txhunter58

Has anyone recovered a powerbelt from an animal, geletin, etc that was essentially intact?

My question for you is: are there rifling marks on the bullet?

The reason I ask is that I went out shooting both T/C maxiballs, Hornady great plains, and powerbelts last weekend from my Omega.

The maxiballs, and great plains bullets made holes in a paper target and its cardboard backing NOTICABLE bigger than the powebelts. I realize that they are made slightly underbore size, but I understood that when the powder goes off, they expand to full bore and engage the rifling.

However, if that is true, then why don't they make as big a hole in the taget.

I did not measure the holes, but it was real obvious with the naked eye which holes were the powerbelts.

Therefore, I got to wondering if they really expand and engage the rifling at all. If so, then there is some other explaination for the size difference. Probably the fact that full bore lead conicals are made slightly overbore to engage the rifling BEFORE you fire. Didn't think it would be that noticable on the paper though.

Just curious.

dmurphy317

Its the design of the nose that makes the difference. The Maxiball and Great Plains are more of a wad cutter design rather than a rounded nose design. The great thing about a wad cutter design is it acts like a cookie cutter and generally cuts a near perfect hole in the target instead of expanding and tearing a hole through the target. The Powerbelt is only .001 under bore size and an over bore conical is usually not over .510 so seeing a .010 to .011 difference in the hole would be difficult if they were both of the same nose geometry.

txhunter58

Sounds reasonable. So if I was shooting a flat nosepowerbelt (say the 444 gr50 caliber), the hole difference wouldn't be as noticable?

frontier gander

See the difference? GP has that lip. I shoot both.

dmurphy317

I haven't shot those yet but my guess is your correct. The fact that they don't have the wad cutter lip may make a liar out of me though.

MLKeith

The bullet nose design is the key. I have shot standard nose .45ACP bullets and then shot Keith design bullets with a sharp shoulder just below the truncated nose cone and the holes for the Keith design are noticably larger and the taper nose standard bullet holes are smaller and not as well defined (just pushed through not cut through). dmurphy is correct.NOTE: I will add that I have recovered only one bullet from an elk and it did not have any rifleing marks but the charge was a low level one that probably did not expand the bullet as it also keyholed when it hit the elk. Interestingly enough it passed through the heart sideways and lodged in the far ribcage. Bad load and bad bullet performance but it killed the elk. Still had the plastic nose cone piece in place and the bullet was only slightly flattened on one side. It was a 348 copper plated aerotip. This was the old Goex cleanshot or clearshot (never could remember)powder which was real crap.

dmurphy317

Wow, what was the range on that shot. It must have been fairly close to get that much penetration from a bullet going sideways.

MLKeith

It was at 80 yards and the cow elk was the biggest I have ever seen. We estimated her on the hoof at over 900 pounds. I got 375 pounds of deboned meat from that cow. She walked about thirty yards after the shot and fell over. Never broke into a run, at first I thought I missed as I had been having problems with the rifle getting good groups and CVA said the powder was so bad that it would not upset the bullet into the rifleing which was the reason for the keyholeing on some shots. That convince me that you do not need 150gr. of Tripple Seven to kill and elk. Heavy bullets rock!!! By the way it was with a T/C Scout and my first elk. Sorry I sold the Scout to buy my Omega. Now I wish I had kept the Scout as the Omega is becoming less and less popular with me. I am now doing White rifles as I can find them. Have a 91 in .504 and am working on getting a Thunderbolt in .504 also. Have any to sell??

GaZirra

I have not had the opportunity to recover the PowerBelts I shoot from a game animal, (hope to this fall!),but I have recovered them from 5#coffee cans packed with wet sand and they are fully expanded and intact. Rifling grooves are readily visible as well.

I am shooting the 50 cal. 240 copper jacket hollow point out of my 50 cal. Traditions BuckHunter Pro singleshot pistol.....14 inch barrel with compensator, 1-28 twist barrel, open sights. Am using 55-60 grains of T7. I have found this combo to be the most accurate for me out to 55 yards freehanded....that's about the limit for this set-up I think....maybe can eek out another five yards or so of range, but my eyes ain't what they used to be.

At 50 yards, the sandpacked cans stop the slug, but the can will fly 5-10 feet when centerpunched....kind of cool to see that can lid blow 10 feet into the air and watch the can tumble hard spewing sandend over end when hit! Closer ranges, say 20-30 yards produce a complete pass thru....clean hole going in and half the back of the can blown apart at exit....have not recovered pass thru slugs.

I have also used stacked and tapeddry catalogs for target medium and the PowerBelt will penetrate about 5 inches of this....at 50 yards....a nice round half inch hole going in and ends in the pages as a 1.5 to almost 2 inch diametermass of dry paper mulch....those slugs are recovered usually very deformed and often times fragmented.

Have also shot 4x6 treated timbers with these as well.....50 yards....will completely penetrate the first one and partially into the second stacked right behind the first....the entry hole is a nice round half inch circle and the exit is a mass of splinters....and those slugs are fragmented for sure.

So yes, for my set up, the bullet engages the rifling, fly more accurate then I can shoot, and load far easier than any bullet/sabot combo I have tried, and expand well without deformation or fragmentation in energy absorbing materiel (sand) given what I would imagine to be a lower velocity than a full length rifle barrel.

Am going to use this set-up on feral pigs during the summer....should be just fine!

So there's my 2 cents worth....hope it helps!

eldeguello

"Has anyone recovered a powerbelt from an animal, geletin, etc that was essentially intact?" Yes.

"My question for you is: are there rifling marks on the bullet?" Yes.

Without rifling marks, finding the bullet or a bullet hole in the target, is unlikely!

As Murphy said, it is the shape of the bullet nose that determines what the bullet hole will look like.

Take a look sometime at the hole made in a paper target by a GI hardball .45 ACP round. Then compare that with the hole made bya semiwadcutter of the same caliber! The .45 Ball makes a hole about the size of a .38 Special cartridge rim ore smaller. The hole looks more like it was torn out than as if it were punched thru by a bullet. OTOH, the semi-wadcutter hole looks like it was punched out by a full-caliber paper punch.