All the snow finally melted up here so I was out shooting like always and went and looked at the hill behind my target board and there was just bullets laying every where.



The 5 on the left are hornady sst's pushed by 100 & 120grs. of pyrodex.
The 5 in the middle are barnes expanders pushed by 100 grs.
The 1 on the right is a 220 gr. dead center pushed by same powder load.

Die Hard

those Barnes really expand nice don't they... I suppose once the snow melts around here, there will be lead all over the place..

If prettiness = performance on game, then Barnes wins hands down. I'm not sure it always works out like that in real life, though....

Kind of surprised by the SST's - it looks like they basically shed their tips and didn't expand after that.

Hey DieHard, I played around with the exposure on your picture to get a better look at the SSTs. Looks like the base still contains the lead core, but there sure isn't much else left. Were these shot into dry soil/wet soil???

Semisane- they where shot through a haybale and hit the frozen dirt behind it. I went and looked and they where just laying there on top of the ground. I shot one into water like a year ago and it mushroomed perfectly but was still only like .5 at its widest point(.40). I think ill stick with barnes expanders.

Die Hard

I'm not sure what to take from that. A hay bale caused the expanders to exand to that degree or was it the frozen ground? Where abouts are you DDH? How hard frozen is the ground? Even here we didn't get much of a ground freeze this year due to an early snow that never left.

Try ramming them through a 5 gal pail of packed damp earth to see how they expand and compare them then. A hay bale to form an opinion on expansion???

Just curious you know??

diehardhunter

IfI were depending on one of those bullets - Barnes wins... I get the same reults with Nosler Partitions. I much prefer this type of expansion to what i call "blob" expansion. I bullet "totally" expands to a "blob" will not penetrate nearly as far a bullet with controlled expansion... especially if a direct hit on a major bone is achieved, which then goes back to the thought or theory - Use all the energy in the the animal or have sufficient energy and controlled expsansion to achieve a pass through - I admit I prefer the latter.

Those folded back copper wings rotating through tissues really cause massive hemoraging and shock to the animals system.

HuntAway

I really doubt that you will see much of a difference. The Barnes all copper and the Nosler Partitions will expeand to a given point and quit expanding... but that has nothing to do with the with the depth of penetration (well really it does) but those bullets are designed to expand and with the weight that they have behind the expansion barrier - they will continue to drive as long as the have energy. The design of the two bullets - gives a known expansion almost everytime - then depending on the the energy they have at contact the penetration can be calculated in tissue. Nosler have been tested over and over and will achieve proper and uniformexpansionthrougha greater range of velocities than any other bullet. Right with that are the Barnes "all copper bullets"

With the price of lead climbing so bad I thought the switch to Barnes might be the logical short term move - but copper prices are climbing just as steadily.

+1 on the Expanders, beautiful full mushrooms. Chap

Those expanders look good. Great bullets, just a little pricey though.