Bullet performance? 6.5x55 BulletFest results

[7x57]

Ok, There are several 13 to 15 inch pine stumps in the cut I shoot in.  I cut down three of them and spent some time dissecting them with axe and leatherman tool.  Now, I wish I was a techno geek and could relay digital picts but I have had no luck thus far.


The 120's and 129's went in and average of 7-11 inches  120 ballistic tips on the lower end

The 140's went from 9 inches to 14 7/8 inches deep with the Hornady interlocks and the Nosler partitions digging the deepest most often. The Hot cores and the Winchesters with the least penetration.

The  160 round nose usually left the stump or were found in the last 1/2 inch or so of wood in the 15 inch stump only five were recovered.

The coolest part was that seven interlocks and three Partitions made it to the last inch of wood! Yet all but one of the Interlocks shed their cores completely. What lead was left was squished under the jacket petals, or a 1/2 pencil eraser sized piece would fall out when it was picked up.

So here's a few questions: How can the Interlocks out dig the Partitions when they have fallen apart? Is it still bullet failure if it consistently out penetrates?

These are crude results and hardly scientific but they have me head scratching.

[PeterCartwright]

Are you tell'n me my cheap, 160 gr. Hornady RN might just maybe...with a little luck... make its way thorugh to the vitals of the next deer I shoot? 

Cool report.  Thanks for all your time at the loading bench and the field.

[beemanbeme]

I really think the term "bullet failure" needs to be better defined.  Some folks, if they don't recover a classic mushroomed slug like in the advertisements, consider it a bullet failure.  Personally, I think they need to shoot more game.  I subscribe more to the phrase: "at what point in the dead deer did the bullet fail?"  If you think about it a moment, the jacket of the bullet is merely a sabot to carry the lead bullet thru the barrel and to the quarry.  Its original purpose was to achieve higher velocity while maintaining the stabilizing spin than was possible with a lead bullet.  Its use has been enhanced to control expansion and penetration but it still remains a sabot to get the bullet into the game.
Thanks for your efforts.

[nomosendero]

"Is it bullet failure if it consistently out penetrates"? No, it isn't. Keep in mind though that penetration ability of bullets changes with different types of media. What does better in wood won't necessarily in flesh & this has been shown in car bodies, steel & many things.

Some of the match bullet hollow points will "close in" on windshields & bore straight through, where some soft points will over expand,
but yet the same soft point will out penetrate flesh .  Sme is true of steel plates, sometimes a 22-250 with the high vel will bore a hole & a bigger bullet splatter on the steel, but the larger cal. soft point would penetrate better on game.

I would NOT expect the interlocks to outpenetrate the NP in animals if the bullets are the same wt. & cal. I have not seen it &
don't expect to, but I am open to test that show otherwise in flesh. That being said, the Hor. Interlock do great on Deer.

[7x57]

Good points all around, especially the one about differing results in differing media.   

I just found it odd that the 140 Hornady's  dug deeper on average than the 140 Partitions!!!!!!!!

You could not tell me that if I hadn't seen it.

Also, regulars here will know that I'm partial to the 160 RN  because they just keep going, I like exit holes!!!

[Guy Pike]

The differences not withstanding it seems that the old Swede still has alot of pizazz. eh?

[Don Fischer]

I don't understand why we even consider penetration on a deer. I have never got but one bullet out of a deer. It was a 180gr bullet from some cheap Federal factory stuff. One of my younger brothers shot a deer in the butt with it, BTW, I dug out the bullet, a boat tail. Any way it only penetrated about 10" and stopped. I have never got a bullet of my own out of a deer. So how do you estimate penetration with a bullet on a deer? And how do you determine bullet failure on an animal killed with one shot? It is my belief, that although a bullet does fail once in a great while, bullet failure is the excuse for poor shooting. I recall a guy in Montana many years ago telling me how tuff elk are. According to him, he'd shot a bull squarely in the chest three times with a 175gr 7mm mag and the bull ran off. He related tracking it 20 miles. So did the bullets fail or was this most likely bad shooting?

[swampthing]

I would call that a bullet failure. When a bullet is pushed too fast, especially into an animal as big as an Elk, you sometime get what is called a "splash effect." The bullet completely comes apart and may only penetrate a couple inches. Never reaching the vitals, the animal runs off and dies, maybe. Thats bullet failure and I've seen it happen. {A follow up shot "in the neck" before the animal got away allowed me to view exactally what had happened to that bullet}
 That guy that shot at that Elk, very well could have been right on, but, one starts pushing bullets past 2800fps + taking close range shots one will start to understand bullet failure, intimately. No, not every time with all bullets, but a lot of the time with the wrong bullets.
  You won't impress many Elk with power, I admire how they can soak up "premium bullets" from so called "magnum rifles" like a kid with a bucket of ice cream.  You get an appropriate slug through the vitals and you might impress yourself, he, on the other hand, will probably still try to MOON YOU. {show you his but}.
     

[7x57]

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, fellas people can be so touchy here  remember anyone posting on this site is your brother and should be treated as such, divide and conquer....the anti-gun crowd loves it when we fight with each other! Takes the heat off of them.

 Firstly:   I agree that with any reasonable deer gun the bullets will usually exit... unless you use more frangible bullets of lighter weights and therefore at higher speeds. I myself have not recovered a single bullet from a deer and I use "whimpy rounds" like 7x57 and 6.5x55.

The purpose of this thread was to present the results of my bullet testing for the benefit of anyone who cared.  When some of my results were very different than I expected I was looking for an explaination from (those with greater experience than mine) of why/how a bullet that sheds its core and fragments was on average out penetrating (not by much but still) a more sturdily constructed bullet.

I did the test to see which bullets would be best for pushing the performance envelope for the occasional shot on larger game such as elk.
That said, My uncle shot a moose in the Flathead valley with his 300 Win Mag at about 60 yards with 180 grain bullet, the bullet hit the
moose in the shoulder and blew a soft ball sized hole in the shoulder. The moose didn't even flinch and walked off into the thick stuff. It was getting real dark so the moose was left till the morning. In the morning the moose was found a short distance from where he went into the woods, he jumped up and was shot down with two 180 grain 30/06 loads. The first shot had broken the leg but not reached the vitals, the bullet was a collection of rice sized pieces.  This was bullet failure but may be attributable to "bad shooting", ie: hitting a large bone close up but when your packing a "magic magnum" and fairly heavy bullet as my uncle was you think you can blast on through.
At short range/high speed/large bones you NEED a Premium bullet.

But, if you shoot at a hard object (stump) at 108 yards, and a non premium bullet comes apart but goes deeper than a Partition you have to wonder about that. Some one like my father said it best, at what point did the bullet fail if it quickly kills the animal?

Good luck and good hunting.

[swampthing]

I have had similar results with the partitions, I've had them shed the rear core as well as the front one and at the same time. This was from a measly 23-2400fps, and no they weren't tumbling. I would not classify that bullet as "Premium," even though the company charges you as such.
Sounds like you found the toughest bullet in that group. I'm curious if you were shooting into "wet" wood, or "dry" wood. Your results are the results, but was wondering if these stumps were a bit dry. Dry wood usually lets decent bullet/loads zip through, wet wood is a different story.   

[corbanzo]

Any of you guys think that the barnes x-bullet would be a little bit less apt to the splash effect as lead cored bullets?  Something to put into testing....  I've always hunted moose with nosler partitions, but was thinking about switching to x-bullets for my reloading.

[coyotejoe]

Shooting into various materials such as dry paper, wood, or steel only tells you how much paper, wood or steel your bullet will penetrate. It is not useful information to the hunter.

[swampthing]

True, but shooting into "wet newspaper" {48 hour soak} will show basically 1 half of what you would get if that same load was in to game.
           As far as the Barnes TSX bullet types, yes and no. When you push the bullet over that 2800fps mark you may start to loose/shed the petals of the "X" but that's it and that's were it stops, the rest of the bullet IS the core, so it stays intact. Plus with the size of the meplat left behind, after the petals sheared off, allows for a good wound channel, not to mention great penetration. You could not push that bullet fast enough in a sporting arm to get the same splash effect you would get from the "cheaper" lead core bullets.
   

[Coyote Hunter]

A few thoughts here:

1.   Bullet penetration is as much a factor of the expanded diameter as it is other factors.  Rick Jamison did a test in which a 300g Partition from a .45-70 out penetrated every other bullet he tested, inludng 350g bullets (and possibly even heavier – I don’t have the details in front of me).  The problem was the Partition also had half the frontal area after expansion when compared to the other bullets – no wonder it penetrated well!

2.   Bullet failure, IMHO, begins the instant the bullet fails to perform as desired.  I often hear the argument “at what point in the animals demise did the bullet fail” argument and just have to laugh.  There is a judgment of “Not guilty by reasons of insanity” but I think it should be “Guilty but insane”.  I think in many cases the bullet failed and the animal died anyway. 

3.   The one time I used Interlocks (162g 7mm Rem Mag at 100-120 yards) on elk the elk died but I consider the bullet performance to have been very poor.  No such problems in 25 years with 160g Grand Slams or North Forks.  There IS a difference in bullet performance.

[PeterCartwright]

Kinda sounds like what everbody's saying is that "magnum" velocities demand more of game bullets.  Didn't think that was controversial.  What I hear 7X57 saying is that common cup and core bullets generally perform very well at "standard" velocities (like the good old 6.5X55).  My limited experience supports this thesis.

A couple years ago, I read parts of a Scandanavian study (from Norway?) noted, I think, in Rifle Magazine.  The study surveyed something like 10K "elg" (what we call moose) hunters noting cartridge used, how many shots required and how far the animal went.  Two things struck me about the study: 1.  A HUGE percentage of those "Scandahoovians" chose the lowly 6.5X55 to fill their freezers with moose venison.  2.  There was no meaningful difference in the distances covered by these animals whether they were taken with the 6.5X55 or larger cartridges.

I'm willing to bet that the lion's share of those critters were taken with cup and core bullets (probably made by Norma!).  The Swede is easy to shoot well (i.e. it has very low recoil) and, given appropriate bullet weights for game chosen, it takes game cleanly.  Guess that's why those who try it love it.  Anyway, I do.