What's The Most Explosive Gopher Bullet For .223 Velocities?
- Thread starter Yoteboy
- Start date
M12shooter
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- East St. Paul, mb
40 grain V-Max gets my vote. You can pick them up in 250 packs as well.
Man, I miss living in gopher country.
I used Hornady V Max almost exclusively. One time, I got one running head on at me and there was just a splash of pink. Closer examination found a little gopher arm hanging from some gristle on a tall weed and nothing more than red goo.
Varmint grenades are supposed to be "the bomb" but I have not had good accuracy results with them.
There is another good bullet from Hornady though, IF you can use lower velocities.
The Hornady SPSX bullet is a VERY soft spitzer with a thin jacket. The bullet breaks apart against aerodynamic drag forces once the bullet clears the muzzle if you go much above 2200fps. But when you get your load dialed in, its an economical and accurate way to vaporize varmints.
SPSX = Soft Point Super eXploding???
I used Hornady V Max almost exclusively. One time, I got one running head on at me and there was just a splash of pink. Closer examination found a little gopher arm hanging from some gristle on a tall weed and nothing more than red goo.
Varmint grenades are supposed to be "the bomb" but I have not had good accuracy results with them.
There is another good bullet from Hornady though, IF you can use lower velocities.
The Hornady SPSX bullet is a VERY soft spitzer with a thin jacket. The bullet breaks apart against aerodynamic drag forces once the bullet clears the muzzle if you go much above 2200fps. But when you get your load dialed in, its an economical and accurate way to vaporize varmints.
SPSX = Soft Point Super eXploding???
canucklehead
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Calgary, AB
55gr VMAX for me.... explosive and extremely accurate.
I'm getting sub .5" groups at 100 yards in my Tikka T3 Varmint. Don't have a chronograph, but i'm guessing 3200fps based on my load...
I'm getting sub .5" groups at 100 yards in my Tikka T3 Varmint. Don't have a chronograph, but i'm guessing 3200fps based on my load...
How about these? I found them at a gun show; they're 22lr casings swaged into jackets with soft lead cores and GIANT hollow points, about 48 grains. They're only good at Hornet velocities: much faster than that and they don't make it to the target. They were great in my 222 over a light load of 4227, too, for about 3,000 fps. The brass jacket is more brittle than copper, so they fragment real nice.
Yeah, I got suckered by the Barnes video of the Varmint Grenade exploding in the grape. Too bad they don't work all that well in actual gophers. Even worse that I bought like 500 of them. 
So now I have to spend the next season getting rid of them before goin back to the Ballistic Tips that work so much better. I should have known better
So now I have to spend the next season getting rid of them before goin back to the Ballistic Tips that work so much better. I should have known better
HighTeckRedNeck
Regular
- Location
- Saskatoon, SK
The 36gn VG's only really blow up if you hit bone. It was crazy seeing what they did to pigeons, but then I gut shot a squirrel and it hardly left a mark...
back40sniper
CGN Regular
- Location
- South east Sask.
40 grain V-max or Ballistic tip, perfect balance of speed and weight. As they say,"blowed up real good!"
M12shooter
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- East St. Paul, mb
I've used pretty much all of the above on gophers, right now use TNT's in the 222, SPSX's in the 223( for quick visual comparison)one that no one mentioned is the 52 A-Max. I was wonderfully surprised at the performance of them at 222/223 speeds, and have been loading them in the 220 swift with devastating results.
M12shooter
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- East St. Paul, mb
My favorite gopher/prairie dog load in a 50 grain Sierra Blitz in front of 20.5 or 21 grains of IMR 4198, 222 Rem though.
