Thread: Sierras new Game changer bullets

I totally agree @Flyblowen , I certainly wont be straying from the lighter jacketed Tipped match kings for all my game hunting /pest control.
The heavier magnum cartridges have the advantage of 300- 400 fps more velocity and a bigger energy dump which is going to help on the those longer shots but Id be willing to bet those same 400y shots would go a lot different when shooting these bullets through medium power cartridges such as the humble .308, 243, 708 or any of the 6.5mm short action offerings.
I have many (very graphic) pics of goats and deer taken with the 130gr TMK that show just how much more effective a slightly more frangable bullet is on our lightweight game. There's certainly no penciling pass throughs.. the tmks remove goats heads out to about 250y

It is hard to get a do everything bullet for all ranges, I love the ELD X bullets in all the calibers I am using them in and find them good at all ranges I have taken deer at. I want to try the 90 gr ELD X in the 243 when available but thought maybe the 90gr gamechanger could work well as both have similar BC's. They are up there with the price at about $95 plus shipping on Trade Me. These Gamechanger bullets may be better suited to close to medium range or in magnum calibers where the bullet is travelling faster, time will tell.
Won't be changing from the ELD X anytime soon though.

Originally Posted by Mooseman

These Gamechanger bullets may be better suited to close to medium range or in magnum calibers where the bullet is travelling faster, time will tell.

Not really much point in a high BC 6mm projectile that only works at short ranges. Muchos disappointing, I had high hopes for that BC in a 1:10 twist. I like high SD bullets frangible.

True, I think the 243 is a good caliber out to about 350 yards or there about's so high BC isn't as important as a 700- 800 yard rifle where BC is important. @Apollo the ELD X 90 gr 243 bullet has a BC 0f .506 ?? or close to that so that should be a good longer range bullet and hopefully will stabilize in the 1: 10 twist Barrel. All we need is for them to arrive in NZ.

I think you're pretty spot on @Mooseman. Over the years I've taken several fallow and yearling reds with the 243 and the relatively soft 100gr Prohunter between 350 and 400 yards, all from the exact same spot. 389 yards (356m) is the longest from memory. Thats an impact velocity of ~1970fps.

That spot will deliver again and again, and the beauty of it is that I am always shooting from the same position with a very light breeze directly from behind me. I've got that spot pretty much worked out.

Now I know from my drop the testing of this cartridge and low-ish BC ProHunter that once I pass 400 metres, it starts to get very iffy and accuracy turns to shit. That's at about 1875fps. It's really dropping by this point, so my limit on my 243 is pretty much 350-360m, assuming no wind.

My 6.5 Creedmoor is only starting to warm up at that range. The annoying thing for me is that when I am carrying my .243 I often see goats that are just out of range, and I wish I had my Creedmoor, but my Creedmoor is (quite deliberately) a heavy medium range shooter, not a carry rifle. When I walk in to the hills I carry it on a double sling...

So.. the point of this waffle. The 90gr ELD-X will break the 1875fps mark at about 500m. A full 100m longer than the ProHunter. So even with the slight drop in weight its high BC does the job. That potentially fills a nice gap in my regular shooting - if after drop testing and proving sub-MOA accuracy (I get between 0.7-0.8MOA at 300m with the ProHunter on a still day) I'll be all over those further goats. According to the technician at Hornady who emailed me back, the 90 grain bullet should reliably expand and partially fragment at 1800fps. Anyway, that's why I'm interested in the 90gr ELD-X.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

I think you're pretty spot on @Mooseman. Over the years I've taken several fallow and yearling reds with the 243 and the relatively soft 100gr Prohunter between 350 and 400 yards, all from the exact same spot. 389 yards (356m) is the longest from memory. Thats an impact velocity of ~1970fps.

That spot will deliver again and again, and the beauty of it is that I am always shooting from the same position with a very light breeze directly from behind me. I've got that spot pretty much worked out.

Now I know from my drop the testing of this cartridge and low-ish BC ProHunter that once I pass 400 metres, it starts to get very iffy and accuracy turns to shit. That's at about 1875fps. It's really dropping by this point, so my limit on my 243 is pretty much 350-360m, assuming no wind.

My 6.5 Creedmoor is only starting to warm up at that range. The annoying thing for me is that when I am carrying my .243 I often see goats that are just out of range, and I wish I had my Creedmoor, but my Creedmoor is (quite deliberately) a heavy medium range shooter, not a carry rifle. When I walk in to the hills I carry it on a double sling...

So.. the point of this waffle. The 90gr ELD-X will break the 1875fps mark at about 500m. A full 100m longer than the ProHunter. So even with the slight drop in weight its high BC does the job. That potentially fills a nice gap in my regular shooting - if after drop testing and proving sub-MOA accuracy (I get between 0.7-0.8MOA at 300m with the ProHunter on a still day) I'll be all over those further goats. According to the technician at Hornady who emailed me back, the 90 grain bullet should reliably expand and partially fragment at 1800fps. Anyway, that's why I'm interested in the 90gr ELD-X.

Similar situation for me. I will stay within the ranges you describe for deer and I don't really care what bullet I use. But I like to use my deer rifle as a varminter. With a BC of 0.500 I know I can shoot rabbits 300-400m and I don't need to wait for an ultra still day. I bought the rifle to re-barrel to something in 6.5 but with these new bullets I might not need to.

What a difference half a millimeter makes.

Originally Posted by Mooseman

... the ELD X 90 gr 243 bullet has a BC 0f .506 ?? or close to that so that should be a good longer range bullet and hopefully will stabilize in the 1: 10 twist Barrel. All we need is for them to arrive in NZ.

BC is .409 according to Hornady website.
I'm really keen to try them, 103's were no good in a 1:10 twist, love the 178's in my 308.

Originally Posted by Cigar

BC is .409 according to Hornady website.
I'm really keen to try them, 103's were no good in a 1:10 twist, love the 178's in my 308.

Thanks Cigar that's a lot different than what I said, still should be good though.

Targex then a re-barrel then.

Here's a comparison of the new 90gr 6mm GameChanger (left) and the 100gr 6mm ProHunter (right). I have tried to scale the photos so the relative lengths are pretty accurate.



The ProHunter has been an excellent bullet for me in .243 at 2800fps, readily expanding, partially fragmenting and delivering comprehensive damage to the front lungs, arteries and nerve pathways of red deer. It's also been a very effective neck shooting bullet.

Shooting deer in the 150-300m range, forward in the shoulder will result in an exit ~50% of the time. If not, the base of the bullet will be found against the hide on the opposite side. This shot placement delivers a wide radius of internal damage and a high probability of a bang-flop. Raking shots in through the chest on a quartering towards deer, will usually exit well behind the shoulder, through the rib cage.

The differences to the GameChanger are pretty obvious, eh. I cannot fathom why Sierra would design a small calibre bullet shot at high velocity with such a thick jacket. On thin skinned, light framed deer such as whitetail (the target market in the US) and fallow and roe, and our goats, its reasonable to assume that a point of impact that involves only ribs is just going to sail right on through with a narrow wound channel. This reality has been written up in some posts on US forums.

For heavier game - reds and up - it makes a little more sense assuming you are shoulder shooting for maximum muscle and bone. But in the US it is relatively rare to come across .243 shooters chasing heavier deer species, at least in my experience.

A good application for this bullet here in NZ would be medium pigs.

I hope for the deers' sake I am completely wrong and these GameChangers punch big holes no matter where you shoot the animal...

So make your own mind up. A good discussion point for sure.

Originally Posted by 300_BLK

.... NZ Ammunition Company supplied me with some H1000 powder manufactured by Hodgdons to try which is very close in burn rate to AR2217...

According to ADI, AR2217 is H1000 relabelled by Hodgdon.

Thank you for your enquiry with regard to reloading using ADI Sporting powders.
ADI Powders manufacture powders that are distributed exclusively in North America by the Hodgdon Powder Company.
Please find attached a listing of the ADI Powders and their Hodgdon Powder naming.
Extreme caution should be taken and loads should be worked up accordingly. Refer to our website at Home - ADI World Class Powders and Ammunition or our 9th edition handloaders’ guide for more information, warnings and reloading safety.
We thank you for using ADI Sporting Powders.
Yours sincerely,
ADI Technical Centre.

ADI Powder-Hodgdon / IMR naming
Trail Boss-Trail Boss
AR2207-H4198
AR2219-H322
BM2-Benchmark
Bench Mark 8208-8208 XBR
AR2206H-H4895
AR2208-Varget
AR2209-H4350
AR2213H / AR2213SC-H4831 / H4831SC
AR2217-H1000
AR2225-Retumbo
AR2218-H50BMG

I've tried H4350 and AR2209 in my 6.5 CM and they both produced identical velocities on my Labradar. The H4350 container had "Manufactured in Australia" in small print on the label.

An update on some recent discussion with Sierra about the 90gr 6mm GameChanger. I have a good friend in the UK who has just spent a small fortune trying to get these to work in his Tikka, and he asked for some help. I'd been in touch with Sierra before, so I asked some questions...

On the Sierra blog (https://sierrabulletsblog.com/2018/0...-gamechangers/) a reader asked the question we all want to know the answer to:



I calculated stability for the typical 1:10" .243 barrel using the JBM calculator, using a value of 0.14" for the plastic tip length. It returned a Miller value of 1.276, which is just below the stability threshold of 1.3. MilSpec stability is 1.5, and a stability value between 1.3 - 1.5 is classed as "marginal" as per the Litz / Berger definition. So my conclusion was that Sierra was flirting with poor accuracy in a wide range of factory .243s with 1:10" twist barrels.

In the US market, the .243 Winchester rifle market is dominated by Remington (1:9⅛") and Savage (1:9¼"). Surprise surprise, these barrels achieve a Miller value of 1.5 with the 90gr GameChanger.

So to my mind, the statement in the Sierra blog by Duane Siercks was misleading. Well, you could suggest its plain wrong.

So I asked his colleague Philip Mahin about this. Mr Mahin said "I have heard both sides of the fence with our new 90gr TGK in a 1-10” twist, some say it works great and others can’t get accuracy because of borderline stability. I do know that a 1-9” twist will stabilize it just fine so it may need to be used in a different firearm [to the 1:10"]".

Eh?

I then took a look at the new Sierra load data app. Sierra has changed something quite fundamental on their .243 Winchester page.



Gone is the 1:9⅛ Remington test rifle, replaced by a "universal" 1:8" barrel. I pointed out to the Sierra tech that it is not possible to buy a factory .243 rifle with a 1:8" barrel (their may be one specialist option, but no standard "off the shelf" options from the normal manufacturers.



I didn't hear back.

To my mind Sierra is fudging the numbers and presenting a bullet to market that has a high chance of not working in a large number of factory rifles.

It is also worth pointing out that in the past, Sierra has clearly communicated twist requirements on their website, and packaging. There's no mention of required twist rate for the 90gr GameChanger.

Why would they do this?

It will be very very interesting to see (next month) what the Hornady ELD-X 90gr is like in the .243 Win 1:10", as the bullet is slightly shorter, and has a Miller value of... 1.5. Ha!

I've posted this to help get the message out that if you spend $92 on a box of 6mm GameChangers for your 1:10" twist .243 Win, you may well find that they don't work. If you want to try them, I strongly suggest you buy a sample pack first.

yep, sounds a bit dodgey & there's no point in Sierra fudging the data or info provided to shooters 'cos we will find out the truth and word-of-mouth marketing is the strongest impact on customer purchase decisions.
BTW - what about their 7mm and 30 cal 165 gn pills ? Any good for close to intermediate ranges (50 - 500 yrds) ?

Originally Posted by chainsaw

yep, sounds a bit dodgey & there's no point in Sierra fudging the data or info provided to shooters 'cos we will find out the truth and word-of-mouth marketing is the strongest impact on customer purchase decisions.
BTW - what about their 7mm and 30 cal 165 gn pills ? Any good for close to intermediate ranges (50 - 500 yrds) ?

Check out BlackWatch on instagram. Some real world testing on expansion/ weight retention vs velocity for the 165 gr 30 cal. projectiles.
B

@shift14 thanks for that I joined Instagram just to take a look... far out they blow massive holes in fallow deer for sure, way too much bullet for those little critters. Way too much damage. I belong to the school of thought that says you want the energy expended inside of the animal and not in the neighbouring country.

Very interesting that 1800fps bullet, the complete lack of expansion does not tally with what the Sierra tech told me, which was that they had tested it down to that velocity with complete expansion.

Will have a chat with the fella at Blackwatch, he's been very approachable in the past would be good to have a conversation about these bullets.