Thread: 6.5mm questions....

Banged a quick video together for an example.
You can see them stiffen up then start to move a few seconds later as the shock passes through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qs7RbKbuZ0

@outdoorlad, how would you characterise the shot replacement on your five deer with the 6.5 mm SST? Where they roughly the same?

Was there a common point of impact and angle of pass through? Can you describe it like "front line of foreleg" or "in the crease" or "behind the shoulder", that kind of thing?

For normal hunting ranges, I'm 100% convinced that where you hit them in the boiler room, and with what, has more influence on whether or not they go down fast, than calibre and speed. Take an old school .30-30 and a slow flat point, and a .243 and a fast soft-point spitzer, and you can do exactly the same thing to a deer with a certain type of boiler room shot.
@Mooseman's large sambar the other day was a perfect example of the Swede doing the bizzo yet in some countries these days it seems the Swede is regarded as "not enough gun" for their poxy tiddler deer!

Originally Posted by Flyblown

@outdoorlad, how would you characterise the shot replacement on your five deer with the 6.5 mm SST? Where they roughly the same?

Was there a common point of impact and angle of pass through? Can you describe it like "front line of foreleg" or "in the crease" or "behind the shoulder", that kind of thing?

For normal hunting ranges, I'm 100% convinced that where you hit them in the boiler room, and with what, has more influence on whether or not they go down fast, than calibre and speed. Take an old school .30-30 and a slow flat point, and a .243 and a fast soft-point spitzer, and you can do exactly the same thing to a deer with a certain type of boiler room shot.
@Mooseman's large sambar the other day was a perfect example of the Swede doing the bizzo yet in some countries these days it seems the Swede is regarded as "not enough gun" for their poxy tiddler deer!

In Scandinavia they use 6.5 swede on moose but Victoria state won't allow anything less than 270 for sambar.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

@outdoorlad, how would you characterise the shot replacement on your five deer with the 6.5 mm SST? Where they roughly the same?

Was there a common point of impact and angle of pass through? Can you describe it like "front line of foreleg" or "in the crease" or "behind the shoulder", that kind of thing?

For normal hunting ranges, I'm 100% convinced that where you hit them in the boiler room, and with what, has more influence on whether or not they go down fast, than calibre and speed. Take an old school .30-30 and a slow flat point, and a .243 and a fast soft-point spitzer, and you can do exactly the same thing to a deer with a certain type of boiler room shot.
@Mooseman's large sambar the other day was a perfect example of the Swede doing the bizzo yet in some countries these days it seems the Swede is regarded as "not enough gun" for their poxy tiddler deer!

All bar one were in the shoulder region and normally I go for the foreleg area to break bone, two however were angled, one stag facing me on an angle in the bush, hit thru the shoulder and exited mid ribs. The other was a yearling angling slightly away, behind the shoulder and out thru the offside shoulder.

I guess the point I was trying to make was that the 129SST seems to preform very well at a slow to moderate speed, a friend tried the 130gn sst in his 270 years ago and hated them as they expanded to quickly and didn’t penetrate at the high speed they were going.

And its a point I agree with 100% @outdoorlad. Often we see or hear about guys unhappy with bullet performance, and a frequent common denominator is a fast cartridge with a soft-ish bullet.

Seems to me that a lot of the common cup-and-core hunting bullets are at their performance limits around 2500-2600fps impact velocity, so say 2700-2800fps muzzle velocity. Poor penetration and excessive fragmentation are complaints about the SST all over the world. But how many of these complaints are from 7mm Rem Mags, 270s, 6.5-284s, etc etc?

Who knows, just seems to me that the complaints about Hornady SST, Sierra GameKing, Nosler Ballistic Tips etc often concern close range impacts from 3000fps+ cartridges. That additional 10% MV seems to make a lot of difference. We had a similar concern on here recently with ELD-X out of 7mm Rem Mags.

My one cuz used a new CZ 6.5 Grendel last season with (I think) the same weight SST in factory ammo, and loved it. Mule deer. In the front of the fuse box, all over rover.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

And its a point I agree with 100% @outdoorlad. Often we see or hear about guys unhappy with bullet performance, and a frequent common denominator is a fast cartridge with a soft-ish bullet.

Seems to me that a lot of the common cup-and-core hunting bullets are at their performance limits around 2500-2600fps impact velocity, so say 2700-2800fps muzzle velocity. Poor penetration and excessive fragmentation are complaints about the SST all over the world. But how many of these complaints are from 7mm Rem Mags, 270s, 6.5-284s, etc etc?

Who knows, just seems to me that the complaints about Hornady SST, Sierra GameKing, Nosler Ballistic Tips etc often concern close range impacts from 3000fps+ cartridges. That additional 10% MV seems to make a lot of difference. We had a similar concern on here recently with ELD-X out of 7mm Rem Mags.

My one cuz used a new CZ 6.5 Grendel last season with (I think) the same weight SST in factory ammo, and loved it. Mule deer. In the front of the fuse box, all over rover.

I use the 6.5G with 123gr SST MV 2430ish and it's truly devastating when I shot a couple of big billies at about 80m side on square shoulder, exit wound was large. I'm not changing from them as I think they work well in this cartridges speed (I think the 123gr may have been developed for the 6.5G)

I msg'd my cuz this arvo @Mathias, he uses this ammo in his Grendel:

https://www.shopalexanderarms.com/Am...ition_box.html

Bought a bulk box of 1000 at some silly cheap (unfair) price, not worth reloading for now. Loves them.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

I msg'd my cuz this arvo @Mathias, he uses this ammo in his Grendel:

https://www.shopalexanderarms.com/Am...ition_box.html

Bought a bulk box of 1000 at some silly cheap (unfair) price, not worth reloading for now. Loves them.

Interesting looking at all the gelatin test photos of their 6.5G hunting ammo, esp the Barnes corkscrew effect with the petals.

I think bullet speed influences the way bullets work in most calibers. Take for instance the other end of the spectrum the old African dangerous game rounds, the ideal was a heavy (400 gr- 500 gr ) bullet at about 2400- 2450 fps. At that speed the bullets penetrated well and didn't deform.