75g Hdy BTHP, 55g SGK, 65g SGK; recovered from goats

[bobnob]

I had the opportunity to cull a few feral goats today. I thought I'd test the three bullets I've been doing a lot of testing with of late, in the form of the Hornady 75g BTHP Match; the 65g Sierra Gameking and the 55g Gameking.

Luckily I got onto a couple of mobs in some brushy spots on a hill. None of the shots were further than 30y and the below were the results of 4 bullets I recovered from under the skin on the far shoulders of these fairly modest sized animals (between 25 and 35kg in weight)...

Retained weight is the first figure and expanded diameter is the second. There were two of the Hornady and one each of the 55 and 65g Sierras

75g Hornady:
1) 30g 0.504 2) 14g 0.420

55g Sierra GK
1) 14g 0.436

65g Sierra GK
1) 22g 0.462

Launch speeds of the bullets were 2750fps for the 75g, 3100 for the 55g and 2900 for the 65g, so impact speeds would not have been diminished much from those velocities.

Here's what the recovered bullets looked like; 2 x Hornadys at left, 55g SGK at centre and the 65g Sierra on the right.

Kind of surprised the Hornadys did not exit, given in wet newspaper testing they've penetrated a lot further than the other bullets. Then again animal skin is so tough and elastic, it it amazing how well it pulls up bullets of all sorts when their speed has been slowed down by going through a couple of shoulders.

Not sure what may be deduced from these results. Pretty harsh tests on little bullets: close range double shoulder bone shots. All bullets killed well though.

Thanks.

- Bob

 

[Firebird]

Thanks for posting those-I use water jugs for testing one bullet against another but you put those bullets through a truly legitimate test! I can't believe they held together that well at those speeds up close on skin, bone and dense muscle. Great stuff!
Would love to see what the 64 gr nosler solid base bonded could do. . .

 

[FOTIS]

That 65 SGK looks great. What is retained weight

 

[JD338]

Thanks for posting those-I use water jugs for testing one bullet against another but you put those bullets through a truly legitimate test! I can't believe they held together that well at those speeds up close on skin, bone and dense muscle. Great stuff!
Would love to see what the 64 gr nosler solid base bonded could do. . .

Those bullets did hold up better than I would have thought.

Here is a .224 64 gr SBS recovered in the 5th jug at 30 yds. MV 3372 fps recovered weight was 50.2 grs (72%) and expanded to .481".

JD338

 

[bobnob]

That 65 SGK looks great. What is retained weight

It held onto 22g or about one-third Fotis. No doubt would hold more at longer range. I really like them.

 

[SJB358]

I'm pretty impressed with the 75 grain Hornady Bob. It shoots really well out my RAR at around 2950. Plus, you cannot beat the price of them either. BC is pretty good as well. Was hoping to put some In a coyote but unless I catch one around during turkey a season it might be tough.

Sounds like they all did a great job though. Glad your liking that little RAR. I Like mine a whole lot for what it is.

 

[andrewctillman]

I have hand loaded alot of the 75 grain Hornady for my 16 and 20 inch long barreled AR15's. These were moly coated but no faster than a copper only jacket. The Hornady manual is absolutely correct in stating you can get 2850 fps from a 20 inch with BLC-2 and 2,900 fps with CFE223. this from NATO chamber and at NATO pressure. At 2700 fps the 75 grain BTHP fragments out to 150 yards on coyotes and puts them down decisively. At 2,900 fps they fragment at 200 yards and maybe a bit farther. They are much more effective than the 53 grain VMAX super performance on coyotes which kind of surprises me. The yotes run 10-30 yards if you dont hit a shoulder, while they go right down hard hit with the 75 grain. 50% more fragmentation and double the penetration make a difference even on these little varmits. The 53 VMAX is going over 3400 fps from my 20 inch rifles, and it makes range estimation easy (just hold on). But the 75 is deffinately more emmediate effect.