Hornady CX 120 gr. on Hogs & a Coyote

[Double Naught Spy]

This was a fun hunt...

[video=youtube_share;KdhrE_heelY]https://youtu.be/KdhrE_heelY [/video]

And the Carpe AnalySus video...
https://youtu.be/spEZV7d1pjs

[VASCAR2]

That is a big boy, one of the bigger bores you’ve got in a while. Interesting both recovered bullets had pedals broken off. I think the 100 grain Nosler Partition or 90 grain TnT are pretty good if your not restricted to lead free monolithic bullets. Curious to see future results with the CX 120 grain bullet.

[Double Naught Spy]

Something went wrong. First video was supposed to have commentary. Here is the corrected video.
[video=youtube_share;H-TDAQRAezI]https://youtu.be/H-TDAQRAezI[/video]

We had a great time, though we are both a little rusty. The manager for the property, who is also a hunter, contacted me yesterday after he collected up the hogs and put them in the property's bone yard. He said it was the largest feral hog he had ever seen. I felt sort of bad for him as I had spied hogs on the property a couple days prior and had let him know, as a courtesy. I thought he might like a crack at them as he lives just around the corner. Instead, he said I was welcome to go after them. I had no idea we would see anything bigger than 200 lbs. With our drought and such, the hogs seem to be smaller and smaller and the sows don't seem to be giving birth as much. What hogs we have been seeing, and not often, are generally sub 150 lbs. Then out of nowhere came this giant, LOL.

Here is the Carpe AnalySus version that discusses our shooting (hits/misses) and the one bullet recovered. There are some graphic pics, so it is Adult-Only.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spEZV7d1...wXd4AaABAg

[trubulator]

Just to bookend, I emailed Hornady and their response was an unequivocal 2000 FPS at impact to expand.

[Double Naught Spy]

Just to bookend, I emailed Hornady and their response was an unequivocal 2000 FPS at impact to expand.

Thanks, again!

That sort of is a real range limiter. Given the 2515 fps from my barrel, that would cap my shooting distance at 265 yards and really, probably at considerably less because close to the 2000 fps threshold, the bullet may start to expand, but not expand very much (based on my experience with other expanding bullets and thresholds). Maybe these are different, but I sort of doubt it.

[trubulator]

Thanks, again!

That sort of is a real range limiter. Given the 2515 fps from my barrel, that would cap my shooting distance at 265 yards and really, probably at considerably less because close to the 2000 fps threshold, the bullet may start to expand, but not expand very much (based on my experience with other expanding bullets and thresholds). Maybe these are different, but I sort of doubt it.

I am hunting at higher elevations. Assuming 2500 at the muzzle, I pencil out 300 yards at 4350' elevation, 325 at 6500', and 350 at 8500'. Bring it in 50 yards to ensure expansion and I have a usable load for my purposes. Shame they did not tune it to open up lower.

[Double Naught Spy]

50 yards to ensure expansion? Oof!

[trubulator]

50 yards to ensure expansion? Oof!

Nah, bring it in 50 yards to ensure expansion. So instead of 300 yards that gets me to 2000 FPS, I would limit shots to 250.

[EastTNHunter]

I saw your video of that strange wound channel. Any guesses on the cause, Brian?

[trubulator]

Thr frustrating thing about all of this is that it would not be that hard to make these bullets open up at lower velocities. Barnes came out with a TSX designed for 350 legend and when I asked them they said minimum impact velocity is 1200FPS.

[Double Naught Spy]

I saw your video of that strange wound channel. Any guesses on the cause, Brian?

Help me out. I am getting older, memory isn't what it used to be, and I have too many vids/hunts to recall exactly which one. Which video and/or which wound?

Thr frustrating thing about all of this is that it would not be that hard to make these bullets open up at lower velocities. Barnes came out with a TSX designed for 350 legend and when I asked them they said minimum impact velocity is 1200FPS.

For whatever reason(s), copper seems to be harder to work with than lead in terms of bullet expansion and such. The range of velocity between opening up and tearing off the petals is seemingly smaller than for lead. If a copper bullet opens at 1200 fps, would it also shed its petals going through the skin at 2400?

At 300 yards, the 120 gr CX still has over 1000 ft lbs of energy, but is below the 2000 fps threshold. 1000 ft lbs is the minimal velocity need for a bullet for deer/hog-sized game, according to many hunters and for many decades (whether this is right or wrong isn't relevant, just that it is a operational minimum that is commonly held valid.

Moreover, at the 2000 fps threshold, the CX isn't apt to expand very well and maybe not at all. It would be nice of the bullet didn't just start to expand, but expanded well all the way down down to 1000 ft lbs of energy. The bullets I have recovered are expanding okay, but certainly not fully and in the case of the first bullet, that was with impacting with over 1350 ft lbs and 2268 fps. I suspect I might need a contact shot to get actual full expansion and I don't know that would even be enough velocity.

[Fess]

IF Hornady wanted to, they could design a 6.5 copper bullet to open at lower velocities. The copper monoflex bullet in the 30-30, for example opens down to 1800fps. The 120gr CX is designed for the 6.5 Creedmoor, though, which starts out significantly faster. Their own table shows it good to almost 500 yards in that rifle.

[Dinny]

Which bullet should we test next? Hammer bullets look good, maybe their 93gr??

[VASCAR2]

Sierra has a new 105 grain .264/6.5 Blitz King which might work really well at the sedate 6.5 Grendel velocities. Out of the faster 6.5 mm cartridges I feel sure this bullet would be explosive and typical for varmint work. I’m curious if this bullets mass might make it perform similar to the Speer 90 grain TNT.

The 107 grain Tipped Match King might prove acceptable at 6.5 Grendel velocities. It appears Sierra has discontinued the 123 grain Tipped Match King and list a 130 grain Tipped Match King and a 130 grain Game Changer. I don’t remember seeing any ballistic test on the 107 grain Tipped Match King or 130 grain Game Changer. I suspect there is a difference in the design of the hunting Game Changer and the Tipped Match King.


https://www.sierrabullets.com/product/6-...blitzking/


https://www.sierrabullets.com/product/6-...30-gr-tgk/

[trubulator]

Help me out. I am getting older, memory isn't what it used to be, and I have too many vids/hunts to recall exactly which one. Which video and/or which wound?



For whatever reason(s), copper seems to be harder to work with than lead in terms of bullet expansion and such. The range of velocity between opening up and tearing off the petals is seemingly smaller than for lead. If a copper bullet opens at 1200 fps, would it also shed its petals going through the skin at 2400?

At 300 yards, the 120 gr CX still has over 1000 ft lbs of energy, but is below the 2000 fps threshold. 1000 ft lbs is the minimal velocity need for a bullet for deer/hog-sized game, according to many hunters and for many decades (whether this is right or wrong isn't relevant, just that it is a operational minimum that is commonly held valid.

Moreover, at the 2000 fps threshold, the CX isn't apt to expand very well and maybe not at all. It would be nice of the bullet didn't just start to expand, but expanded well all the way down down to 1000 ft lbs of energy. The bullets I have recovered are expanding okay, but certainly not fully and in the case of the first bullet, that was with impacting with over 1350 ft lbs and 2268 fps. I suspect I might need a contact shot to get actual full expansion and I don't know that would even be enough velocity.

Yeah, for now I will be hunting with home rolled SSTs for deer. I need to have time to put the CX through its paces and see what things look like. What kind of expansion (diameter) did you get with the recovered bullets?

I know for sure the 1000 ft pounds is pretty much bunk, at least for larger calibers. I hit a small doe at 70 yards with a 58 cal round ball that had no more than 500 ft lb at impact and aside from a complete pass through I had bloodshot meat, destroyed hear, damaged lungs, and an animal that made it all of 25 feet from the hit. But with teensy little bullets like a 6.5, we really need expansion to get good performance.

[EastTNHunter]

Help me out. I am getting older, memory isn't what it used to be, and I have too many vids/hunts to recall exactly which one. Which video and/or which wound?



.

Sorry, sir… I was referring to the porpoising wound channel

[RenoDave]

There is great you-tuber called Frontline Rejects that has done several nice Hornady CX Expansion tests:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10HpKGDnRVE&t=220s

Looks like the CX will expand down to 1500/1600 FPS - not great expansion at those lower velocities but serviceable I think for varmint/hogs

[ATTACH=CONFIG]19092[/ATTACH]

[Double Naught Spy]

There is great you-tuber called Frontline Rejects that has done several nice Hornady CX Expansion tests:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10HpKGDnRVE&t=220s

Looks like the CX will expand down to 1500/1600 FPS - not great expansion at those lower velocities but serviceable I think for varmint/hogs

[ATTACH=CONFIG]19092[/ATTACH]

Interesting information, but maybe not really relevant. The problem here is that he isn't shooting 6.5 Grendel and so the information doesn't translate very well. I have seen this with several bullets where the bullet performs differently at different calibers. Looking at the picture you posted, he is getting comparable or better expansion at 2-3 times the distance, and 250-500 fps less velocity.

[Double Naught Spy]

I saw your video of that strange wound channel. Any guesses on the cause, Brian?

This was on the porpoising wound? So my guess is that the wound pattern is deceptive. In a relaxed position, it looks like the bullet had to dive down from the first wound to make the 2nd wound. That didn't happen. More than likely while running, the trajectory of the bullet when exiting the first wound was actually headed up into the hog again, but higher up. So what I am saying is that during running and such, the skin wasn't in the same position as it is when relaxed, so it looks like it was doing something impossible when it wasn't.

As for going in and coming out of the wounds. I have seen this singularly with shallow trajectory shots, but usually the gouge is longer. I have never seen it happen twice with thes same shot. With multiple wounds to the skin like this, in the past, I have found the bullet was traveling under the skin. In this case, where was no open tissue under the skin to indicate that the bullet had traveled under the skin.

[LRRPF52]

There is great you-tuber called Frontline Rejects that has done several nice Hornady CX Expansion tests:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10HpKGDnRVE&t=220s

Looks like the CX will expand down to 1500/1600 FPS - not great expansion at those lower velocities but serviceable I think for varmint/hogs

[ATTACH=CONFIG]19092[/ATTACH]

Intertesting. SneakyOne did a lot of testing with the Hornady GMX bullet, compared to many other monoliths available at the time, and it seemed to exhibit the best expansion of them all.

He cut them down to various weights, including 94gr, 95gr, 105gr, and others.

I shot them into timber on a hunt several years ago, then retrieved them. These were loaded to 2750fps if I recall: