuracy and find the pink mist not as exciting as Vmax however they are still somewhat torn apart and quite dead.

Ric
I will have to catch up for a few "boat drinks" sometime and I think a JB verse is pertinient here.
"Come and follow in our wake, you've not that much at stake
For we have plowed the seas, and smoothed the troubled waters
Come along and let's have some fun, seems our work is done
We'll barrel roll into the sun just for starters"
APB
 
There was a massive thread (over 100 pages) on the http://forums.accuratereloading.com website.Could this be the one you were refering to? I had the direct link, before my computer died. Brutal nasty stuff about how matchkings don't work on game. Then some of the guys from this site showed up (dave king, DC et al.) and showed them the proof. great reading (especially for entertainment I laughed so hard one night ice tea shot from my nose!) in fact, if it weren't for stumbling on that thread, I might have never found this site.
 
I've never used SMKs for hunting, but I've had good results using Sierra Game Kings. Would it be accurate to say the performance of the two bullets are similar on game with bullets of the same weight and caliber?
 
OK guys I'm going to jump in here and ask my question again about nosler J4 bullets. Does anyone have experience shooting big game (black bear) with these bullets? Wouldn't it seem logical that they would perform on big game just like the SMK? In other words I want some input on weather any of the SMK crowd would take a poke at a bear with a .308 win and these 168 gr bullets?

And Bill B. Welcome to LRH forums. Please stick around and enjoy the site. It would be a shame to have a new member leave because they just happen to hit a VERY hot topic with a strong oppinion first thing out of the gate.
 
APB... ;-)Wow another parrot head, how refreshing. In this insane world we live in there are people who realize there is a place to escape to normalcy... If you ever get to this side..please stop in.. we have alot we need to talk about...

" I ate the last mango in Paris, took the last plane out of Saigon, took the first, fast boat to China and "jimmy" there is still so much to be done..."

4rked... the J4's work well on Whitetail I have taken a few with them... the are thinner jacketed so not real sure how they'd work on bear if you hit bone... that being said I am not a bear hunter so I have never shot one.... I used to have a 308 that loved the J4's as in .1's and .2's with 44 grs of Varget .005 into the lands....

Mr. Baily.. Me thinks you should reconsider your decision to use SMK's they really do work very very well....
Maybe Mr. King could post those pics of the experiment he did....

Ric
 
Abinok, I think that is exactly what I was looking for. It was a very long thread on hunting with matchkings and it ultimately got very ugly a few times. If anyone has a direct route to locate this, please share. I have really enjoyed the exchange here. Thanks.
 
4ked Horn,

I'm not going leave just because someone has a different opinion than I do and tells me about it. I'd like to think I've got a stronger backbone than that.

Ric Horst,

I'm probably not going to start using the matchkings for hunting applications anytime soon. I just did't like what I saw. I also don't know how these bullets would hold up at close range under the high velocities created by my 300 RUM. As I said before, I'm not telling you they can't be used on game. I'm just saying I'm not going to use them on game.

I recently ordered some 169.5 ULD RBBT bullets from Wildcat bullets. I know these bullets will be better ballisticly(sp. or is this a word?). We'll see how they perform on game. I plan to shoot some into wet cardboard bundles to test their performance.
 
The reason for my interest in this topic is I have a couple of rifles (7mm and .30 cal. mags.) that really loves the matchking and has not responded well to any of the other conventional hunting bullets tested. My hunting is not long range by most of you definitions, but my stand allows shoots of 500yd in two different directions and shots of 300 - 400yds are common. I do consider accuracy of my loads king and am not willing to give up much to change to another hunting bullet. A couple of years ago I gave the matchking a brief test and took a handfull of whitetail with them but my results were rather inclusive. All shots resulted in a complete passthrough with a large exit wound, but all the whitetail seemed to run about the max distance of 50 - 70 yards with double lung hits. This left me wondering if the bullet was perhaps opening up or tumbling late in its passage through the deer and thus explaining the large exit and limited, immediate reaction on the deer. Has anyone else reached this conclusion?
 

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