Thread: FMJ on animals

when I first bought my .223 I purchased 100 rounds of the norinco yellow box ammo Nathan Foster talks about to break her in and use for shooting wallabies as we went out every month to feed our dogs (pre big 1080 campaigns) I shot everything from hare to goats with that 100 rounds and everthing I saw backs up what he says...they are a unique round very loud/hot/fast and have "some" recoil unlike my milder reloads...noticeably different to shoot.
so yes SOME fmj works very well on game but a good soft point or barnes will usually do better.
and yes the .303 would shed jacket in barrel, if you saw pink colored material when you "dum dumed" a projectile you chucked it out and didn't do any others with same head stamp.
to say it didn't happen is naïve just have a look around/read a bit more or ask old fellas who have been there and done that.

I remember taking my BSA 303 upto awakino for a weekend goat shooting had 100 odd army rounds to use up....bullets would just go straight through leaving pencil size exit holes if you hit a bone wasn't so bad but got a little disheartening blasing into a mob of goats and watching some of them run off into the scrub and start screaming...FMJ is not really for hunting as said above you could snip the tips off but don't snip to much off you don't want the copper jacket getting left behind inside the barrel...never happened to me but have been warned .

There is, or I assume there is a difference between the 223 FMJ of which it is know that it tumbles and fragments on impact acting like a SP (if the velocity is high enough) V a 303Brit which I am not aware has that effect? Also talking to a lot of old NZers they just bought surplus 303 ammo as it was very cheap, though some used SPs and they mostly never handloaded.

that's an over simplification
many variables to take into effect
all FMJ is not made the same or indeed designed to behave the same way
the tumbling is caused by projectile getting off balance enough to yaw and switch ends thus starting to tumble
too fast of rifling SHOULD stop it..too slow and it happens sooner taken to extreme..too fast could make projectile pull itself apart through centrifugal force etc too slow and it will tumble and key hole straight away...centrifugal force?????? take bullet traveling 3000fps in a 1 in 12" twist........ that's 3000rev per SECOND times by 60 secs per minute = 180,000rpm
projectiles designed to tumble..the MK5?? .303 Has soft light stuff in front of lead core making bullet tail heavy...upon impact it wants to switch ends especially if hit at angle..same can be done by having slow rifling making projectile barely stable in flight.
hope that explains it better.

Same with the russian white/blue box of 7.62x39 m8 effect rounds.
These steel jacket lead cored and copper washed bullets, have an air pocket at the tip, to promote tumbling on impact.

'Way back when' we used what we could get and made the most of it.
We used FMJs filed or not, because that's all we had.
Now that is no longer the case. So, use hunting ammo when hunting.