A (AP) Armor-piercing 165 MRX bullet!

Yes there is such a thing! I shot right through 1/4" Hardox Steel Plate today, which is 450 Rockwell hardness, at 375 yards with a 165 gr. MRX shot from a 300 Jarrett @ 3400 fps from the muzzle, and was still traveling along at 2569.5 fps on impact.

I placed the 1/4" thick plate in front of my 3/8" steel prairie for protection from the super fast Delrin Tipped Tungsten-based Silvex core MRX bullet. "These were the most technologically advanced hunting bullet ever created" and "the ultimate multi-tasking do anything big game rifle bullet" Barnes every made, period!

Now that's a bold statement, and one copied right from their own book. These bullets are no longer available and have been discontinued...... maybe the were made just a tad too good? I don't know the reason why but for me these have taken countless game animals for me since I started using them long ago and now will be used to take an Elk this hunting season.

I only have seven of these bad-boys left loaded but I'm thinking after this hunting season of letting go the Nesika Bay Baer/Jarrett built rifle. Not because I don't have anymore MRX's, I do but they are 180 grain versions, as well as five boxes of the Berger 185 Juggernaut's that fly super accurate but that I'm not as fond as I used to be getting hammered by the recoil! Hey, the gun weighs 10 lbs. with the big NSX scope but the recoil is quite frankly a little much!

So here's the 165 gr. Barnes bullets punching right through the Hardox 1/4" plate steel.

Pretty impressive. Yeah, I can imagine it has a bit of punch at the butt.

That sounds like a serious bullet. Never fired one of them..

Cool!

Steel is usually rated at Rockwell "C" scale using a diamond tipped stylus. Brinell hardness is normally done using a stylus with a certain diameter and hardness steel ball. Rc hardness numbers are normally in the 30-70 hardness range. Brinell usually ranges from 300 to 400 for a 1/2 diameter steel ball, if I remember correctly. Sheet wrought or hot rolled sheet is typically rated in Brinell hardness and tool steel bar in Rockwell C.

Armor piecing bullets have been made of various materials over the years. When I was a soldier, 50 years ago, AP was tungsten carbide and hardened tool steels of close to RC 65 with a density similar to steel. Now most armor piercing material is a mixture of deleted uranium 235 and other steels to yield an extremely high molecular weight (4X steel) density material with toughness and high velocity.

Isn't that one of the bullets the feds ordered Barnes to stop making because of their armor piecing capability?
Paul B.

My bad I did make an error, it is rated to Brinell Hardness, which Hardox 450 is a wear abrasion resistant plate steel that is rate at 425-475 HBW.
This is some tough stuff under normal use, even from a 338 LM shooting 300 MK's doesn't punch through the steel. Although at the time I had two 1/4" pieces welded together and have only shot at this 2x1/4" stuff at over 400 yards and most of the time 600-1300 yards. Six plus months ago the welds broke and the back half rolled down the step hill, this is what was used here. The front half left up the hill is dented up real bad but no holes as of yet.

PJGunner":2ftahifq said:

Isn't that one of the bullets the feds ordered Barnes to stop making because of their armor piecing capability?
Paul B.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure? But they've been discontinued for a long while now. Not super accurate that day, .625" 100 yard three shot group and those holes were 2.25" apart even with a lot of mirage that late afternoon. Still .6 MOA and would pass through a lot of Elk at any angle, which is why I've used them in the past. Just not sure if I'll keep using this gun after this year?