Been watching too much TNOutdoors9 lately, but....
Anyone hunting with a 30-30 might be interested to see this. I bought some factory ammo the other day. I rarely do this, because I cast and reload most of what I shoot. I was just curious to run some factory 170 gr. through my 94, mainly as a reference against some of my other fun loads. I don't hunt big game much, so bullet performance has never really been on my radar, but I thought it might be "educational" to shoot one of these hunting rounds at water jugs and see the result.
I tagged a row of plastic jugs filled with water at close range, and the result surprised me. I had always thought that when a round was labelled "bonded" that implied that it would not fragment. Mine certainly did! My bullet looks nothing like the perfect mushroom on the back of the box. Rather, the two pieces pictured were found in two different gallon jugs, and have a combined weight of 134 grains. Clearly there were more pieces, or maybe just one more 35 gr. shard, which I was unable to find.
It should be noted that this round certainly laid waste to my row of jugs. Penetration was pretty decent. I found these pieces in the fourth and fifth gallon jugs. The sixth had a dent where the errant fragment bounced clear of my test medium. This is going to lay a world of hurt on whatever gets hit with it... at six yards anyway
In my opinion, the Winchester PowerMax bonded bullet failed pretty miserably. If I'm way off base, feel free to set me straight. In light of other reported Winchester ammo failings, I felt it might be of interest...
Regards,
Leverboy
Anyone hunting with a 30-30 might be interested to see this. I bought some factory ammo the other day. I rarely do this, because I cast and reload most of what I shoot. I was just curious to run some factory 170 gr. through my 94, mainly as a reference against some of my other fun loads. I don't hunt big game much, so bullet performance has never really been on my radar, but I thought it might be "educational" to shoot one of these hunting rounds at water jugs and see the result.
I tagged a row of plastic jugs filled with water at close range, and the result surprised me. I had always thought that when a round was labelled "bonded" that implied that it would not fragment. Mine certainly did! My bullet looks nothing like the perfect mushroom on the back of the box. Rather, the two pieces pictured were found in two different gallon jugs, and have a combined weight of 134 grains. Clearly there were more pieces, or maybe just one more 35 gr. shard, which I was unable to find.
It should be noted that this round certainly laid waste to my row of jugs. Penetration was pretty decent. I found these pieces in the fourth and fifth gallon jugs. The sixth had a dent where the errant fragment bounced clear of my test medium. This is going to lay a world of hurt on whatever gets hit with it... at six yards anyway
In my opinion, the Winchester PowerMax bonded bullet failed pretty miserably. If I'm way off base, feel free to set me straight. In light of other reported Winchester ammo failings, I felt it might be of interest...
Regards,
Leverboy
