Red Rabbit

Trying to think of ideas for relatively inexpensive media to test bullet performance. 50/50 paraffin/vaseline, wet newspaper, wet acoustic ceiling tiles, gallon water jugs, 1/4" fiberboard to simulate shoulder bone, flour/salt modeling clay. A search on another forum had a post suggesting "terra sorb" which forms a gel for water retention in soil. Any other ideas of an inexpensive material that would be consistent and reasonably simulate muscle/ribs/shoulder blade?

As an alternative to tough sand and water, buckets filled with wood shavings like for hamster cages, or garden mulch, and filled with water may be good. Finding bullet fragments would be more difficult than with plain jugs of water though. Maybe just one jug of mulch and water in front?

A guy I know here in Flagstaff took his North American Grand Slam with his 30-06. I also hunted with a guy who's son took a Kodiak brown bear with a 25-06 and TSX bullet. As many say, bullets matter more than head stamps.

What rifle chamberings do you currently have? Intended game? Range/distance? Budget? One rifle to cover everything? Do you reload? Muzzle brake or suppressor? Assuming factory ammo, for coues and antelope and less recoil, perhaps a 6.5 PRC A 300 WSM throwing a 150 Nosler Accubond will be flatter with less wind drift (but with a little more recoil) than a 143 ELDX from a 6.5 PRC. The WSM would have the advantage of heavier wider bullets for elk and bear. 270 WSM, 300 Win Mag, 7mm Rem Mag would be good considerations also on the magnum side, and 270 Win or 30-06 on standard cartridges. Plenty of variety of factory ammo to choose from and find one that your rifle likes.

sounds rather unforgiving. how much penetration have you gotten into the wet sand?

Took advantage of some light winds in northern Arizona this morning to get out and shoot some of the 124 Hammer Hunters behind H1000 powder. Sure have had some windy days lately with one having gusts to 65mph. This is the first group of 5 shots into 0.58" at 100 yards. 3298 fps average with ES of 49 and SD of 17. The ProChrono lists a deviation up to 1%, so that could be +/- 33 fps, ES 66fps. So some of the ES of the string could be chronograph error.

With an Arizona cow elk tag for October, and hopefully a Coues whitetail permit after the June draw, I figured it would be enjoyable to try the Hammer Hunters in my 6.5 WSM. I have read good reports about the Hammer Hunters on another forum. Last week brought a box of 124gr hammer Hunter bullets and some new Norma brass in 270 WSM to the doorstep. The brass was easily necked down with the 6.5 WSM dies. A dummy round with the Hammer bullet seated 0.025" off the lands fits in the magazine fine. Loaded some rounds with increasing charges of Ramshot Magnum and Fed 215M primers to check for velocity and pressure. I hope to end up with a velocity around 3300 fps. Time to social distance myself this week some place in the forest and find a good load.

interesting info: https://k2radio.com/wells-fargo-sues-cody-firm-gunwerks-claims-it-owes-2-8-million/

look under the bonus point reports listed under the bonus point process on the website. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/azgfd-portal-wordpress-pantheon/wp-content/uploads/archive/Individual-Bonus-Point-Report-as-of-3-13-2020.pdf

Rick Jamison had plans about 30 years ago for a shooting bench and I built a bench which I still use today. The high school welding shop made the brackets for me. You can also buy some here: https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/14883552/1

I suspect if use of steel core bullets, tracers, and tannerite were eliminated by shooters, then the wildfire problems would be mitigated. 452, is BLM land closed?

From the Badlands website "..and the best part is that our bullets can be loaded just like any conventional bullet." I did not notice much difference in charge:velocity:pressure when using either the Badlands Bulldozer or Hammer Hunter vs regular jacketed bullets, unlike needing reduced charges for a Barnes TTSX or Nosler e-tip. For example I got 3122 fps with 65.5 gr Ramshot Magnum and 130 Swift Scirocco, and 3154fps with 65.5 gr Magnum and 125 Bulldozer. I had the Bulldozers seated 0.020" off the lands. I have not tried a Berger VLD with the new barrel.

Used the last 5 Hammer Hunters with some CCI 250 primers. Groups and ES/SD got worse. A new box of bullets should arrive soon to try H1000 instead of the Ramshot Magnum.

Only have 5 bullets left, so ordered another box. I will try some CCI 250 primers too.

Lance, I have 3# of H1000 to try. It worked well with the previous barrel, a 1:8.5 polygonal Pac-Nor. From my previous data, looks like one would use about 1 gr less H1000 compared to the Ramshot Magnum for comparable velocities. I wonder though how much of the variation is due to the ProChrono chronograph I have, as it displayed a single velocity of 3800 in one string. Chrono was in the mid-day sun with sky screens.

After shooting the 5-shots groups with increasing charges, I chose the charge of 67.5 gr Ramshot Magnum to try different seating depths even though Hammer Bullets says it does not make much difference. I chose 67.5 gr as it had the best combination of ES and group size from the previous set. I loaded up 5 rounds each with the bullet seated 0.018, 0.045, 0.070 and 0.095" off the lands. This morning I went out and shot the groups at 100 yards and allowed 6-7 minutes between rounds for the barrel to cool. I started with the 0.095" off (labeled 3.275 COAL on the target) figuring the pressure would increase as the bullet was seated closer to the lands. For the target images, 3.275 COAL corresponds to 0.095" off, 3.300=0.070, 3.325=0.045 and 3.352=0.018 The AVE VEL on the target table includes numbers for average velocity, extreme spread and standard deviation in that order. Chronograph was a ProChrono at 10'. Rifle is a Winchester 70 with 26" 1:8 Shilen barrel threaded with Omega Suppressor.

Finally got out to shoot some 5-shot groups at 100 yards yesterday. Velocities of the groups averaged from 3251 to 3294 fps. SD varied from 18 to 90. Group sizes ranged from 0.57 to 0.93". I don't know about the set that had a extreme spread of 195 and SD of 90, although the group size was 0.82". The brass that averaged 3294 showed some ejector marks. Next will be to vary the seating depth of the load that gave the SD of 18, from 0.02 to 0.10 off the lands. If all goes well, I will buying some more bullets as the first 50 Hammers will be almost gone.

All 6 Arizona national forests start the fire ban this Wednesday 4/22. https://gcmaz.com/u-s-forest-services-bans-all-campfires-in-arizona-starting-wednesday-through-june-30th/?fbclid=IwAR1dPLBuPhuoz1v9K2fe5pjyTpx_d3azK5SfIWpcZ0iPZLdDGYAASoA_Uzo

From the hammerbullets.com website " We have found that Hammer Bullets are not sensitive to seating depth. Seating to mag length for repeating rifles or just off the lands will generally work very well without need to adjust for better accuracy. " Maybe Lance can share what he has found. I am starting 0.025" off the lands and will see how they group this week.

The Badlands Bulldozer is the most accurate bullet I have shot from my 6.5 WSM. I did not get to try it on the last elk hunt as I saw more feral horses than elk. But is fun to play with new bullet and loads, hence the effort with the Hammer Hunter.

This table was posted on another forum. If accurate, the RPM is very close to the WSM. When I measured my 6.5 WSM case capacity, it was about 7% less than the 264 WM

The ejector marks are indicating pressure. I tried measuring case expansion but I do not have a mic. The caliper was showing an increase of 0.001" from 3174 to 3367. There was not a big jump of velocity from 3367 to 3392 with the last set, indicating near max (although more data points would be good). 6.5 RPM load data showed 3200 as max. https://weatherby.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/6.5WBYRPM_Data.pdf And its not a 26 Nosler 😉

I used my data from the 125 Bulldozer as a basis for the 124 Hammer velocity test loads. The 4 test loads got 3174, 3252, 3367, 3392 fps. No hard bolt lift and no flattened primers for any of the 4. I did notice slight ejector marks on the base for the upper 3 loads, but not with the 3174 load. So I will work around the first load and not push things much. It looks like the case capacity of the 6.5WSM is close to the 6.5 RPM Weatherby, and less than the 264 WM. The 6.5 RPM lists a factory load for the 127 LRX at 3225 fps, so 3200 is in the ballpark. Next will be some 5-shot groups of various charges.

Most of the forest roads around Flagstaff are now open. Gobble Gobble https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/coconino/alerts-notices/?cid=stelprdb5339811

Chris, yep, a long time ago 😉 I used this 6.5 WSM when we went on my 34A and 33 Coues hunts. New barrel now though. This is my third rifle in a WSM.