Fort Scott TUI Ammo: 4 Hog First Blush

[Double Naught Spy]

Finally got on some hogs with the new ammo. Here are my initial observations based on getting it sighted in and shooting 4 hogs.

First, the loading is very consistent which I found very impressive, only a 5 fps spread over 5 shots with an average velocity of 2374 fps from an 18" barrel. With that said, the recoil seems to be much stouter than it should be for only 2374 fps from 123 gr. bullet. Accuracy appears to be just fine. I spread my shots L-R due to wiggle to about 1.5" and the vertical elevation difference was only about 3/4". I will never be a benchrest shooter.

I watched some other hunting videos using these bullets in different calibers and their field results didn't seem that different. Despite the elaborate claims by Fort Scott, these bullets aren't terribly special. It could be argued that they perform like non-fragmenting, unstable FMJ. The bullets do seem to be tumbling and can open a big wound channel. The problem with this concept is that while the bullet may start tumbling when it hits soft tissue, the tumble requires the bullet to cover quite a bit of distance, some 6-9" (based on what I saw and what I saw in their gel test videos). If you shoot a smaller animal and the bullet only has 4-5" to work with, then what you may get is a long bullet that yaws a little bit by the time it is exiting.

Speaking of exiting, capturing one of these bullets is apparently very difficult. I did manage to capture one bullet that transited 31" lengthwise through the hog. That is a LOT of penetration.

I think what bothers me most about the tumble upon impact concept is that you end up with oscillating performance going through the tissue as the bullet flips and flips again and likely again (given enough tissue). The most damage is going to be done when the bullet is fully broadside and the least damage when the bullet is point or base forward.

The claim of hydrostatic shock by these rounds seems oversold, even when passing close to the brain or spine.

Also, these are kind of pricey for hunting ammunition, as all copper ammo tends to be. It is hard to justify the cost given the performance.

Maybe my observations are off the mark due to such a small sample size. I will see about shooting more hogs and see if I get different results.

Here is the hunt video.

[Double Naught Spy]

Here is the link to the more in depth analysis of performance video. Because it shows butchered animals, it has an 18 or over rating and so won't play here. You have to view on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/C4-gRJ3XBB8

[LRRPF52]

That was a really tight Extreme Spread.

Nice post-shot analyses on the hogs.

[BluntForceTrauma]

As always, love the narration to hear your play-by-play thought process.

[CJW]

Great post DNS

[EastTNHunter]

Thank you for the analysis

[myrifle]

Great vids as always DNS.

I'm seeing basically fmj bullet performance. Still a small sample but it appears to be all marketing hype for a high dollar fmj bullet performance.

[Double Naught Spy]

Great vids as always DNS.

I'm seeing basically fmj bullet performance. Still a small sample but it appears to be all marketing hype for a high dollar fmj bullet performance.

Well, if you look at their videos where they compare performance to FMJ, it is a close match, only bigger performance because the bullet is longer (copper being less dense than lead).

I need a situation with three or five hogs lined up side by side...

[myrifle]

Well, if you look at their videos where they compare performance to FMJ, it is a close match, only bigger performance because the bullet is longer (copper being less dense than lead).

I need a situation with three or five hogs lined up side by side...

A point I forgot to mention in my first post.

With this bullet so far showing performance nearly identical to a fmj bullet.

Would this bullet even be legal in some states to hunt with?

[VASCAR2]

[Double Naught Spy]

That is a good point. It is not marked on the box that it is hunting ammunition. It is not marked on the box that it is non-expanding ammunition, either, however. Also, my Hornady SST factory ammo is not marked on the box that it is for hunting or that it is expanding ammunition. Ammo I get from Druid Hill Armory is not marked for hunting. It is marked like the Hornady ammo, with just information on the make/model of the bullet, weight, caliber, velocity info.

With that said, I have no idea of games laws of every state. I don't see where in CA they list the criteria for ammo, but Fort Scott Munitions is listed on their list of legal ammo to use.

https://wildlife.ca.gov/Hunting/Nonlead-Ammunition/Certified

The laws will vary by state. For rifles, Nebraska wants 900 ft lbs of energy at 100 yards from a caliber larger than .22 and that the projectile not be FMJ. FSM TUI would work legally here just fine, based on what I am seeing.

[tdbru]

Good analysis so far. I agree that the sample size is extremely limited. However based upon this limited sample size and performance of said samples, to me, it's not reliable enough. But that is my opinion only based upon this limited sample size and results. the 100gr. Nosler Partition videos seem to demonstrate a lot higher percentages of one hit stops and lethality.

For pests, having less than 100% effective bullet performance, given a heart/lung or CNS hit, doesn't bother me too much. But for any game animals I want to recover for the freezer, I would like to see enough wounding on a heart / lung or CNS hit to kill quickly enough to enable recovery. And that on a monotonously repeatable basis. Sometimes the most interesting bits of bullet performance data are not the successes but the failures, if any.

Thank you DNS for testing out the manufacturers claims.
-tdbru

[Double Naught Spy]

tdbru, it is a small sample. I have recovered one more hog so far. One was a heart shot and the bullet was in full tumble upon exiting with a nice keyhole exit hole at 4-5". I think the only problem I am having with this ammo is that it isn't living up to its advertising of hydrostatic shock resulting in clean, ethical kills. Otherwise, I think it is performing as advertised in the sense that it does tumble (like non-fragmenting FMJ). After this heart shot hog, I get the impression that the tumble rate is going to be highly variable. You don't know if you are going to get a slow yaw into a full broadside at 6-9" as it would appear in their videos or if it will happen faster or slower.

Otherwise, it does appear to be tumbling. It does not seem to tumble upon impact, but well after impact, however. So this begs the question as to whether or not hunters want bullets that tumble and not expand. I would be hard pressed to say that for myself.

[tdbru]

DNS,
I have heard other "experts" claim for hydrostatic shock, and I think they were thinking of African BIG game, you need an impact velocity of 2400 fps or so. Obviously the 6.5 Grendel with a 123gr. bullet may not even reach 2400 fps depending upon barrel length and specific load, though some do. But that implies impact velocity at or above 2400 fps with a 123gr. bullet for hydrostatic shot will likely not happen much past 50 yards or so. And for the bullet to tumble, it's going to have to remain long for caliber, so going to a lighter, and hence shorter, bullet to up the MV to try and get some hydrostatic shock going will reduce the tendency of the bullet to yaw in tissue, which is what the manufacturer is claiming causes significant wounding.

Hunters have been experimenting with bullet design for hunting big game with small calibers for about 120 years now. I would think that by now, if bullet yaw was as repeatable and effective as the manufacturer claims, it would have been used a long time ago as making a long FMJ would be much cheaper than say a Nosler Partition or a TTSX in comparison.

I am not convinced yet, and your gathering more field data proving otherwise would change my mind, that these bullets would yaw consistently enough as they pass through tissue of varying densities, to be reliable enough at quick kills as compared to current expanding hunting bullets given the same game animal / shot presentation / bullet placement / impact velocity. So far your data seems to indicate that the bullet needs to travel through the critter quite a bit before you notice yawing signs in the wound channel.

Another hunting bullet characteristic that many tout is the ability not only to expand but to keep on a straight path through the critter while expanding so that the bullet can reach the vitals. Even with "standard" bullets this doesn't always happen, depending upon the shot circumstances. I would like to see it though "most" of the time. If you need to shoot through the shoulder to reach the heart/lungs one surely doesn't want the bullet to change direction radically at impact and say skim along the outside of the rib cage under the hide. Nasty wound for sure, but perhaps survivable.

So it will be quite educational to see what you observe as you put the claims to the test with the rest of the supplied ammo. With the small sample size so far, I'm not impressed too much, but who knows, by the end of the evaluation the results may prove quite different.

Again, thank you for your willingness to try these and your discipline and thoroughness of your field work. Well done.

-tdbru

[Double Naught Spy]

DNS,
I have heard other "experts" claim for hydrostatic shock, and I think they were thinking of African BIG game, you need an impact velocity of 2400 fps or so. Obviously the 6.5 Grendel with a 123gr. bullet may not even reach 2400 fps depending upon barrel length and specific load, though some do.

I am not convinced yet, and your gathering more field data proving otherwise would change my mind, that these bullets would yaw consistently enough as they pass through tissue of varying densities, to be reliable enough at quick kills as compared to current expanding hunting bullets given the same game animal / shot presentation / bullet placement / impact velocity. So far your data seems to indicate that the bullet needs to travel through the critter quite a bit before you notice yawing signs in the wound channel.

On the hydrostatic shock, I am 100% certain that it is a matter of more than just velocity. No doubt velocity, weight, and diameter of the bullet all play parts as do the size and weight of the animal being shot. I don't think you could run a 2 mm Kolibri round up to 3000 fps (impact velocity) and expect hydrostatic shock to drop African big game, lol. You would not expect a .223 55 gr. at 2800 fps impact velocity to drop most African big game due to hydrostatic shock, either. The bottom line here is that hydrostatic shock isn't just a velocity issue.

As for the tumbling, I believe it does consistently tumble, but that the tumble is not consistent. In other words, it is going to tumble, but whether that happens at 3 inches or 6 or 9 inches is not going to be known by the shooter when s/he pulls the trigger. Based on FSM's own gel videos, their product does not appear to tumble upon impact as claimed. Instead, it tumbles well after impact at some unknown distance, but likely inside 9".

They make a big deal out of stating/showing that the first 4 or 5 inches of gel count as skin. Their bullets never seem to tumble that soon in the gel tests shown. So anything that opens up inside that distance in gel is opening in the skin (at least that seems to be implied) and hence the damage/expansion shown in that zone is pretty much just worthless damage. I am not sure who came up with the notion that 4 or 5" of penetration potential is taken up by the skin. I haven't seen any data on that that would even support the claim. Gene Wolberg's work in the early 1990s indicated that skin offers virtually no barrier or effect on penetration depth when comparing 9mm data from autopsies and gel tests. Of course, this was for human skin and many animals have skin thicker than humans, but the skin of coyote is nothing like that of a deer and a deer's skin seems pretty tame compared to hogs which is pretty tame compared to moose. I would go on to say that the skin on a young boar tends to be thinner and easier to cut than the skin on an older boar. The point here is that you can't say X amount of gel simulates skin unless you know what type of skin you are talking about and have the data to back up the results. I don't know that anybody really has all this data on skin and penetration impact to say that 4 or 5" is the golden average or if it even has any significant impact on hunted game animals. If anybody knows of such studies, I would enjoy reading them.

Wolberg EJ. Performance of the Winchester 9mm 147 grain sub sonic jacketed hollow point bullet in human tissue and tissue simulant.
Wound Ballistics Rev 1(1):10-13, 1991