one thing that I think doesn't get mentioned enough is bullet placement and running in parallel to that understanding game anatomy. I remember reading, though I don't remember the author so can't give proper credit here, that there were 5 items to successful killing of game animals. the first three were bullet placement. 4th and 5th were using the right bullet for the job and using enough cartridge for the job. deer, elk, antelope, caribou, coyotes, hogs, etc. have been shot at with a huge variety of cartridge/bullet combinations, all with varying degrees of results. What rarely gets mentioned in the scenario where the game animal runs off after the shot is "where did the bullet hit?"
one thing I have found, that goes with bullet placement, is rifle/shooter accuracy capability. If you and your rifle can only shoot to 4 MOA, then getting bullet placement where you want it is going to be tough much past powder burn on the hide ranges. So always work for a load, either factory or handload, that you can shoot with accuracy and precision. Your ability to do the shot placement where it'll count will go way up. And if you can put the bullet exactly where you want it to go, and know where on the critter that should be, you can get away with killing all sorts of game with pretty small calibers/cartridges. Conversely hitting a bull in the butt with a 338 WM will likely result in unrecovered game.
all you folks who continue to report game harvests with the Grendel can put the bullet in the right spot. well done.
02-04-2023, 03:37 PM (This post was last modified: 02-04-2023, 03:39 PM by lazyengineer.)
Double Naught Spy Wrote:I have a couple of viewers that seem to think kinetic energy is the be all to end all of hunting/killing data, regardless of how many times I explain why I don't bother with it, LOL. I provide enough information that they could easily compute it, but that isn't good enough.
I am starting with your 2nd sentence. From the formulas I have looked at, I would say that they were designed to support the perspectives of the writers. Sure, they were biases, but every opinion we have is biased, right? I am not sure writing a formula that derives a number you deep useful for making a selection is necessarily a "bias" issue. The attempts may not have covered everything, but they covered what the particular authors thought was best to explain caliber/bullet/ammo/load choices.
How the bullets behave in the game is HUGE, in my (biased) opinion. I don't think we could put a formula to it, not a single formula, anyways.
The problem with the notion of how bullets perform in game is that it is HUGELY VAGUE. In part, this is due to all of the shooter introduced variables (e.g., shot placement, anatomy knowledge, etc.), bullet induced (e.g., ballistics, how consistently does the bullet perform in a given medium, after hitting bones of different sizes, shapes, densities, etc., and animal/biology induced, and animal induced (e.g., construction and makeup of the animal). Never mind that different types of bullets will perform differently by design and folks will summarily discount certain types of bullets that don't perform in a manner that they like even if they are equally lethal or more lethal.
It is probably just about impossible to come up with a mathematical predictive model/formula that will tell you about lethality across the board, but what said authors were trying to do was to help replace some of the willy nilly logic and biases of hunters based a bit on experience, a bit on the amazing picture on the box, based on what their father/brother/uncle/best buddy shoots, based on what they read in a magazine (those guys are all unbiased experts who write solely for the benefit of sharing their knowledge, right?), etc.
I get a lot of advice from folks on what bullets (and calibers) I should be using. From what I have learned, whatever I am using is wrong based on somebody else's opinion. My favorite are the folks that are trying to help me by telling me what works for them. Mind you, I am hunting hogs and I get notes like, "You really should try X. I killed two deer with it last year and they were DRT, though I had to track one about 60 yards."
This is a pretty stupid endorsement. A sample of 2 is pretty much worthless, though the sample is positive, which is nice. Never mind that they are talking about a different animal and different types of hunting. Never mind that they don't understand that DRT means that the animal dies where shot, not after running 60 yards. However, is this endorsement any better or worse than a Taylor KO value? I don't think it is any better, but I don't think it is any worse. It just doesn't sound as mathematical or scientific.
JASmith mentioned that he didn't know when folks got fascinated with kinetic energy values. I don't know either. It seems velocity and energy are tied up in all the calculations, so they must the pretty important. However, energy seems to be the most simplistic universal concept that even the most ignorant of people can figure out how to calculate and wouldn't it be nice if we just assumed that more is better and now we have a super simple system, only it doesn't work.
Some of my viewers have told me (a couple have told me repeatedly) that I need to be using a caliber that generates more energy. So I ask these folks what energy will do. They tell me that it kills the animal. I ask how it kills the animal and they can't tell me. They will start to talk about hydraulic shock or hydrostatic shock (often because they don't know the difference between the two) but can't tell me what is necessary for said shock to occur, but it involves energy. So where I am going with this is that folks get a concept stuck in their heads like a brain worm that superficially seems to make sense, seems to work, and that they can calculate and BOOM, they have their answer, even if it isn't based on fully useful concepts.
As always - well said. With regards to Kinetic Energy, it's an easy metric for a complex application. I do use and look at it, but with understanding of basically everything you said. An 850 ft-lb TNT imperfect but decent shot into a hog, is going to be my choice over a 1000 ft-lb FMJ for same shot, every time. Mostly because of the excellent body of data you've helped create. (seriously - wow) And they've never let me down. But as an overly technical guy (it's a flaw), I do find it an easy and non-subjective comparative metric when doing ballistics analysis - as overly simplistic as I agree you say it is. For better or worse it's a common metric, and I've had a land-owner require a 200 yard 1000 ft-lb impact metric on me once, to use their land.
And to this thread, I will take a broader 6.5 Grendel bullet over a 6mm ARC bullet pretty much every time, even if they do have the same KE. Even if both are shooting 90 gr TNT's. Because .. yea.
02-06-2023, 06:45 PM (This post was last modified: 02-06-2023, 06:48 PM by Stinky Coyote.)
yup the tnt will go the right distance in animal and dump all those 850 ft/lbs over 14" or what have you, any exit will still leave most of it in animal and not much of a ricochet potential with a well broken down bullet if there is an exit, if you miss, same thing, the rapid expansion will quickly dissipate on first object it connects with further reducing chance of leaving the land or ricochet, I use .17 hmr with tnt or v-max for coyotes in acreage country for that very reason, will not use the 20 gr xtp as they just poke holes and keep going and recovery distances on coyotes twice as far as well, but the 1000 ft/lb fmj example will ricochet plenty and leave the property a lot of the time and when hitting pigs it will go clean through and 700 of those 1000 ft/lbs will end up somewhere else...not where you want, so the energy figure is again useless, if a landowner suggests it's no different than anyone else still suggesting it as a measure, they just aren't up to speed but the recommendation should land them close to where they want cartridge/bullet wise, but someone could show up with .223 or 7.62x39 and case loads of fmj and put the landowner in lots of trouble with the neighbors while being under 1000 ft/lbs rule, the proper recommendation should be for lower sd rapid expansion bullets to minimize both over penetration and or ricochet potentials
and all these threads must assume bullet placement is proper, otherwise the threads just get off in the ditch discussing the weeds
LRRPF52 Wrote:Ive read through a lot of that thread. Most of it is opinions and talk without posts of actual animals killed, though there are some about every 3 pages, mostly deer, coyotes, antelope, and some cats.
The OP has shot some elk within 100-260 yards with the 77gr TMK from a bolt gun, broadside shots through the heart/lungs.
Nothing really surprising there.
There is example of 800+ yard elk kill with .223/77TMK in that thread. The 77 TMK is extremely lethal.
There are also plenty of examples of greater than 260 yard kills. The .223/77 TMK combo doesnt hit 1800 fps until roughly 450 yards.
Just sayin
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I know numerus people that their favorite hog bullet for years with their 223 was the 75gr a-Max and say the 75gr ELDM is good also. In my 22-243 I like the Swift 75gr Sirocco for hogs and deer they flat work and I am stepping that out a lot faster than you will with a 223. The more I increase speed the tougher bullet I want for penetration to a point but I still want reliable expansion and penetration
There is something to be said about long high sectional density bullets killing outside their weight class, look at our beloved 6.5 diameter and the reputation the old 6.5X54 MS got with not high BC bullets but long for caliber bullets.
I have only used larger cartridges for elk the smallest being the 6.5-284 and it worked well, the others were 7mmSTW, 257 WBY, 300 WBY, and 350 Remington Magnum.
Seer sized game with over 30 different cartridges from 17 cal 25gr bullet 45, 55, 60, 64, 70 and 75gr .224 cal bullets, 85 to 105gr .244 bullet, 100 to 120gr .257 cal bullets, 100t to 160gr 6.5s, 140 and 140 gr .277 dia, 120 to 175gr 7mms, 110 to 180gr .308s 180gr .338, 125 to 180gr .357s and 200 and 225gr .358s, 200 and 250 gr .375s, 225 to 300gr .429s, 230gr .452, 300 to 500gr .458s plus 45cal lead balls and 50cal maxi balls from muzzle loaders. Something in common with all those shoot them in the heart and lungs and expect a dead animal pretty quickly. (exception being the 17 cal one deer in the head. To say over the years this rifle nut has drawn a few conclusions might be right.
The high sectional density goes back IMO to cup and core bullet days and the longer and heavier for caliber the more effective they tend to be on larger critters, not talking taking apart a gopher but deer size and larger critters. For years general thinking was with say the 30-06 150 is fine for deer but go to elk go at least 180gr more bullet for deeper penetration that lead to John Nosler creating the Partition bullet when it failed on a mud caked bull moose in Alaska.
As I have stated here before If I were a resident and had more than an expensive out of state hunt for my elk hunts I would not hesitate to use my Grendel, however since that is not the case I will always be taking one of my larger rifles for that. I have them might as well use them
Ive read through the rokslide 223 thread also and find it quite interesting.
I definitely agree that the 77 TMK is a lethal bullet and I maintain a supply of them on hand. (Bone Frog Gun Club has a Federal TRU load available right now, if you want some and are a member.)
In fact, most every bullet can be lethal. I do wonder about the time factor. Lethal is lethal. But what about incapacitation time? Would a 77gr TMK incapacitate a large, potentially dangerous animal as fast as a larger caliber might?
Some in that thread advocate the 223 77 gr TMK for grizzly bears. Hmm, Ill pass on that if a more robust cartridge is readily available.
Last 2 years I Opted to use the 6mm ARC for rifle deer hunting. 1st year I took a nice buck at 254 yards with the 108 Grain Elite hunter.
Last fall I opted to utilize the 87 grain absolute hammer to fill two doe tags. Filled both tags later in the day where each doe was taken with roughly a 100 yard shot. 1st doe was taken with a heart lung shot that resulted in a 80 yard death run. Last doe was only showing her head & neck. Chose a base of the neck shot & she dropped in her bed upon touching the trigger.
While not wishing to take anything away from the 6.5 Grendel Ill attest the 6mm arc is up to the task as well. Few weeks earlier I was able to take a decent buck with another, lead free projectile. In this case the deer was taken with a 15 yard shot with a 650 grain TAW tipped with a 200 grain single bevel 2 blade broad head. Buck took an arrow very high through the ribs that exited mid body. deer expired inside of 40 yards from point of impact.
Lots of ways to get the job done. & if a bow & slow arrow is up to the task & it is. 6mm ARC is very well - up to the task of a whitetail deer, to be sure.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind when using the ARC for hunting:
When using classic cup and core hunting bullets, one should focus on deer weighing less than 130 - 150lb and use proper hunting bullets weigh at least 85 grains.
The advent of monometal lead-free bullets has changed things a bit. Monometal hunting bullets weighing as little as 50 grains should work reliable on these lighter deer. Much like with the 243 Win, monometal bullets in the 75-90 gr class will give reasonably reliable results on deer weighing as much as 300 lb.
The heavier bullet weights available for the Grendel will work well on game weighing twice as much.
JASmith Wrote:There are a couple of things to keep in mind when using the ARC for hunting:
When using classic cup and core hunting bullets, one should focus on deer weighing less than 130 - 150lb and use proper hunting bullets weigh at least 85 grains.
The advent of monometal lead-free bullets has changed things a bit. Monometal hunting bullets weighing as little as 50 grains should work reliable on these lighter deer. Much like with the 243 Win, monometal bullets in the 75-90 gr class will give reasonably reliable results on deer weighing as much as 300 lb.
The heavier bullet weights available for the Grendel will work well on game weighing twice as much.
Sort of how I've always been taught. Smaller bullets work best at killing smaller things, and bigger bullets work better and killing bigger things. And bigger bullets tend to have a more generous margin of error. A perfect heart shot will be killed with almost anything. A glancing imperfect shot....
BjornF16 Wrote:There is example of 800+ yard elk kill with .223/77TMK in that thread. The 77 TMK is extremely lethal.
There are also plenty of examples of greater than 260 yard kills. The .223/77 TMK combo doesnt hit 1800 fps until roughly 450 yards.
Just sayin
What you don't read is where it hasn't worked and you won't but I know and most others have sense to know it's a marginal caliber at best regardless of the bullet used. . It's no different than every one on the net always shoot 1/4" groups, take it all with a grain of salt.
Regardless anyone who shoots an elk at 800 yards with a 77 TMK out of a 223 isn't very bright and probably shouldn't be hunting and I truly mean that. Some people will just take hail Mary shots hoping for a kill. You won't ever hear about the animals they wounded and never found it's just the one they got lucky on.
There was a guy bragging he had an exit at I think 450 yards while everyone else is talking about how theirs fragmented. He wasn't smart enough to realize it had just penciled through.
And even Sierra will tell you it's not a hunting bullet. It's better than the MK but it's still unpredictable. It may fragment great or it may pencil through. I'm amazed at all the people who know more than the engineers who designed the bullets.
You have people trying to compare the TMK to Broad Heads energy wise.. That tells you that some of the people on there don't even understand that they kill in totally different ways so there is no comparison.
I wouldn't ever think that was realistic or tell anybody I thought it was.
LRRPF52 Wrote:Hornady did 6mm ARC for a specific military unit looking to replace their SR-25s, because they were experiencing all the problems with 7.62 NATO weight, bulk, recoil, both in and out of the house.
They did a series of practical application tests with 12-18 barrel 6.5 Grendel AR-15s in different positions, shooting scenarios, and recreations of operational problems they encountered overseas.
Each shooter was asked if there were any scenarios where they would have preferred 7.62 NATO instead, and without exception, each said no, the 6.5 Grendel was preferred in each scenario.
Hornady then said they could tweak it to make it better, and necked it down to 6mm.
6mm Grendel has been a thing in AR-15s for Hi-Power since Grendel brass was available, so nothing new.
Having spotted and ROd at long range matches and training events since 1996, I personally like to see and hear the impact of more projectile mass on-target.
The 6mms are flatter and have less recoil, but are hard to hear or see impact steel sometimes, especially as you get out farther.
6.5 Grendel even from my 12 is very audible on steel.
From 16 and longer, it hits the steel pretty hard at distance.
6mm is great for varmints and coyotes, adequate for deer-sized game within certain ranges, but theres an argument for the projectile mass and bullet selection for 6.5mm on medium game that is hard to argue with.
I have seen people take elk with 6mm Dasher, 6mm Creedmoor, and 6mm BR, but they were competitive shooters used to putting rounds on small targets regularly, and made excellent heart/lung shots on their elk.
6.5 Grendel is the external ballistics equivalent of the 6.5x54 Mannlicher and 6.5x52 Carcano. MVs from those compared with Grendel from the same barrel lengths overlap nicely.
Grendel just does it from a 39mm length case and without pushing pressure much higher, which is impressive in its own right.
What was your sources for this? I'm not saying it didn't happen, it's just as Ive never heard anything about it and even Hornady has been hush hush about it. I've never even heard what (unit) it was. As far as I know it's never been put out.
CoyoteConquest Wrote:What was your sources for this? I'm not saying it didn't happen, it's just as Ive never heard anything about it and even Hornady has been hush hush about it. I've never even heard what (unit) it was. As far as I know it's never been put out.
Hornady has talked about the 6mm ARC vs 6.5 Grendel quite a lot. Background: Basically, they wanted highest lethality against humans at ranges well beyond 600m and up to 1000m. Their definition of "lethality" includes retained velocity, trajectory, low wind drift as well as dispersion. For the Military they apparently only consider expanding or fragmenting lead-core bullets like the 106gr TAP.. They did not consider the 6.5 Grendel to have long enough legs and went to 6mm which could gain some BC and muzzle velocity. They claim a 0.580 G1 BC and 2625fps from an 18" barrel for their LE/Military 6mm ARC TAP and a 0.512 G1 BC and 2800fps from a 24" barrel for the 103gr ELD-X hunting load.
For a design goal, they compared to a 16" 308 AR. They claim the 18" 6mm ARC barrel is comparable in handiness to a 16" 308 to justify 18". They are also big on self spotting and claim that one of biggest benefits of the 6mm ARC is low enough recoil to see your own bullet trace. This is seen as critical for Designated Marksman who generally don't have spotters.
The second, "podcast" video about the 6mm ARC is cued up to where they discuss issues with a 30-cal DMR rifle and the interest in the 6.5 Grendel. They mention the Grendel again shortly after 14:10.
6mm ARC and Hunting: In the second video at 21:11, the host talks about "devastating" terminal performance on a deer at 505 yards with the ARC. At 40:30 they even discuss the 6 ARC with a monolithic bullet as being sufficient for black bear and elk.
In this YouTube interview, Colion Noir discusses three weapons with a Geissele representative, among them Geissele's 6mmARC rifle (at 2:13) developed for the military. At 5:01 the rep says, Im confident youre going to see a lot more of this caliber and a lot more of this rifle definitely within special operations but throughout the Department of Defense. Im very confident.
In a Military Arms Channel Youtube video, there is a short mention starting at 14:10 that the SEALs are, indeed, using 6mmARC. For video, click HERE.
Between those two bits of info and, of course, Hornady's pronouncements, I consider it confirmed that the SEALs asked for an improved AR15-platform cartridge from Hornady and got the 6mm ARC.
And then, as LR52 posted elsewhere, from the Army side there's FN developing the slightly larger non-AR15 platform 6.5x43 LICC.
Interesting times!
:: 6.5 GRENDEL Deer and Targets :: 6mmARC Targets and Varmints and Deer :: 22 ARC Varmints and Targets
I hope that Geissele finally improves the magazine enough. I read posts that both the French and (I think) the Slovakian military bought non-Geissele rifles in 6mm ARC and found the feeding was not reliable enough, especially in adverse conditions. Most of NATO still has a prohibition on easily fragmenting small-arms projectiles, so the Hornady bullets are a no-go. Geissele is still not selling its 6mm ARC or 6.5 Creedmoor rifles to the public, despite saying it would be out immediately in the above interviews from a year ago.
This year at SHOT, Geissele made a point of stating that their 6mm ARC's have a lot of proprietary parts including bolt (using a special Carpenter 158+ alloy that is currently not available to the public), barrel extension, barrel nut, trigger and magazines. They told ARFCOM that they hope to start selling their $3,800 ARC "StatoMatch" rifle by the end of first quarter, which is only a few days from now. Their 18" barreled rifles are estimated to go for $3,500.
Find myself in the interesting position of disagreeing with Geiselle that the 6mm ARC needs any more special attention than 6.5 Grendel. Make it as luxury as you want it to be, but don't claim it "needs" special treatment.
:: 6.5 GRENDEL Deer and Targets :: 6mmARC Targets and Varmints and Deer :: 22 ARC Varmints and Targets
Geissele has changed quite a lot. They have also modified the upper by moving the foreward assist location, riveting a steel insert in the cam-pin race to prevent steel to aluminum contact from bolt movement, and goodness knows what else. They also claim to have an improved gas system and to use a proprietary bolt carrier group to go along with their forged bolt and new barrel extension. They claim that the barrel extension had to be modified for reliable feeding. Once the barrel extension is changed, a significantly larger diameter bolt can be used. Heck, DTech systems even managed to fit a WSSM bolt (0.535" dia) into an AR15 once they changed the barrel extension.
Beefing up the bolt of military firearms is not new. Colt used an AR10-sized bolt and barrel extension in the 7.62x39 CK901's made for Yemen and it can be argued that Colt had a lot of experience with 7.62x39 AR15 bolts.
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