Reduced Recoil.....

[Lawdog]

Has anyone tried any of the new reduced recoil ammunition being offered by Remington and Federal?  Remington calls its ammo Managed Recoil, and Federal has labeled theirs Power-Shok Low Recoil.  Remington is using a 125-grain bullet at a reported chronographed velocity of just over 2,700 fps. Chamber pressure is reported to be around 37,000 psi (50,000 psi is normal for the .30-06).  Federal is using a 170-grain bullet at around 2,200 fps and 30,000 psi..

My experience using the .125 gr. bullets in a .30-06 is it was a miserable failure.  Bullets would fragment easily and penetration was dismal at best.  As far as I am concerned they make a good varmint bullet but never to be used on big game.  The Federal load sounds like the old 150 gr. reduced loads we used to make up for smaller persons to shoot.  The major drawback with them was they would always cycle the actions on semi-auto .30-06’s(Rem. M742 to be exact).  Has anyone here tried either of these two new offerings yet?  Lawdog
 

[Con]

Lawdog,
My "reduced" loads always chronograph somewhere in the 2100 - 2400fps zone. At that velocity easily fragmented "varmint" bullets can act like a regular game bullet. It's worked for me in the 7.62x54R using 123gr Hornadys (2200fps) and I'm hoping to experiment with a 60gr in the .243Win at 2300fps in the next few weeks.
Cheers...
Con

[huntsman]

Reduced loads are a great idea that has been a long time in coming to the commercial ammo market. IMHO there is a huge niche out there of hunters who would welcome this type of load for various reasons.

Velocity and bullet weight must be matched with care when creating these reduced loads. Bullets of a given weight are traveling slower, so they will actually penetrate better and deconstruct more slowly, at least in theory. The traditional high-velocity folks who swear by the partitions, Xs, and A-frames will find that lowering the bullet velocity will cause more moderately-constructed bullets to perform as well, if not better, than their old standbys. Lowering the bullet weight of a given load, however, also decreases the penetration factor and increases bullet frangibility.

A 125 grain bullet traveling at 2700 fps muzzle velocity still needs a measure of toughness at short ranges (like a bonded core bullet), but is deadly medicine on medium game. Push the velocity up to 3140 fps and now something much tougher than a straight lead core, soft-point bullet is needed to get good terminal performance inside of 200 yards, and even then, penetration of tough bone tissue would be an issue. (This is where the old 125gr factory offerings in 30-06 went wrong, or at least were not really intended as big-game loads). Conversely, where the downrange velocity drops below 2200 fps, the partition-style bullet begins to have trouble expanding quickly enough to create the desired wound channnel.

One needs to look closely at bullet weight and construction, velocity, and intended performance on target at expected hunting ranges to ensure that the reduced loads will perform well. If these factors are considered, reduced loads can and do produce very effective results. I got into reloading precisely because most factory offerings were too narrow in velocity and bullet weight to fit my range of hunting needs. I subsequently found that reduced loads are not only easier on the shooter, but are in most cases equally effective on game at short to medium range.