107g Sierra HPBT match for hunting?

[Orchard6]

[lazyengineer]

I will say this is my favorite bullet for general shooting, as it is crazy accurate, has very long legs, and is forgiving to load variations while still shooting accurately and holding zero.

But when I looked into it's terminal ballistics results - the little I could find didn't seem to show people getting that great of results. I look forward to other's replies who've actually tried it on game first hand.

[Lemonaid]

Lazy E., I saw a post of yours about shooting steel out to 1000 yards with the 107MK and am curious as to your load and the velocity you were getting. After just testing the 107MK with RL15 my max velocity was disappointing (2590 at 29.4 grains) in my 22" RAP.

[tdbru]

Sierra doesn't recommend their SMKs for big game hunting. i know many have tried to use them in that application with varying degrees of success. For varmints, such as say a prairie dog, i doubt you'll get much expansion, but that bullet is so big in relation to the little critter that i have no doubt a hit will equal a kill. you might be happier with a bullet designed for varminting as many of them also exhibit exemplary accuracy. one risk when using non-expanding or non-fragmenting bullets, such as an fmj, or a match bullet that is not designed to expand, when varminting, is a potential for a ricochet if you happen to miss, or get a complete pass-thru. in areas with fairly close proximity to dwellings or such I'd always recommend a highly frangible bullet for varminting to reduce ricochet potential. Based upon the varmints and the area you intend to varmint hunt you might be just fine with the 107 SMK too, however.
-tdbru

[lazyengineer]

Lazy E., I saw a post of yours about shooting steel out to 1000 yards with the 107MK and am curious as to your load and the velocity you were getting. After just testing the 107MK with RL15 my max velocity was disappointing (2590 at 29.4 grains) in my 22" RAP.

8208. I'm running 0.4 gr below the max at Hodgdon's website (i.e. running 29.4 gr) [9/13/2020 - Update note, this is above pressure according to both QL and Gordon's, and the muzzle velocity is faster than list - so don't run this load]. Beware this is still a warm load, and is close to Hodgdon's book-max charge. It might be on the hot side in your particular gun. I'm clocking 2700 FPS out of a 20" 1/9 AA Barrel with it; so I'm glad I didn't add the 0.4 more grains to run at actual book-max.

[Lemonaid]

Thanks for the info lazyengineer, I'll try that and Power Pro Varmint listed on the Sierra site.

[Klem]

Lazy,

29.4/8208 for the 107SMK is a hot load according to QL. It predicts 2723 from a 20" barrel but at 8K lbs over SAAMI and 105% compressed case full. If its an AR I would be cautious.

QL recommends no more than 28.1 for 2600.

[Lemonaid]

Not to divert the hunting thread but Klem's posts are always interesting so I would like his take on the data points here.
Lazyengineer gets 2700 fps with 29.4 grains of 8208 using a 20" BBL.
Klem's QL predicts 2723 from a 20" BBL and 8K over SAMMI and 105% compressed.
Hornady's site give a max of 29.8 compressed for 2667 fps and 49,300 psi from a 24" BBL.
Note that Hornady's load uses a Federal 205M primer and I am guessing Lazyengineer's load used CCI 450 primers.
So is this just a case of "Your mileage may vary?"

[Klem]

Lemon,

No, one is a prediction and one is reality. The velocities are almost identical which lends credence to the pressure prediction. Lazy says they are a "warm load" which means the pressure prediction will be pretty close too.

As for the Hornady prediction; What part of their website you are getting this info from? I wouldn't have thought they would give info for a competitors bullet.

[Lemonaid]

http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/data/rifle

I choose the 6.5 Grendel then selected 107 and all powders, it says at the top 107 SIE HPBT, which looked to me like it's the Sierra.
I don't think Hornady makes a 107?
Sierra's site has 8208 max at 28.5 for 2600 fps
Aw crap, I posted Hornady and ment Hodgdon, sorry.

[Orchard6]

[Klem]

Lemon,

Unless their test barrel is unusual in some way I don't think Hodgdon have got it right.

[Lemonaid]

Lemon,

Unless their test barrel is unusual in some way I don't think Hodgdon have got it right.

The plot thickens!

[Double Naught Spy]

Sierra doesn't recommend their SMKs for big game hunting.

Hornady did not recommend the AMAX for hunting either, but darned if folks didn't love it for hunting. You can find countless threads on this forum where people talked about AMAX for hunting. It was a match bullet, not a hunting bullet, or so it was advertised. Speer TNTs are for hogs, but they do a dandy job on hogs. Many folks like the ELD-Match for hunting as well. Hornady does not suggest it for hunting. It is a "target" bullet. It is interesting to note that the Hornady replaced the AMAX because of the defective melting tips and replaced it with ELD-M. However, they also developed the ELD-X for hunting, but did not replace the SST bullet with its defective tip. Odd.

I would take bullet manufacturer recommendations with a grain of salt. They are usually trying to field multiple lines of bullets and seem to often want them to fit into specific niches. They may design or market a given bullet for a particular purpose, but that does not mean that the bullet cannot fulfill another purpose, and in some cases, do so very well.

Going back to the OP, I tried Defender Ammunition's SMK 107s on hogs. I would say that the bullet worked alright, but that there are definitely many better choices available.

[lazyengineer]

Lemon,

Unless their test barrel is unusual in some way I don't think Hodgdon have got it right.

I'm in agreement. I think Hodgdon's 107 load data is too hot, and thank you for following up. I had made a large batch and the rifle seems to quite like it, so I'll probably run it. But going forward, I'm going to back it down a bit on future batches.