mnprohunter

if these new powerbelts load like the current ones...but dont fragment and perform well.....id switch to them. i love how pb's load....but performance is a huge problem with 100 grains....hopefully they got this corrected with the new bullet as they say

builder459

Mountain Stop! and read your above quote! now your taking a expensive lead bullet that does not perform well when pushed at higher velocities and making a insert for better performance? when there are jacketed lead bullets that perform excellent right out of the box, with controlled expansion and cost less to boot. even at lower velocities? and you wonder why people on this board take issue with you so often. are you just bored? pig headed to the point of you will prove no matter what that you can make something work? just what is your major malfunction>? be honest with people especially people new to this sport and tell them there are far better bullet options than PB's at less cost. my .02

MountainDevil54

in colorado we are limited to conicals only. The powerbelts shoot amazingly well in my rifles and for the cost that it took for me to build my mold, well worth the cost.

Now you are just attacking me with the rest of your post.

Ive made around 1,200 of the inserts for others that i sent out for free just so they could test them out and report back. They are very time consuming to make but it is a very interesting idea and very fun to see what a difference it makes.

Ive tested every from the 245 powerbelt up to the 405gr powerbelt and the smaller 245gr powerbelt when shot into cement like mixture sand " after the water is added" loses between 6 to 10 grains of weight. There are a LOT of bullets out there that dont stand up that well. Not a Hornady XTP, Not a nosler, certainly not an SST/Shockwave.

Amazingly, not even a 385gr hornady great plains could stand my testing.

245gr Powerbelt Aerotips VS My custom insert powerbelt @ 25 yards with 100gr pyrodex RS.


I even used the 348gr powerbelt with 100gr RS in my cva mountain stalker .50 with my insert and bagged a he/she buck " antlerless buck" The damage it left was simply amazing on the inside and the 2 foot wide blood trail that went 30 yards was like the movie scene on the Wizzard of oz , only more like " Follow the thick red blood road"

Insert or no insert, I and a great deal of others have been very pleased with the performance of the Powerbelt. Only recently has my sweet tooth gone to the Thor bullet.

So instead of talking down on me for looking at ways to help others out that enjoy the powerbelt, why not just relax and keep an open mind? I personally enjoy seeing others on the forum and other forums come up with different idea's at improving something or making something new for a current product they use.

sabotloader

MountainDevil54

I was fairly sure that you were going to come back with this reasoning... but I would counter with the fact that both Bull Shop Conicals and No Excuse Conicals are far more reliable in all circumstances than Power Belts and if you order the correct size they are just as easy to load. And that is just naming two of the more common conicals - there are probably a bunch more and cost about 1/3 of what a Power Belt does. Even then they do not need any tips to stay together or to perform well.

The Power Belt continues to be the EASY way out.

When you throw a Nosler Partition into this statement you are out there fishing again and you have no idea about what you are talking about. Nosler's perform exactly as they are designed. In actuallity there is no comparison of a Nosler Partition with a PB even with your tips. Just the hydrostatic pressures they create far exceeds that of a power belt.

You compare these pan cakes to a Nosler?



This is exactly what a Nosler should and oes look like after doing it job at a greater velocity and hitting with much more energy





And if you are concerned about the loss of weight because of the lead in the front compartment - do not be - it designed so that the lead will cause the petals to open uniformly - while the rest of the bullet continues to penetrate.

Even the less expensive Gold Dots/Deep Curls show better performance pictures than the Power Belt.




On the other end if you want to say that you have improved the Power Belt with your inserts - you might be right - they certainly need the improvement.

MountainDevil54

When used for hunting, the cost of a bullet doesnt come into mind.

I shot some noslers, 260gr i THINK, could have been the 250s and they stood up great but lost a lot more weight than the 6-10 grains that i lose with my inserted powerbelts. Thats mainly what i was getting at.

hometheaterman

I've never used the inserts in the Powerbelts, but I got tired of their performance. I've shot at 4 deer with them and the only one I got a pass through on was a very small doe. The first deer, it went in and was poking the skin out on the other side. The deer was wounded and found about 30 yards from where I shot it, but I couldn't find any blood trail at all. I just happened to see the deer laying there.

Next, I shot a spike and knocked it over. It flapped on the ground for a while, then got up and took off. I never found this one. No blood trail at all that I could find, not even where it fell down. We did end up finding a few small spots of blood on a tree where it had rubbed, but it took us hours to find that. I'm not sure what happened with this deer, but had he not fallen over flapping, and had I not found that blood, I would have thought I'd missed. This is what turned me off from these bullets. The next one I shot was a small doe. This one had a pass through and ran about 20 yards through the field. I saw it fall, and it didn't get back up. I also couldn't find any blood at all until I got to the deer. The last one I shot, I shot at around 20 yards. This one I hit right in the shoulder bone and the bullet made a massive entry wound. The entry wound looked about the size of a baseball. I think it hit that bone and expanded going in. This one left a very good blood trail and I found the deer about 150 yards away.

I was tired of no blood trail, and not finding that one deer really made me rethink my bullet choice. So this year I switched the Federal Fusions and was amazed at the differences. A few buddies switched too. Some to these, and some to the Shockwaves. Every deer I saw hit with the Fusion left a great blood trail, and the bullet performed perfectly. Now granted, I only saw 2 deer go down with the Fusions, but they did well. My buddy that switched to the Shockwave was also happy with them.

I still have a couple friends that use the Powerbelts, and won't switch. However, they all have the same problem I did. No blood trail. One buddy said when he bought his CVA the shop told him, that it was made for Powerbelts and only to use them. He said he then talked to another guy and he said he tried shockwaves and they wouldn't group well at all. He said one shot might be dead on then the next be off the paper. I think he told him a lie, but I can't prove it. He said he tried Powerbelts and they all grouped under 2". So after him hearing those two stories of how great the Powerbelts are in that gun he has only used them and won't give anything else a try as he is convinced his gun is designed for them. He has lost several deer though, due to not having a good blood trail. He has also shot several others and found them, and he says they just do not leave a blood trail and that they don't pass through. Why he'd keep using them when they perform like that is beyond me, but he does keep using them. The other friends have similar experiences, but that's all they use so they seem to think it's normal and not listen to anyone else.

That being said, I love how the Powerbelts load, and I like not having to deal with a sabot. They also are very accurate. So I like the Powerbelts just fine, but I prefer other bullets for deer hunting as the Powerbelts just weren't performing for me. That said, they might perform better with less of a powder charge as we are all shooting 100 grains of Pyrodex. I probably should have stepped down in a powder charge, but I just switched bullets.

As for them being the number 1 bullet, I can believe it as most people just buy what they can get at Walmart, or what the local shop is pushing. Plus not dealing with sabots is a plus.

As far as powder vs pellets, I'm a pellet fan. I realize they are double the price, and you can get a lot more precise loads with measuring your powder out, but at the same time to me out in the field it's a huge hassle to be dealing with measuring powder, or carrying around loose powder. I just don't like it, where as two pellets are easy to carry and simple as well as fast. If I was doing mostly target shooting, I'd shoot loose powder almost exclusively, but for hunting, I honestly believe pellets are the way to go if you can afford the extra cost of them. The convenience is worth it imo.

sabotloader

I can not argue that point either - I am willing to pay the additional price for a premium bullets that offer superior Terminal Ballistics and a PB is not one of them.

Look at the construction of the bullet Jon there is now way the bullet can loose a lot of weight - the only weight that is lost is the nose lead and only on some occasions. The lead contained in the rear cavity is encased - it can not go anyplace but drive the copper shell of the bullet forward. If you shot a 1" steel plate at close range you could rupture the bullet and it would certainly loose weight but shot into an animal whether through skin and tissue or solid bone it can only loose a given amount of weight + plus it can not pan cake and increase surface area so much that it creates a drag, slows and reduces penetration. Remember it is not really weight loss the is as important as depth of penetration.

If you compare the frontal surface area of you flattened PB to the surface area of the Nosler + consider the fact the velocity I am shooting the Nosler at - the PB will loose the pentration race - simple math can prove that.

On this point you are flat out wrong

MountainDevil54

im not saying the nosler isnt a good bullet, its a great bullet i think. It does indeed lose the lead in the nose but its basically impossible to lose any more due to the rest being full in cased with copper. One thing i will disagree with is the part about the insert powerbelt losing penetration. The nosler has that dish up front which kind of makes for a parachute effect once it hits flesh. Even the barnes bullets i see this on which can easily decided weather its a pass through or not.

sabotloader

MountainDevil54


That dish/cup is not there until the bullet opens somewhere inside the animal... That dish/cup in the Nosler and the one in the Barnes are there for a purpose it is exactly what starts the internal hydrostatic pressure that starts the destruction of the organs in the body cavity. The Nosler will often destroy every organ in the chest - turns them to jello with out even touching the organ.

Surface area, velocity, retained energy and body parts and tissue detirmine whether a bullet passes through or not. And again with a PB you can not shoot it fast enough to create a lot of velocity to create energy. You can increase the weight of the bullet and increase energy but then again you are losing velocity - which is not all bad.

TNHagies

It amazes me that you can post a picture like this and say a PB is a great bullet... How can you not see that bullet has over-expanded? The fact you're trying to say that a Nosler doesn't perform as well as a PB displays you are close minded to actual facts.

You admit that a PB needs one of your 'inserts' to perform correctly yet you still say they are superior to other bullets which need no altererations?

Back to the original post, hopefully they have figured out that the PB is a flawed design and they create the new one out of harder lead and get rid of the large hollow point (which appears they went in the opposite direction with). Otherwise, simple physics and chemisty tells you it will not be sucessful.