7-08 vs 30-06

[Gatehouse]

Thanks Mr.Gatehouse very informative.I thought the 7 would have a slight edge.I wonder what if any effect that 400 Ft/Lbs of energy really has in the feild?

This si a good question, and I don't know if there is a correct answer to it...

Basically, the question woud be:

"If results (wound channel) are the same, would it make a difference if you used xft/lbs amount of energy, or x+400 ft/lbs to achieve the wound?"

I somewhat think that no, it does not matter.This is where it appears Barnes has managed to "cheat," using construction instead of mass/energy to make the deep holes.

Or at least that is my theory on energy.

 

[Republic of Alberta]

Looks like everyone is jumping on the TSX band wagon again.


I have this to say, the deer I shot this year with a 120g TSX from a 7mm Rem mag had the poorest wound channel I have ever seen from a meidium bore rifle. The lungs where 100% intact with a 3" diameter "spot" where the bullet passed through. It was Identical to a 30-30 with 170g speer at 200 yards, realy realy small wound through the lungs. At the shot (40 yards) the doe showed no reaction to the hit and ran off. This is a stark contrast to the 3 deer my brother shot a few days later with my 308 and 165g interlock boat tails. Huge wounds, instant reactions to being hit, lungs pulverized.


The TSX is good at making little bullets go deep on account of small wounds, it does in no way make your 7mm08 into a 338.

That is my experience so far.

 

[SuperCub]

I somewhat think that no, it does not matter.This is where it appears Barnes has managed to "cheat," using construction instead of mass/energy to make the deep holes.

Now the question is -------> How will heavier bullets in the same caliber/brand/type compare to lighter ones?

Something like a comparision of a 120TXS to a 175TXS in a 7Mag.

I think the heavier bullet will prevail here.



.

 

[MTM]

Shot a thick peice of steel with my 210 TSX at 3400+fps yestday. Very impressive wound channel and complete penetration.

 

[Gatehouse]

Now the question is -------> How will heavier bullets in the same caliber/brand/type compare to lighter ones?

Something like a comparision of a 120TXS to a 175TXS in a 7Mag.

I think the heavier bullet will prevail here.



.

I think it will, too- but I'm not 100% sure, either. So when I riad the recycler again, I will be shooting some more.

I will try out

7mmRM
14gr AB
140gr TSX
160gr X
175gr NP

300WSM
168gr TSX
180gr TSX
180gr NP
180gr Hornady

I dont' have any 120 or 175gr TSX, sorry

One thing that I am interested in finding out is how the same TSX will perform at higher velocities. Which is why I am so interested in the 140gr at 7RM velocity. Since they just dont' seem to be breaking up/losing weight, I think that they will just penetrate further, whereas some bullets wil penetrate less with more veocity, since they break up and shed mass.

 

[Casull]

Gatehouse,
That is great, this is what we need. Some testing as opposed to all armchair theory.
My remaining question though, is how would a comparable bullet from the 06 do against the 7mm 140 TSX, like what you propose with this next listed test? I dont think there is any doubt that bullet technology has come forward, so a test of a TSX against a Sierra is not really apples to apples. The Sierra is not even a good old cup and core bullet, ex, 180-200 partition.
Using the same bullet technology for both which for some reason most are not applying, will the 06 have an advantage over the 7mm/08? I think it will.
I see my past issues are coming up again as I can't really imagine a 200 grain bullet from an 06 having serious recoil for a seasoned shooter.
If you want to add some "big" guns to your testing, I will supply them.
I do appreciate your initiative here, sound testing will give the answers. How we look at them is still obviously up the reader and we can make what we want of most anything if we try hard enough.

 

[280_ACKLEY]

My remaining question though, is how would a comparable bullet from the 06 do against the 7mm 140 TSX, like what you propose with this next listed test? I dont think there is any doubt that bullet technology has come forward, so a test of a TSX against a Sierra is not really apples to apples.

The entire point of the test was that the 7-08 w/140gr TSX will do anything the 30-06 does with standard bullets (a benchmark which is hard to argue with... the '06 w/180's is an accepted game slayer).

The Sierra is not even a good old cup and core bullet, ex, 180-200 partition.

Kidding right? The Partition is not considered a "cup and core" bullet....

Cup and core bullets are single cavity, non bonded bullets of conventional design (Corelokt, Interlock, Powerpoint, Ballistic Tips.....).

Using the same bullet technology for both which for some reason most are not applying, will the 06 have an advantage over the 7mm/08? I think it will.

Of course it will... but here again, the point was that if the 30-06 is/was enough with standard 180/200gr bullets then the 7-08 w/140gr TSX is too.

That is the whole arguement that has been tough to pound through some people's thick skulls.... the TSX will "up gun" most any calibre!

I see my past issues are coming up again as I can't really imagine a 200 grain bullet from an 06 having serious recoil for a seasoned shooter. If you want to add some "big" guns to your testing, I will supply them.

Recoil is an individual thing... I am a farily "experienced" shooter and much prefer the 7-08 to the 375 H+H, and definately think I shoot it better.

An "experienced" shooter such as yourself should also know that a rock hard recoil pad does nothing for reducing recoil, and stock design/composition has as much (or more) bearing on recoil than caliber.

I do appreciate your initiative here, sound testing will give the answers. How we look at them is still obviously up the reader and we can make what we want of most anything if we try hard enough.

What answers are you looking for? The TSX out penetrates the standard bullets in any caliber.... go out and kill a critter...you'll see for yourself

280_ACKLEY

 

[Casull]

280_Ackley, that is about the most one sided closed minded response I have seen yet. I may be very thick headed indeed, but I listen to others, which you obviously don't. Gatehouse may well have answered your question, not that it needed answering, because there is nothing other than you are right I see.
I have been talking to Gatehouse about bullet performance on an on par test which is what I was referencing.
If a Partition is not a cup and core bullet I don't know what it is. Regardless it's been around and common at least for my hunting career and for anything to really be claimed as opening new ground, it pretty well must compete with the Partition and Speer GS. I didn't see single cavity mentioned, at least it wasn't in the conversations I was having with Gatehouse.
The point that modern bullets have increased the effectiveness of smaller calibers is not in doubt. Modern bullets have increased the effectiveness of ALL calibers.
The test is good, I asked about another bullet's performance. Which has already been mentioned I will add. I'm glad you got the answer you knew, can the rest of us ask something too?
And who exactly mentioned the .375H&H in this anyway? I do beleive that a seasoned shooter should be able to handle an 06 with a 200 grain bullet. If the butt is like a hockey puck and you don't shoot it well, change the pad or find a way to make it work for you. If you shoot a smaller gun better, do so. Don't blame the caliber if you are not shooting it well. Does the mention of a round bigger than a 7mm bring thoughts of light .375s and sheer terror to your heart or something? The 06 is not a stretch for most of us. And if you can't shoot something adequate for the game, you shouldn't be shooting at it. I was not taking a shot at Gatehouse, but stating an opinion, feel free to differ, but am I thick to not agree with you?
I have not used a TSX on game and admit it and am interested because of it. I have used 7mms on game and .30s as well as a fair number of others.
Do you use anything other than the 7mm? Why would you though, caliber effectiveness stops there right?
I'm afraid I do not agree with your philosophy of "Keep on bangin' till the meat is hangin'!" As a wise old hunter once said, "I like to do my hunting before I shoot".
I have shot a bit of game and with a good variety of cartridges and watched the result. I have opinons that I feel strongly enough to post regardless of your opinions or insults. Imgaine a new hunter asking a question and you jumping on him like that. He'd be gone and none the wiser. Do you ever use anything bigger than your 7mm on game to see what others are doing? Good bullets come and work in other diameters too.

 

[Levi Garrett]

Great test, so what did the calibers or should I say sim caliber do as far a velocity(at the range) , and did it compare to what one would get from a 7-08 with a 20 in tube(max book load)?
Reason I ask is the 7 mag does have a 26 inch barrel , and the 7-08 a 20 inch , in most cases.
Heck if those bullets are that good, who needs a magnum

 

[Gatehouse]

Gatehouse,
That is great, this is what we need. Some testing as opposed to all armchair theory.
My remaining question though, is how would a comparable bullet from the 06 do against the 7mm 140 TSX, like what you propose with this next listed test?

Well, we will find out! I am interested int he answer, too, of course.

I dont think there is any doubt that bullet technology has come forward, so a test of a TSX against a Sierra is not really apples to apples. The Sierra is not even a good old cup and core bullet, ex, 180-200 partition.

Liek Ackley, I don't consider the partition to be a "Standard" cup and core bullet. Sure it's got 2 cups and 2 cores, but it also has a partition.

As I stated a coupe of times before on this thread, the object of my initial test was simply to see if the 7-08 with good bullets coudl equal the 30-06 with 'standard' bullets.

On this and many forums, I've read over and over that .270's and 7-08's etc were "marginal" on moose, yet stick just about any 180-200gr bullet int he 30-06 and you have a giant slayer!!

TIme and time again, I've hear people say that you dont' "need" premiums and that if you need better penetration, just use a bigger bullet, premiums arent' worht the price, the TSX is a gimmick, a 200gr bullet will leave a 140gr premiumin the dust, the 200gr bullet hits lieka sledge hammer, etc etc etc.

I felt a regular "standard" for 95% of NA hunting is the 30-06 with 180gr bullets. Thousands of hunters go out and buy Winchester 180gr Power Point 30-06 ammo (or the similar type federal makes) Many of these woud scoff at you if you told them that a 7-08 using a 140gr bullet would likely out perform thier bigger bullets!


So this was the reaosning behind the inital test.

Bottom line question was "Wil a 140gr TS keep the pace with the old stand by 30-06 with heavy bullets?"

If bigge s better, then 200gr

Using the same bullet technology for both which for some reason most are not applying, will the 06 have an advantage over the 7mm/08? I think it will.

I think that it may, yes. I'll do a test witht he 168gr and 180gr TSX, fired fomr the 30-06

I see my past issues are coming up again as I can't really imagine a 200 grain bullet from an 06 having serious recoil for a seasoned shooter.

I woud agree with you normally. It jsut seems this rifle doens't fit me well, and it has that damn hockey puck pad, too!! I guarrantee that if I stuck the same bullets in my 300WSM (or the 300WM I used to own) that it would feel fine. In fact, I know it woud, since I've used 180gr NPs in both those rifles, and coudl shoot them a day, while this Stevens makes me want to cringe!

I recall shooting over 35 rounds of 300gr 375 H&H workign up a load, and feeling much less pain than this damn 30-06

If you want to add some "big" guns to your testing, I will supply them.

Sure, send me your guns!!!

How we look at them is still obviously up the reader and we can make what we want of most anything if we try hard enough.

That is important to remeber, especially since this test is smal examples in my back yard, not hundreds of examples in a lab.

 

[p-17]

Thanks for an informative test, Gatehouse. The results you obtained were pretty well exactly as I predicted. I personally consider the .30-06 and 7-08 to be essentially sister cartridges, from a ballistic point of view. If you look at sectional densities, the 140-grain 7mm bullet is the same as the 165-grain .30 caliber bullet. What this essentially means is that the 140-grain 7mm bullet is a scaled-down version of the 165-grain .30.

Both the '06 and the 7-08 will fire their respective bullets at about 2,800 and change, in standard loads. Assuming identical types of bullets, you should have the same elevation and similar wind drift. The penetration should be similar, too. The only difference (assuming identical bullets) would be that the .30-06 would make a slightly wider hole and hit with more foot-pounds.

Therefore, to make this test truly interesting, it would have been beneficial to shoot your '06 loaded with a 168 TripleShock. Something like 59 grains of Reloder 19 (since that is the powder you seem to be using). I bet if you did that, you'd get identical penetration to the 7-08, with the "wound channel" being just a bit wider.

Still, I'm grateful that you saw fit to test the Nosler Accubond and Partition. Those results, too, were exactly as one would expect.

Now if you wanted to open a real can of worms, you could compare something like the cheap 139-grain Hornady BTSP with the (equally cheap) Hornady 165-grain BTSP at the same 2,800 velocity...

 

[Republic of Alberta]

It seems to me (but I have not measured) that the hollow point on all the TSX's are the same throughout the weight range for a given caliber, meaning they will all open back the same amount (as they tend to stop peeling back when they reach the base of the hollow point) . I think that they just get longer and longer in the back section as the weight increases.

If this were the case I would not expect to see a diference in wound channel diameter with a change in bullet weight. The only diffence in wound would be caused from the reduced velocity as you went with a heavier bullet.

If I had more TSX's other than my 120's kicking around I would measure the hollow points.


I would also like to see Barns bring out the TSEX or Triple Shock EXTRA Xpansion where the bullet was allowed to peel back much further, say to mid point on the bullet shank. That might be one wild bullet.

 

[Boomer]

A test I did with my .375 some time ago suggested that in the case of expanding bullets, the higher velocity of a light bullet allowed it to equal the penetration of a heavier slower bullet, but a heavier bullet which could expand to a larger frontal area would have a much larger wound volume.

The bullets I tested were the 270 and 300 gr X's against the 380 gr Rhino. Velocity was measured at; 2900 (270), 2600 (300), and 2300 (380). Penetration of all 3 bullets was 32" in wet drill mud. Both X's expanded to .72" and the 380 gr Rhino expanded to .92". The permanent wound cavity was similar for both X bullets, suggesting that an increase in velocity does not increase the wound volume, but was 50% larger for the 380 gr. bullet, suggesting that the volume of the wound channel was proportional to the frontal area of the expanded bullet.

Gate - I believe that as interesting as your test was, you would have to shoot into an aqueous target to obtain definitive results.

 

[280_ACKLEY]

I would also like to see Barns bring out the TSEX or Triple Shock EXTRA Xpansion where the bullet was allowed to peel back much further, say to mid point on the bullet shank. That might be one wild bullet.

Nosler already beat them to it... it's called the Ballistic Tip

280_ACKLEY

 

[rgv]

how about slowing the 30-06/200 and the 7-08/140 to their 350 yard velocities and compare them ?, since most guys I run into tell me they normally shoot moose at no less than that range

 

[Gatehouse]

how about slowing the 30-06/200 and the 7-08/140 to their 350 yard velocities and compare them ?, since most guys I run into tell me they normally shoot moose at no less than that range

In that case, I think that I shodul be shooting at more liek 700 yards...

 

[Gatehouse]

Gate - I believe that as interesting as your test was, you would have to shoot into an aqueous target to obtain definitive results.

I don't think this is a bad idea at all, but it's not relaly what I was trying to do. I wasn't trying to mimic ballistic gelatin, or whatever comes "closest" to animal tissue.

The reason I selected DRY paper is because I've been using it for years to stress test bullets. I think I originlly got the idea form John Barsnes. Up until then, I'd just use wet paper, like everyone else.

I dont' pretend that dry (or wet) paper is like flesh and bone, but it allows comparison of different bullets to see what they will do when they get stressed. Dry paper is a hard, hard medium. The 200 gr Sierras that blew apart here would likely hold together on a broadside rib shot.

And this is what it is all about: What happens when you max out a bullet? How do the different bullets compare under these circumstances?

We all know that just about any bullet form any reasonable cartridge will kill a deer shot broadside. Noone will argue that a 140gr 7mm bullet isn't up to that task.

What is interesting (to me, anyway) is what happens when things go wrong, and you have to blast through thick bone and muscle on a big animal?

Besides...when you use wet paper you need more of it, and you need to thouroughly soak it for hours. That seems too much like work.

 

[Salty]

I like the dry paper idea, less work is just a bonus. I'm more interested in how a bullet holds together when the going gets tough so to speak. I seem to have a habit of hitting shoulder bone fairly often.

Oh, and case in point: Winchester Power Points suck when hitting bone. Even the smaller blacktails' shoulder from around here blow them apart I suspect they'd "penetrate" less than half of the bullets in Gate's test...

 

[Gatehouse]

Shot today:

300WSM

168gr TSX 2950
13.5"
14.25"

180gr TSX 2950
13.5"
14.25"

7RM
140gr TSX 3200
14"
14.25"

45-08
200gr Frontier cast/plated 1400
12.5"
13"

(shot at 20 feet)


Interestin resuts, to say the least!!

The 45-08 is just a 45ACP that is using cut down and reamed out .308 cases, along with a heavier spring and some buffer pads. ARMCO that advertises here suppies the stuff.

I use the 45-08 brass in my Para 14-45 LTD stainless, and you can relaly jump up the velocities over the 45ACP.

Gunnar at ARMCO developed it as a low cost, easy way to provide field workers with a easy to carry, high firepower handgun option overt the 6 shot revolvers that were also somewhat bulky.

I shot it at 20 feet, because if Mr. Bear was 20ft or closer to you, you CLEARLY would be shooting!

To be honest, I didn't relaly think that the bullet woudl get past 6 inches of paper. I don't knwo much about the hardness of these bulets, but they must be reasonably hard because the recovered bullets look like you coudl reload them again!!

We often scoff at handguns for bear defense,but these bullets penetrated deeper thant he 200gr 30-06 loading, althugh the 'woudn channel' is not neary as large compared to the rifles, since the 45 bullets did not expand. Still, a .45 caliber hole through somehting isn't anythign to scoff at.

I expected the 180gr TSX to outperform the 168, but they basically performed equally.

The 140gr TSX increase in velocity over the 7-08 velocities gained us another .75-1" in penetration.

 

[BCWILL]

Very Interesting Results, Thanks for taking the Time