Cool report Sharpshooter. I thought it all expanded well and either would take an elk I think. The 425, a hollowpoint, expanded a little more than the round ball. It would be neat to see a profile of the bullet. In all of my hunting, I have yet to recover aGP hollowpoint or a maxiball, but I haven't shot elk with either of them. I did some makeshift measuring on the screen and found the 425 to be approximately 5.5 units wide, while the RB was approx. 4.5 units wide. In cross sectional area, the expanded 425 is approximately 1.5 times that of the expanded RB. Since the 425 is twice the weight, it would seem that at the same impact velocity, the 425 might penetrate a little deeper. What were your findings?
I attached some 100 yard ballistics for those loads. They are my best guess at MV and B.C (so if anyone has better suggestions, suggest away
). It will give you an idea of the performance you can expect from those loads. The velocity may be a little high in the first 40 yards for a hollowpoint, but IMO, no so high to cause alarm. Probably the shot will be over 25 paces, so you are only talking 50 fps to fast at worse. But at 80 yards, when the velocity is 1180 or so, that hollopoint will expand the bullet giving you a much better wound change. Granted you don't need the hollowpoint, but I really think it to be a benefit at that range with this load. When I see your 425 all mushroomed out, I'm thinking it kinda looks like a flattened .68 cal round ball. Almost the same weight even. Thing is, it should penetrate better than the .68 RB simply because it starts off as a small diameter. I really do think that you will bag an elk with either you choose.
BS,
Cool link to the wafer-board tests. Thanks for sharing that with us. It does bring us back to what I previously mentioned. Penetration seems to be less of a problem at lower velocities. It probably has something to do with how hot (hence how soft) the lead gets. When one propels a pure-lead bullet to high velocity, it gets pretty hot (and soft)even before it exits the barrel. Then if it hits at high velocity, well it gets hot and soft all over again. Thats probably why 135 grains gives the.530 RB no more penetration than 80 grains in the waferboards.
Adding more powder has diminishing benefits. By all the measures we judge a projectile's properties, we find the muzzle properties for each 5 grain increase to increase less than 5%, getting a little less juice to add to the glass with each 5 grain squeeze. Its worse at 80 yards where the benefit is only a fraction of the muzzle benefit. At some point,some folks finally say, "it just ain't worth it.Why am I beating myself sore and spending all that money on additional powder?"
Happy Hunting, Phil
