I burned through quite a bit of powder and bullets yesterday at my buddies hunting lease. I just wanted to throw several T-EZ's down range to make sure my Endeavor was still good to go since the Loshbough hog hunt is coming up. I'm glad I did because it was a little off. From 50 yards everything looked good but when we went back to 100, things were a little off. It didn't help that it was windy as hell and we were in the middle of a cow pasture. I made a few scope adjustments and got my group back to black. I didn't get any pics from 100 but you can see from the black pasties where some of the before adjustment shots were.

This picture is a 5 shot group at 50 yards. The target is a 6" B/C Shoot-N-See...



All shots yesterday were with 250g Barnes T-EZ's with the supplied sabots replaced by MMP HPH12's and 120 volumetric grains of BH209. I'm pretty happy with the results.

My dad and I decided to conduct a test on expansion of the T-EZ's. I have seen plenty of pictures before but I wanted to get some hands-on experience. So we packed a 5 gallon bucket with as many magazines as we could and then soaked them with water. The magazines expanded and everything was ready. I know the only accurate test is when you shoot animals but this was still pretty fun!

I initially started with my pet load of 120g BH209 and 250g T-EZ from 50 yards. There were a lot of magazines in there but it blew right though. So I backed it off to 60g and let it go. It went all the way through to the last couple magazines and bulged and cracked the bucket. We recovered the bullet and set it aside. The next test shot was from 100 yards and I used 70g. Again, it almost blew through but we were able to recover the slug.
Here's some pics of the test bucket...







And here's some pics of the bullets we recovered. The one on the left was the 100 yard shot and the one on the right was the 50 yard shot...







When we were back at 50 yards and before we called it a day, I decided to shoot one of the 290g T-EZ's with 50g BH209 just to see what happened. Here's the result...



I was pretty impressed at how perfectly these bullets expanded and so was my father. I could tell the 290g T-EZ with the 50g charge didn't fully expand. And it had only gone half way through the magazines.

My dad went to digging in the impact area and was able to recover 2 of the 250g bullets. Here's what they looked like...





And here's some pics of all the bullets together...









I'm pretty confident and excited about the hog hunt this coming weekend. I'll be using the 250g bullet and 120g of BH209. I keep hearing that taking a stock Encore apart and putting it back together can affect the point of impact so I'm not taking any chances. I just cleaned the bore and breech plug. It was shooting dead center from 100 yards last time I fired it and the only thing I did since then was take it apart to clean it. So I can see now that my Endeavor needs a little tweaking. After the hunt I'm going to install one of the Mike Bellm tune-up kits just for good measure.

well those bullets sure expand nice.. I am sure a hog is not going to be too happy about that but you will be. Good luck with your hog hunt.

Them bullets really look good.Good luck on your hog hunt.And good group.

Nice report! Good luck on your hunt. No doubt the bullets will do their part if you do yours.

Them Barnes are one awesome bullet...

That's why I'm so excited about Barnes bullets. Any one of those bullets would have made any animal in North America have a VERY bad (and short) day. Some people are just convinced that the Barnes bullets just won't expand very fast or very much, which is the intuitive response, but they actually do the opposite. As long as they are accurate out of ones particular rifle, they are just about the perfect hunting bullet IMO.

Have fun hog hunting. That's something I really want to do sometime. I've actually been invited on a Russian boar hunt in the UP of Michigan this year by some of my coworkers, but it's a bow hunt and I gave up bow hunting and sold my bow a couple years ago (long story) [:@]. If I could take my ML or a CF rifle, I'd be there in a heartbeat.

Mike

Nasty mushrooms. Hope you get to feed them to a hog or two!

Very nice report and pics, I like the way they expanded. Those other ones that fly apart is not for me. Those T-Ez kept full weight and I think thats what causes the most damage. I can't wait for the hog pics. I will be out turkey hunting again this weekend and plan on shooting my Encore on the way out of the farm. Might go to the shop and see if they have any T-Ez's and give them a try.

SW I need you to do something for us.. We want you to shoot a monster Russian Boar down there, big teeth, real heavy shoulders, a real nasty one. Then be sure to give us a detailed report on how well the bullet worked, and we also need a detailed story of the hunt and pictures.. REMEMBER YOUR CAMERA!! Also I would like to say from all of us here on the forum (I am sure this is safe) have a safe hunt and a VERY SUSCESSFUL HUNT. We want stories and pictures.. did I mention that?

Good post, and great info! Good luck on the hunt!