A few of the more astute shooters realize the benfits of good heavy bullets at toleralble velocity/recoil levels, but most are drawn to the heavily constructed lighter bullets, which do work very well.
Medvedqc, I've been following this thread from the beginning and thank you for pursuing it.
These days, finding heavy and usually long for caliber bullets are difficult to find and quite expensive.
Not only that, many people don't have appropriate powders and some are afraid of the resulty recoil.
When I hunt with one of my 30-06 rifles, I use the Speer SP spire point, flat base bullet which I have several hundred on hand.
In my rifles two have 22 in bbls and velocity is about 100fps less in them than the other two, one with a 24 in bbl and one with a 26 in bbl.
The highest velocities are of course from the 26 in bbl but the 24 in bbl is within 50fps.
The 26 in bbl, Hart, is very smooth, isn't prone to jacket fouling and is one of those jewels that doesn't change point of impact as the barrel heats up over a ten shot string.
This barrel will allow the compressed charge of 57.5 grains of H4350, over CCI250 primers, seated as far out as the magazine will allow at 2600 fps average at ambient temps of 10C.
This bullet isn't a premium bullet and built on the old cup/core design. They're Hot Core, so bonded to the jacket when the core is poured.
I've shot four large animals with these bullets, including three Moose and one Elk a few Deer and Bears.
I haven't done the tests you folks have but I can attest to the performance in a ''real'' life hunting situation.
Two of the Moose only required one shot, from a distance under 75m. They were both shot at the top of the lungs, just behind the shoulder, but pentrated the shoulder blades/ribs on both sides, taking out the two arteries just under the spine and continuing on their way on the far side, where there was a 2cm exit hole in the body and about half that size in the hide. Both animals didn't go down instantly but stumbled for appx 25m and were dead when I got to them.
The third Moose required a second bullet. It was walking up a slope, slowly, stopping to browse and moving again when I shot him. We all know, a slow walk for a Moose is a good run for most people.
I did hit him in the boiler room, which caused him to hunch up and run. A Moose can run a long way when lung shot and when they go down in an old burn, full of black stumps an logs on the ground, they can be extremely difficult to find if they bleed out internally, which often happens with lung shots.
The second bullet was to the tip of the spine, through the tail and just above the anus. It was the only shot I had, when he stopped briefly, before entering a bunch of thick deciduous scrug brush. It dropped him like a hammer.
That was the only bullet I recovered and it was fired about 120m from the poi.
That bullet, broke the pelvis, shattered a half dozen vertebrae and deflected down into the chest cavity to come to a rest against the breast bone. It was perfectly mushroomed and retained just over 100 grains of weight.
The Elk was another ''gimme'' at less than a hundred meters and dropped to a similar shot as on the first two Moose.
This is slightly off topic but pertinent.
My present go to hunting rifle is a rather clunky looking standard length, large ring 98 Mauser put together with parts from the bins. The barrel is an issue 8x57 NOS surplus, never mounted item. The receiver is a Czech BRNO surplus, mounted in a lovely 60 year old, very stable, highly figured, AA Walnut stock from Bishop. Trigger is an afer market adjustable.
This rifle is an amazing shooter with "heavy bullet'' and not so amazing with lighter, shorter bullets around 150grains.
It's ok with 170grain bullets but the heavy 196+ grain bullets are a dream to shoot. It really likes the 196 grn Norma Oryx, loaded to 2600 fps, measured with my magnetospeed.
The load is safe, according to European standards, 56.0grns of W760 over CCI250 primers in Norma cases.
A 200 grain bullet, whether 30cal or 8mm at 2600fps hits very hard and whatever is on the receiving end definitely knows something has gone awry, but not for more than a few seconds if the shot is well placed.
Good you you folks for looking at this.
Back in the day we used heavy/long for caliber bullets because of the manufacturing methods used and lighter construction.
Today lighter bullets will penetrate just as well and hold together while doing it.
However, there is something to be said about a heavy bullet's felt impact.
I see a continuing trend towards "solids" happening, but it's not a retro thing. The new monolithic bullets are accruate and hold together very well. Just not as heavy as I like without getting to long for the twist rate of some rifles bores.
