Well it has been a few months since my last report so I thought I would start a new thread.
If you can remember back in July /09 I started load development with the .338 200gr. E-tip. Two lost Elk and a nearly escaped Moose brought me to this decision not to continue to use the 200gr. BT on big game. I was however trying to copy the ballistics of my BT load. 77 gr. of H4350 = 3200 fps 1.5” high @100 just over @ 200 -6.5 @ 300 -16 @ 400 and-22@450yds.
I burned up almost 50 rounds just getting a load developed that came close to the fore mentioned. I settled on 75gr of H4350 = 3110fps. Practice burned up another 23 leaving me with 27 for the season. I planned to hunt: Stone Sheep, Grizzly, Moose, black tail deer, and Mountain Goat in that order. I needed a sample and a penetration test so I did a water test and recovered a bullet out of the seventh, one gallon milk jug.
[attachment=5]water.jpg[/attachment]
Weight 197gr
Width .751max .577min
Length .623
To make a very long story short……er, The 09 season ended with two uncut tags in my pocket. Neither a Mt. goat nor black tail buck graced me with their presence.
My stone sheep, as you may remember from my post in the tread “338 cal 200 gr E-tip”, caught one in the back of the head @ 309yds. It was a bit high due to a steep angle and a dinged scope that I put back a tad higher than normal on opening day. Not much for a bullet test but accuracy was noted.
My opportunity for my second Grizzly came at 60yds while looking down over a creek.
Two E-tips were fired. The first completely pierced both shoulders of the 6ft 8 boar dropping him in his tracks. He started to move around and as it was nearing the end of the day and the surrounding bush was thick I gave him a second one length wise down the spine. The bullet entered the neck travelled through several vertebrae and clipped the far shoulder blade before coming to rest up against the hide. I recovered this one and was impressed with the measurements taken from it.
[attachment=4]griz09.jpg[/attachment]
Weight 198.2gr.
Width max .767 min .569
Length .613
I considered this to be very good penetration and weight retention performance at close range.
Fast forward a week and a day and I was sitting 75yds. off of a river edge in the open timber making cow/calf moose calls. I had managed to bring in a young bull to 20yds quartering to me. My plan was to find out how much meat damage would be caused by such a close shot. I put the cross hairs tight behind the near shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The bull’s reaction was as spectacular as it was surprising. He jumped back and landed broadside to me and bolted. Not running or galloping but leaping and bounding with out stretched legs.
On the grizzly the shoulders had been broken and penetrated. There is a lot more substance to bear shoulders then a moose chest however and this bull was a third the distance. Had the E-tip failed to open as several Black talons and Barnes X bullets had? To be perfectly honest I didn’t even think of this till after the bull was at my feet.
Leaping and bounding like a horse jumping gates was not the reaction I desired. He spotted me as I reloaded and he spun on a dime when he touched down. As he was leaping away from me I confess my thoughts at the time were to simply stop him. I did not want to carry him any farther than I had too nor did I have any desire to increase my lost animal count. As he rose to leap again I placed the cross hairs above his pelvis and touched off another. I was rewarded with another spectacular reaction. It was right out of a coyote and roadrunner cartoon. His head could not have been driven to the ground any faster if an anvil was dropped on it. His hind end was sticking straight up in the air balancing over the rest of his non co-operating body. He actually held this position for five or six seconds until his neck broke the rest him piled up in an unconventional heap on the wrong side of his head. “WOW never seen that before!” was my first thought. I don’t think my Texas heart shot went under the tail. Was next to cross my mind. The autopsy revealed the first bullet passed through the chest on an angle from just behind the entry shoulder to between the sixth and seventh rib from the back and out. It appeared from the wound channel and the damage to the lungs that the bullet had opened but did not remain in the chest.
The second “anvil” struck the base of the skull and traveled forward thought the brain and skull coming to rest under the skin on the fore head. Yes, a second recovery! It was one to make you go “huumm”. The bullet was missing one peddle.
[attachment=3]moose09.jpg[/attachment]
Weight 181.1 grs.
Width max .760 min .352
Length .659
My thoughts on this encounter are still favourable. Seeing the damage to the lungs I believe the bull would not have gone far with just the first hit. The second bullet although lost apx. 10% of its mass still far out preformed previously tested bullets.
This was the end of my 09 hunting success. My rifle and loads did make another trip and kill however. A very good friend and his son were both drawn for late season cow elk. They only have one rifle in the household and asked if I would lend the boy a rifle. My advice was to let the lad use his father’s ‘06 and lend my .338 to the more experienced shooter. The son got a broad side opportunity @355yds and opted to use my rifle for the shot. The cow hopped and walked fifty yds. across the field before falling into the snow. A long broad side shot is definitely needed in any reasonable bullet test I was ecstatic when they told me they recovered the bullet from the far side of the chest on the hide. Again I liked what I found.
[attachment=2]elk09b.jpg[/attachment]
Weight 198.5
Width .735max .472.min
Length .778
Excellent weight retention as any hunting bullet should have at that range. What impressed me was although the pedals didn’t open as far down the shank, they did open very near as wide, over double the original cal. It should be noted that the bullet did strike a rib on the exit side that may have assisted in opening the bullet. The lungs were damaged sufficiently enough that she didn’t go far and that, to me at least, is more important.
This year’ hunting trips were not as numerous for me. In fact I only got one shooting opportunity and (I hate to admit this) I missed. Fortunately for me (and my freezer ) both my partners made good on their chances. One of them even elected to use my rifle due to the close proximity of the bull I called.
The morning after my miss, two of us went back into the scene of the crime for another through search for any sign of a wounded animal. After no evidence of a hit could be found, we decided to set up and try calling again. Maybe he could be fooled a second time. I got a response almost immediately. We discussed my “bullet testing” the night before and had decided my partner would select my rifle if a bull were to come into easy range or stick to his own on anything past 100yds. We could not have planned it better the way this guy came. In no time a big bull immerged from the bush broad side fifteen yards in front of us. BOOM, hit, center chest. The brute pulled up his front legs, reared and kicked like a rodeo bronco and trotted ten-fifteen steps. Then he must have seen, heard, or smelled us because he spun and ran the way he came. We gave him a few min confident he was mortally wounded. Alas no crunching thud of him hitting the dirt was heard. A few more min then we gave slow pursuit. I spotted him at about 150yds facing away and leaning badly to one side. We expected him to fall over any second but an honest min went by and he still kept his stance. A quick couple hand signals and we decided to end it faster. I expected from that solid rest of a birch tree my buddy was going to put one behind the brute’s ear. He later said he was more comfortable hitting the chest with an unfamiliar rifle so, a 200gr E-tip traveled a long diagonal path through the vitals and stopped where the neck meets the shoulder on the exit side. To my absolute astonishment the bull rightened himself and turned ninety degrees to walk deeper into the bush. I was lining up to send one from an unfamiliar rifle myself when the one that belonged to me roared a third time and the brute finally went down. My partner didn’t want to carry that monster any further either and let the third one fly when he stabilized the cross hairs behind the ear. “Nice rifle” was all he said. That last one punched into the neck and smashed its way through, not in between but through, a big vertebra breaking it into several pieces and continued on to the hide. Man that hide stuff can catch bullets.
As I said two bullets were recovered from this animal. Both fired aprox. 150 yds. from the target.
The first was the second hit, a diagonal shot through the chest.
[attachment=1]moose10c.jpg[/attachment]
Weight 198.5 grs.
Width .801max .560min
Length .663
The second was a square on neck/spine shot.
[attachment=0]moose10n.jpg[/attachment]
Weight 198.5gr
Width .828max .524min
Length .635
That makes six recoveries I think it is safe to say some patterns are beginning to develop. Recovered bullets in most cases have passed through large heavy bone and thick muscle and still retained exceptional mass. Weight loss has been less than three grains in all but one so far and the one that exceeded three grains loss less than ten percent of it’s mass. On this aspect I find the E-tip to be exceptional. At this point bullet expansion appears to be reliable at verying distances and target mass. Fouling of the barrel is not more than conventional bullets. This is a huge improvement over the Barnes X Bullets that foul to the point that accuracy is SERIOUSLY hindered after less than twenty five rounds. I am well into my third box of E-tips and have not found I need to clean my rifle any more than normal, and have not found any improvement in group size when I do.
I do have one concern with the E-Tip thus far. That is that I have yet to see much of a blood trail from any of the animals. Large exit wounds with a .338 win mag. are common place, something I have yet to find with these bullets. A related trait of this kind of wound is shock. Some call it Hydrostatic or Hydrodynamic shock, neither term may be accurate but that wallop that drives them down seems to be diminished somewhat. I really am at a loss as to why this might be. Even when I measure across the V in between the peddles E- Tips measure far bigger than original cal., so displacement and energy transfer as the bullet travels through the animal should be very near the same as a lead core bullet. Has anyone else found this as well? I am very interested in anyone else’s experiences or explanation of this conundrum.
For those of you that work at/for Nosler a couple of other questions. My Stone sheep was taken on Aug. 5th2009, Grizzly on Sept 19th 2009, Were either of these the first of that species to be taken with an E-Tip? Or even the first to be taken with the 200gr. .338 E-Tip? It would be a neat feather in my cap to know. Also I have more pictures of the recovered bullets and all of the game taken, except the elk I was not on that hunt. I would like to share these as well but can't seem to make adding attachments work. Any help in this department would be welcome.
At this point in my field testing research I find the E-Tip to be a very good all round bullet for the .338 Win Mag. It has met my criteria of holding together at close range and reliable expansion at more distant game while maintaining a flat trajectory. I only have three words to leave you with.
To be continued……………….
6 K
If you can remember back in July /09 I started load development with the .338 200gr. E-tip. Two lost Elk and a nearly escaped Moose brought me to this decision not to continue to use the 200gr. BT on big game. I was however trying to copy the ballistics of my BT load. 77 gr. of H4350 = 3200 fps 1.5” high @100 just over @ 200 -6.5 @ 300 -16 @ 400 and-22@450yds.
I burned up almost 50 rounds just getting a load developed that came close to the fore mentioned. I settled on 75gr of H4350 = 3110fps. Practice burned up another 23 leaving me with 27 for the season. I planned to hunt: Stone Sheep, Grizzly, Moose, black tail deer, and Mountain Goat in that order. I needed a sample and a penetration test so I did a water test and recovered a bullet out of the seventh, one gallon milk jug.
[attachment=5]water.jpg[/attachment]
Weight 197gr
Width .751max .577min
Length .623
To make a very long story short……er, The 09 season ended with two uncut tags in my pocket. Neither a Mt. goat nor black tail buck graced me with their presence.
My stone sheep, as you may remember from my post in the tread “338 cal 200 gr E-tip”, caught one in the back of the head @ 309yds. It was a bit high due to a steep angle and a dinged scope that I put back a tad higher than normal on opening day. Not much for a bullet test but accuracy was noted.
My opportunity for my second Grizzly came at 60yds while looking down over a creek.
Two E-tips were fired. The first completely pierced both shoulders of the 6ft 8 boar dropping him in his tracks. He started to move around and as it was nearing the end of the day and the surrounding bush was thick I gave him a second one length wise down the spine. The bullet entered the neck travelled through several vertebrae and clipped the far shoulder blade before coming to rest up against the hide. I recovered this one and was impressed with the measurements taken from it.
[attachment=4]griz09.jpg[/attachment]
Weight 198.2gr.
Width max .767 min .569
Length .613
I considered this to be very good penetration and weight retention performance at close range.
Fast forward a week and a day and I was sitting 75yds. off of a river edge in the open timber making cow/calf moose calls. I had managed to bring in a young bull to 20yds quartering to me. My plan was to find out how much meat damage would be caused by such a close shot. I put the cross hairs tight behind the near shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The bull’s reaction was as spectacular as it was surprising. He jumped back and landed broadside to me and bolted. Not running or galloping but leaping and bounding with out stretched legs.
On the grizzly the shoulders had been broken and penetrated. There is a lot more substance to bear shoulders then a moose chest however and this bull was a third the distance. Had the E-tip failed to open as several Black talons and Barnes X bullets had? To be perfectly honest I didn’t even think of this till after the bull was at my feet.
Leaping and bounding like a horse jumping gates was not the reaction I desired. He spotted me as I reloaded and he spun on a dime when he touched down. As he was leaping away from me I confess my thoughts at the time were to simply stop him. I did not want to carry him any farther than I had too nor did I have any desire to increase my lost animal count. As he rose to leap again I placed the cross hairs above his pelvis and touched off another. I was rewarded with another spectacular reaction. It was right out of a coyote and roadrunner cartoon. His head could not have been driven to the ground any faster if an anvil was dropped on it. His hind end was sticking straight up in the air balancing over the rest of his non co-operating body. He actually held this position for five or six seconds until his neck broke the rest him piled up in an unconventional heap on the wrong side of his head. “WOW never seen that before!” was my first thought. I don’t think my Texas heart shot went under the tail. Was next to cross my mind. The autopsy revealed the first bullet passed through the chest on an angle from just behind the entry shoulder to between the sixth and seventh rib from the back and out. It appeared from the wound channel and the damage to the lungs that the bullet had opened but did not remain in the chest.
The second “anvil” struck the base of the skull and traveled forward thought the brain and skull coming to rest under the skin on the fore head. Yes, a second recovery! It was one to make you go “huumm”. The bullet was missing one peddle.
[attachment=3]moose09.jpg[/attachment]
Weight 181.1 grs.
Width max .760 min .352
Length .659
My thoughts on this encounter are still favourable. Seeing the damage to the lungs I believe the bull would not have gone far with just the first hit. The second bullet although lost apx. 10% of its mass still far out preformed previously tested bullets.
This was the end of my 09 hunting success. My rifle and loads did make another trip and kill however. A very good friend and his son were both drawn for late season cow elk. They only have one rifle in the household and asked if I would lend the boy a rifle. My advice was to let the lad use his father’s ‘06 and lend my .338 to the more experienced shooter. The son got a broad side opportunity @355yds and opted to use my rifle for the shot. The cow hopped and walked fifty yds. across the field before falling into the snow. A long broad side shot is definitely needed in any reasonable bullet test I was ecstatic when they told me they recovered the bullet from the far side of the chest on the hide. Again I liked what I found.
[attachment=2]elk09b.jpg[/attachment]
Weight 198.5
Width .735max .472.min
Length .778
Excellent weight retention as any hunting bullet should have at that range. What impressed me was although the pedals didn’t open as far down the shank, they did open very near as wide, over double the original cal. It should be noted that the bullet did strike a rib on the exit side that may have assisted in opening the bullet. The lungs were damaged sufficiently enough that she didn’t go far and that, to me at least, is more important.
This year’ hunting trips were not as numerous for me. In fact I only got one shooting opportunity and (I hate to admit this) I missed. Fortunately for me (and my freezer ) both my partners made good on their chances. One of them even elected to use my rifle due to the close proximity of the bull I called.
The morning after my miss, two of us went back into the scene of the crime for another through search for any sign of a wounded animal. After no evidence of a hit could be found, we decided to set up and try calling again. Maybe he could be fooled a second time. I got a response almost immediately. We discussed my “bullet testing” the night before and had decided my partner would select my rifle if a bull were to come into easy range or stick to his own on anything past 100yds. We could not have planned it better the way this guy came. In no time a big bull immerged from the bush broad side fifteen yards in front of us. BOOM, hit, center chest. The brute pulled up his front legs, reared and kicked like a rodeo bronco and trotted ten-fifteen steps. Then he must have seen, heard, or smelled us because he spun and ran the way he came. We gave him a few min confident he was mortally wounded. Alas no crunching thud of him hitting the dirt was heard. A few more min then we gave slow pursuit. I spotted him at about 150yds facing away and leaning badly to one side. We expected him to fall over any second but an honest min went by and he still kept his stance. A quick couple hand signals and we decided to end it faster. I expected from that solid rest of a birch tree my buddy was going to put one behind the brute’s ear. He later said he was more comfortable hitting the chest with an unfamiliar rifle so, a 200gr E-tip traveled a long diagonal path through the vitals and stopped where the neck meets the shoulder on the exit side. To my absolute astonishment the bull rightened himself and turned ninety degrees to walk deeper into the bush. I was lining up to send one from an unfamiliar rifle myself when the one that belonged to me roared a third time and the brute finally went down. My partner didn’t want to carry that monster any further either and let the third one fly when he stabilized the cross hairs behind the ear. “Nice rifle” was all he said. That last one punched into the neck and smashed its way through, not in between but through, a big vertebra breaking it into several pieces and continued on to the hide. Man that hide stuff can catch bullets.
As I said two bullets were recovered from this animal. Both fired aprox. 150 yds. from the target.
The first was the second hit, a diagonal shot through the chest.
[attachment=1]moose10c.jpg[/attachment]
Weight 198.5 grs.
Width .801max .560min
Length .663
The second was a square on neck/spine shot.
[attachment=0]moose10n.jpg[/attachment]
Weight 198.5gr
Width .828max .524min
Length .635
That makes six recoveries I think it is safe to say some patterns are beginning to develop. Recovered bullets in most cases have passed through large heavy bone and thick muscle and still retained exceptional mass. Weight loss has been less than three grains in all but one so far and the one that exceeded three grains loss less than ten percent of it’s mass. On this aspect I find the E-tip to be exceptional. At this point bullet expansion appears to be reliable at verying distances and target mass. Fouling of the barrel is not more than conventional bullets. This is a huge improvement over the Barnes X Bullets that foul to the point that accuracy is SERIOUSLY hindered after less than twenty five rounds. I am well into my third box of E-tips and have not found I need to clean my rifle any more than normal, and have not found any improvement in group size when I do.
I do have one concern with the E-Tip thus far. That is that I have yet to see much of a blood trail from any of the animals. Large exit wounds with a .338 win mag. are common place, something I have yet to find with these bullets. A related trait of this kind of wound is shock. Some call it Hydrostatic or Hydrodynamic shock, neither term may be accurate but that wallop that drives them down seems to be diminished somewhat. I really am at a loss as to why this might be. Even when I measure across the V in between the peddles E- Tips measure far bigger than original cal., so displacement and energy transfer as the bullet travels through the animal should be very near the same as a lead core bullet. Has anyone else found this as well? I am very interested in anyone else’s experiences or explanation of this conundrum.
For those of you that work at/for Nosler a couple of other questions. My Stone sheep was taken on Aug. 5th2009, Grizzly on Sept 19th 2009, Were either of these the first of that species to be taken with an E-Tip? Or even the first to be taken with the 200gr. .338 E-Tip? It would be a neat feather in my cap to know. Also I have more pictures of the recovered bullets and all of the game taken, except the elk I was not on that hunt. I would like to share these as well but can't seem to make adding attachments work. Any help in this department would be welcome.
At this point in my field testing research I find the E-Tip to be a very good all round bullet for the .338 Win Mag. It has met my criteria of holding together at close range and reliable expansion at more distant game while maintaining a flat trajectory. I only have three words to leave you with.
To be continued……………….
6 K
