Strange Bullet Behaviour
- Thread starter pathfinder76
- Start date
I see the CX bullet mentioned. I bought some 7mm factory Hornady Outfitter ammo loaded with the 160 gr Cx bullets. The nickol case neck is crimped into the pressure relief ring. I pulled a bullet to see what kind of power was being used. The bullet came out with a ragged ring of nickol plating imbeded in the bullet grove. Needed a knife to dig it out of the bullet. Thinking that ring would do some damage to the barrel if fired in the factory loaded form.
I think the determining factor for bullet choice is impact speed. The standard cup & core bullets from Hornady, Speer and Sierra as well as the old RCL's, are terrific in certain cartridges at certain speeds... you really can't overstuffed a .358 Win to make them not work, average speeds in the .35 Whelen are also deadly effective, but in the .358 NM or my .358-375 Ruger, forget it... I shoot bonded in those. Same principle applies to the 6mm, 6.5mm, 7mm, .30 cal and .338 cal groups... but the disparity is less critical as the bore diameters increase... I can load up the .458 Win Mag and shoot any cup & core expecting great terminal performance on any game, light or heavy. I have not experienced those kinds of jacket separations, but I have also not pushed the speed barrier with C&C bullets.
As soon as the powder is ignited, the brass case will expand to the exact dimensions of your guns chamber, then spring back a little bit. The bullet will also start moving forward as well as the case neck is being literally blown away to form in your chamber. So the crimp won't matter. Even if it's crimped deep into a groove. The heavier the crimp, the higher the initial pressure. But really all the crimp is doing is giving even neck tension, hopefully, and also holding that bullet in place. To mitigate and bullet movement in higher recoiling rifles. It also mitigates any moisture from entering the cartridge as well. That's why federal "locktites" their bullets and primers in on their premium line.
Pulling the bullet and looking at the powder probably won't help you out a lot though. Since hornady will use a proprietary l, non-canister grade powder in it. Which you will not be able to buy.
Pulling the bullet and looking at the powder probably won't help you out a lot though. Since hornady will use a proprietary l, non-canister grade powder in it. Which you will not be able to buy.
This is not a weird story at all for the Hornady Interlock or most cup and core bullets. At 40 yards the impact velocity is high and the bullet does not stand up as well as it would at lower velocity, and Interlock bullets are especially prone to jacket separation. The bullet worked, and probably dropped the bear faster with greater terminal damage than a more expensive, controlled expansion bullet might have. Nothing to see here.
I thought you said it was weird to recover the jacket but not the core.
- Location
- Blaster land, Okanagan BC
I’ve shot 4-5 deer with .308 165gr interlock’s, I’ve only recovered 1 and the core and jacket were perfectly together. Pretty good weight retention, it was around a 75-80m shot on a big mule buck. The others were full pass throughs with big exit holes, big enough to almost stick my hand through. I’m guessing there was no jacket/core separation as I found zero fragments while processing any of those deer. I’ve only ever used cup and core bullets, hot-cores, interlock’s, etc etc between 15ft-170m and all have performed as they should. Dead is dead.
No. I didn’t. I thought it was strange that what was left of the core exited. Because I would expect there wouldn’t be much of it.
if you shoot enough of em into enough kinda things , then you will see some 'weird schit'...... this is fairly normal as above said with fairly high velocitys , close range and reasonable medium to smack into.
99% the leads gone flying , the jackets been caught up in the flesh etc.. those rings/cannelures on the bullets actually help them NOT shred apart like non cannelure sometimes dooooo.
cup an core often go up in projectile weight to lessen these instances, but at the end of the day, projectile did its thing
Agreed, and not at all surprised by the pictures of those recovered bullets. They did the job!
However, my experience with bears is different than some of what I am reading here. Have hunted for bears myself a lot, guided hunters, and have lost track of how many I have put in the freezer. Bacon, burgers, smoked ribs, blackstrap medallions, chops, stews, and cured hams are all delicious, so hunt them most Spring seasons.
Bears are not difficult to kill. Both black and grizzlies have thin skin and die quickly to properly placed lung shots with high speed bullets. I recovered only one really big grizzly that had two expanded .284 bullets, Nosler Partitions, in the lungs when we dressed the bear. It had been shot by an RCMP member the previous year. He had told me the story about trying to track the bear for two days with a dog and never recovering the bear.
The next Spring I was with a friend of mine on a river trip when he got that bear. That is the ONLY bear I have ever seen that did not die quickly with good hits from high speed bullets. Both lungs had healing scars from the bullets, which had expanded to the partition.
Having said that, I have been privileged to have to track and dig out bears wounded with poorly placed shots. As posted above by Denver Steve they are very good at finding and crawling into the most amazing places to hide.
270 Winchester, 7X57, 280 Remington, 30-06, all of the magnums, anything driving an expandable bullet at 3000 fps or thereabouts are all are very good bear medicine in my opinion.
My experience with cup and core bullets at those velocities on bears is that they penetrate hide easily, open up very quickly, shred lung tissue extensively, and kill quickly. This is especially true on bears that are not aware of your presence or excited.
What they do not do is break bone easily, and occasionally that can open up a brand new adrenaline charged experience in tracking for you.
I think those bullets performed well on the bears taken with them. My apology for the brief derailment.
Ted
However, my experience with bears is different than some of what I am reading here. Have hunted for bears myself a lot, guided hunters, and have lost track of how many I have put in the freezer. Bacon, burgers, smoked ribs, blackstrap medallions, chops, stews, and cured hams are all delicious, so hunt them most Spring seasons.
Bears are not difficult to kill. Both black and grizzlies have thin skin and die quickly to properly placed lung shots with high speed bullets. I recovered only one really big grizzly that had two expanded .284 bullets, Nosler Partitions, in the lungs when we dressed the bear. It had been shot by an RCMP member the previous year. He had told me the story about trying to track the bear for two days with a dog and never recovering the bear.
The next Spring I was with a friend of mine on a river trip when he got that bear. That is the ONLY bear I have ever seen that did not die quickly with good hits from high speed bullets. Both lungs had healing scars from the bullets, which had expanded to the partition.
Having said that, I have been privileged to have to track and dig out bears wounded with poorly placed shots. As posted above by Denver Steve they are very good at finding and crawling into the most amazing places to hide.
270 Winchester, 7X57, 280 Remington, 30-06, all of the magnums, anything driving an expandable bullet at 3000 fps or thereabouts are all are very good bear medicine in my opinion.
My experience with cup and core bullets at those velocities on bears is that they penetrate hide easily, open up very quickly, shred lung tissue extensively, and kill quickly. This is especially true on bears that are not aware of your presence or excited.
What they do not do is break bone easily, and occasionally that can open up a brand new adrenaline charged experience in tracking for you.
I think those bullets performed well on the bears taken with them. My apology for the brief derailment.
Ted
It's typical that cup and core bullets will seperate on contact. Most times, 95% of Nosler Ballistic Tips penatrate straight through, sometimes I find the bullet intact. Controlled expansion bullets (bonded) have worked the best. I viewed you're son's bear on another site, a real brute, congrats to both of you!
Nosler ballistic tips are a little different than alot of traditional cup and core bullets. They have a pretty solid copper base, which doesn't tend to break apart. Especially with the heavier bullets, the 180 grain 30 caliber and 95 grain 24 caliber in particular. Very tough bullets for the type they are. They may not have a interlock ring, or be bonded. But the bullets change greatly even within the same caliber, just by switching weights. I think the nosler ballistic tip is derived from the old nosler solid base. Which was a very good bullet, well before my time, but I have loaded some old ones that I bought. Performance was excellent on deer. I have never recovered a nosler ballistic tip from a deer, they have exited each time, with a variety of different calibers. But I have not shot larger game than deer with them.
Nothing ABNORMAL about Hornady Interlock bullets separating out . 1/2+the ones I recovered years ago were separated . Quit using them years ago too and went to Partitions and then to Bonded. The last few deer I’ve shot I used TTSX ers but no bullet recovery . I will be using a LRX or TTSX for moose on my fall fly in Hunt . 
RJ
1/2+the ones I recovered years ago were separated . Quit using them years ago too and went to Partitions and then to Bonded. The last few deer I’ve shot I used TTSX ers but no bullet recovery . I will be using a LRX or TTSX for moose on my fall fly in Hunt . RJprairie lover
CGN Regular
- Location
- southern MB
Separating in the last 1/4 or less of there travel doesn't bother me one bit. The job is supposed to be done by that point.
That 180 Ballistic Tip in 30 cal was just what i had in mind while typing that
Hear you on all of the above...gone to almost exclusively Barnes/Hornady CX here but were monos somehow not an option, right there with you. Preferably Trophy Bonded Tip or Terminal Ascent
That's all I've ever used in my 300WSM since I bought it ! Still handloading them today for my son ! Moose, deer and Black Bears to their credit since 2004. Never ever lost an animal either !
