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Handloads vs. Factory Ammunition
by Wayne van Zwoll
Long-range shooting with modern cartridges that are capable of driving bullets well beyond 3,000 fps makes it difficult to design bullets that will perform well under various impact velocities, from point blank to extended ranges.
In the half-light under the Douglas firs there'd been little to see that morning, many years ago. The two men had spent the better part of their lives in the woods. They knew that sometimes you just had to stick it out &endash; to be there. Smart hunting boosted your odds but could not guarantee success.
The buck, a heavy-bellied, thick-necked, rutting muley with wide, beaded antlers the color of coffee, broke cover next to the hunter with the .32-20 Winchester. It was like a grouse flush, and he pointed as if swinging a shotgun. The deer streaked from sight, the thumps of hooves and snaps of brittle twigs fading quickly.
Another shot came within seconds. Shortly, the two men were together, crouched to caress the smooth antlers as the eyes glazed. "Sure you were on him?" asked the man with the Krag.
"Thought so." Then, saying no more, his partner began probing with his knife at a tiny dimple of broken hair on the buck's neck. A minute later he held out the misshapen remnant of his 100-grain bullet. "Didn't even make it to the spine."
My friend never again used a .32-20 Winchester to hunt deer.
Last year I met a hunter who was looking for a deer he'd lost the previous day. There was no sign and little hope of finding any after the night's rain. We eventually joined the hunter's partner on a hill. He'd been looking across a canyon and had spotted a big buck moving into a copse of aspens. "Could be the same one."
That would have been like finding the same car in a parking lot that you saw run a red light on the other side of town the day before. In a fit of generosity, I agreed to hike around the headwall, along the offside of the ridge, then into the little patch of cover from above while the hunters took up shooting positions.
It worked, and to my astonishment the buck that bounded out of the thicket did indeed appear hurt. He dropped to one shot. The man was ecstatic. I didn't think this long trail an indictment of the hunter's .300 Weatherby Magnum.
In the decades between these two dramas, big game hunters have demanded more and more power from their cartridges. Companies that manufacture ammunition have responded with bigger cases and an assortment of "controlled expansion" bullets that don't fly apart like grenades when driven at high speed into animals close to the muzzle. The average shot is longer, partly because modern rounds have longer reach and partly because huge advances in optics allow (even encourage) us to shoot farther than we need to. Sometimes because we shoot farther we cripple what a few years ago we would have stalked. The .32-20 Winchester may be anemic, but the .300 Weatherby's two tons of muzzle energy won't anchor a deer when the aim is poor.
Handloaders who chase higher levels of performance within the limits imposed by a case get a technical kick out of beating SAAMI standards, but the result is the same as that guaranteed by greater powder volume. Improved and wildcat cartridges are steps between.
The Winchester Fail Safe bullet was first
introduced in factory loads, but is currently available to
handloaders as well.
Extra power, whether in cartridges, race cars or the offensive line of your favorite football squad, seems a good thing. That's why Hornady's introduction of Light Magnum ammunition a couple of years ago came as a blessing to shooters who don't handload. Here, in factory boxes, were cartridges said to outgun the most ambitious handloads. No muss, no fuss, no surprises from pressure gremlins. Hornady has since expanded that line to include 11 rimless rounds, and supercharged the .300 and .338 Winchester magnums under a Heavy Magnum label. They'll be joined soon by a muscular .375 H&H load. All bullets save for the .308 Winchester Match are Hornady InterLocks.
Hornady isn't saying how it gets up to 240 fps more out of a hunting bullet from its Light Magnum rounds (the average velocity increase is closer to 160). In fact, during my recent tour of the firm's Grand Island, Nebraska, factory, I was politely steered past the Light Magnum loading room. The ammunition I've chronographed has lived up to its billing, with no signs of undue pressure, plus accuracy that matches what I've come to expect from my test rifles. The velocity increase apparently comes from new powders and loading techniques, not from any changes in bullets, cases or primers. The propellants are not available to handloaders.
Federal's new High Energy ammunition is similar. The people in Anoka were gracious enough to let me watch High Energy assembly but did not permit photos. The powder is not radically different in appearance from some you might have on your loading bench, but its burning characteristics yield a longer, flatter pressure curve when loaded by Federal's methods. So far, Federal offers two loads each in .308 Winchester, .30-06, and .300 and .338 Winchester magnums. You can choose Nosler Partition or Trophy Bonded bullets. High Energy versions of the .270 and 7mm Remington magnums won't be long in coming.
The Federal staff told me that High Energy ammunition and Hornady's Light and Heavy Magnum loads derived from military contract work. It is unlikely, they said, that the propellants will be marketed as component powders any time soon or that assembly procedures will appear in handloading manuals.
Hornady makes a point of showing in its catalog the trajectory differences between its extra-peppy ammunition and standard rounds. The diagram, for purposes of illustration, is not to scale. Numbers indicate .5 inch disparity at 100 yards, a 2-inch gap at 300 given a 200-yard zero. Even if your rifle can shoot well enough to make these differences meaningful at the bench, you'll have a tough time convincing me or anyone else who has watched crosswires wobble that you can hold steady enough to demonstrate subminute variation from typical hunting positions.
The real advantage of higher speed, in my view, is the extra punch you get downrange. That difference is substantial. Table I lists Light Magnum and Heavy Magnum loads compared to their standard-speed counterparts.
Federal's High Energy rounds demonstrate a similar performance edge. Incidentally, this new ammunition is part of the Premium line but does not define it. Federal loads most of its Premium and Safari Premium cartridges to standard velocities. Sophisticated bullets and nickel-plated cases are the visible marks of Premium cartridges &endash; save for the High Energy set that has unplated brass. Federal engineers tell me the nickel does help resist corrosion but also boosts rejection rates on the line due to occasional build-up of the nickel at the case mouth. (See Table II.)
My loading notes show that I've stoked 180-grain bullets to 3,125 fps in my .308 Norma Magnum, which has essentially the same performance potential as the .300 Winchester Magnum. That load uses 74 grains of H-4831 and is maximum in my 26-inch-barreled rifle. In other words, these industrial-strength factory rounds match the velocity of my most enthusiastic .30-magnum handloads.
Speer Grand Slam bullets, long available to
handloaders, are now loaded in Speer NITREX ammunition.
I've never pushed the .30-06 much beyond 2,700 fps with 180-grain bullets in home-brewed loads, and my chronograph says most factory ammunition has been throttled closer to 2,600 from hunting barrels. Even O'Connor and Page and Whelen stayed at 2,750 and below. So the Light Magnum and High Energy .30-06 loads promise a great boost in terminal thump. The same goes for the .308 Winchester. I've cleared 2,700 fps with 180-grain handloads in the .308 WCF, but with flattened primers and shiny case heads to show for it. High Energy .308 ammunition clocks 2,740 with a 180-grain pill.
The .338 Winchester Magnum hurts me enough from the bench that I refuse to turn up the steam. Besides, I've never seen an elk hit with a .338-inch bullet that didn't wilt. So my .338 Winchester Magnum handloads will not challenge the high-octane factory ammunition from Nebraska and Minnesota.
All these hot-rod cartridges produce more recoil than ordinary loads, but to most shooters the added punch is a worthwhile reward. Essentially, it converts one cartridge to another of greater power: .308 to .30-06 and .30-06 to .300 H&H, for example. Winchester's .300 behaves almost like the .300 Weatherby. The .338 Winchester Magnum loads don't quite keep company with Weatherby's .340, but at that level of raw power, the difference is mainly academic.
Indeed, some shooters have suggested that the whole notion of boosting muzzle velocity beyond normal levels has little merit. A great many animals have been killed with what we now consider to be marginal cartridges. A friend has killed several bull elk with his .250 Savage, and one of the biggest mule deer ever shot in Colorado fell to a .25-35 Winchester. You might consider W.D.M. Bell's use of the 7x57 and .303 British on elephants an anomaly; but Inuits in the Arctic still collect their winter caribou with .22 rimfire rifles. Among turn-of-the-century hunters favoring the .303 Savage was a Canadian woodsman who used his Model 99 and one box of cartridges to shoot 18 big game animals &endash; including two grizzlies.
Crippling a mule deer with a .300 Weatherby Magnum sounds more ludicrous the more you think about it.
Now, some hunters would immediately suspect the bullet. When an animal makes its escape, bullet performance gets hauled under the bright lights for questioning. Partly that's because bullet failures were common at one time; partly it's because bullets take a beating during penetration and often come out looking as if they failed even when they didn't. Partly, too, it is because bullet failure is a believable mishap. It is like being late to punch in because of heavy traffic or a flat tire. True or not, these tales have some measure of credibility by virtue of their probability.
As velocities rise, stress on the bullet at impact rises too. When smokeless propellants supplanted black powder in the 1890s and cartridges like the .30-30 Winchester put the .45-70 and its kin in the bread lines, high velocity was anything over 1,900 fps. Good grief, the .38-55 and .45-70 managed only about 1,330 fps, and the .44-40 Winchester couldn't even crack 1,200! No wonder jacketed bullets at 2,200 fps seemed to move like lightning!
Until the swing to bolt-action rifles right after the Spanish-American War, many cartridges were designed for lever guns. Except for Winchester's 95 and the Savage 99, these were tube fed. Bullet noses had to be blunt to keep from acting like strikers against the primers contacting them in the magazine. In those days this hardly seemed a sacrifice. Bullets had always been round up front because they seated easily in muzzleloaders and later because heavy slugs didn't have to be long if they had blunt noses. Imperfections in bullet form or alignment were less critical with blunt bullets, and rifling pitch didn't have to be as steep for a given bullet weight. Besides, iron sights limited shots to short yardage, where pointed bullets had no advantage.
Boosting muzzle velocities from 1,300 to 2,000 fps made jackets necessary, but blunt bullet noses made jackets relatively easy to design. Short shooting guaranteed a narrow range of modest impact speeds &endash; 2,050 fps at 50 yards and 1,900 at 100 yards for the .30-30 Winchester. High sectional density, coupled with plenty of exposed lead at the nose and a jacket tapered to yield quickly but keep the bullet core inside while it set the parking brake between a buck's ribs &endash; all helped the long, blunt bullets of Model T days expand reliably and penetrate. The classic mushroom shape didn't originate with the belted magnum cartridge; rather, designers have worked hard to put .30-30-class upset into bullets designed to travel over 3,000 fps.
Weatherby's .270, 7mm and .300 magnums were
among the first of the high-speed burners.
The problem is partly that high-speed impact accelerates the peeling of jacket from nose. Jackets that are not ductile enough tend to splinter and fragment. Without a jacket, the exposed core in front gets torn up. Sometimes the core slips right out of the jacket, which, having no weight to speak of, stops. The loose core deforms, veers off course and may disintegrate. In any event, the wound made by a bullet that loses its integrity during expansion is unpredictable in terms of depth, breadth and direction.
High velocity got a bad rap in the World War I era, when the .30-06 added 500 fps to .30-30 speeds and enabled hunters to kill large game far away. A Springfield shooting spitzer bullets had great range. When Winchester's .270 and the .300 H&H Magnum came along in 1925, they boosted velocity another notch. Hunters whined about meat lost to bullet damage. Some bullets opened so violently they didn't reach the vitals. Efforts to control upset included downloading cartridges and making noses with less give &endash; either could be overdone. Jack O'Connor wrote of shooting a buck three times with bullets that didn't open at all.
Chas. Newton developed some sophisticated bullets built to stand the impact velocities of his powerful cartridges, but hunters weren't ready for those rounds when Newton had to sell them. Time brought change &endash; and Roy Weatherby to California, where during World War II he used the .300 Holland case as the basis for his .257, .270, 7mm and .300 Weatherby magnums. Norma subsequently loaded these with proven European bullets and Nosler Partitions. By the early 1960s, Winchester had announced three short bottleneck magnums and decided its Power Point and Silvertip bullets were stout enough for them. Mostly they were. Remington had a commercial 7mm Magnum loaded with Core-Lokts.
These bullets worked well on most big game. An elk shoulder might blast one to pieces, and you didn't recover more than shards from spine hits, but most hunters were after deer-size game. They still are. Ordinary softnose bullets, including now Federal's Hi-Shok, are not only an acceptable choice, but often to be preferred. The recent rush to more complex bullets has been to some degree a lemming-like response to clever industry seduction. Bullets don't have to weigh as much at the end of their run as at the beginning unless you intend to shoot them again.
Granted, weight loss mustn't occur immediately if the bullet is to penetrate. According to Federal's ballisticians, a bullet that fails does so during its first inch of travel following entry. Rate of deceleration is highest at this point. The faster the bullet is moving at impact, the more violent the drag.
The mid-bullet bridge in Nosler's Partition and the Swift A-Frame, like that in the European H-Mantle bullet, protects the heel even if the nose shatters or shears. About 60 percent of bullet weight is behind this bridge, so there's lots of momentum in this section, which itself behaves like a jacketed solid. Winchester's Fail Safe also has an enclosed rear core, but its nose is jacket material only with a cavity to initiate expansion.
Barnes uses a similar nose design but there is no core in the X-Bullet. Hunters say it penetrates well. The Trophy Bonded bullet designed by Jack Carter features a one-piece lead core fused to a tapered jacket with an extra-thick heel. Jensen, Plainsbond, Elkhorn, Hawk, Northern Precision and Blue Mountain bullets hail from small shops building special-order softpoints that drive deep.
The popularity of such bullets among handloaders prompted the major ammunition companies to load them, and Federal's High Energy cartridges feature them exclusively. It makes sense to pair high bullet speed with stout bullet construction, but sometimes there's less need for penetration than for quick release of bullet energy. Deer hunters gain little from bullets that leave the ribcage almost as fast as they entered and chew a swath through assorted shrubbery before burrowing into a tree where nobody can find them to confirm that they did indeed retain 94.7 percent of their mass.
Remington's Safari ammunition features Swift
A-Frame bullets.
Most deer are shot broadside or from slight quartering angles that give bullets only modest resistance. Sudden kills result from explosive bullet action in the lungs. A bullet that zips through without even a grunt wastes a lot of its killing power. It seems futile to drill the offside hide so blood leaks. A lung-shot buck won't travel more than a few yards.
Heavier game requires stronger bullets when shots are short. Again, side presentations are the rule, and only occasionally is penetration through heavy bones or a full paunch required. The bullets that give such penetration but also open fully and quickly are certainly worth their price, because you don't know what kind of shot you'll get. Then too, I've found that most times a shot into the forward ribs is possible.
One bullet catalog emphasizes that "deep penetration creates a larger wound channel than shallower penetration does." This is not always the case. High channel volume is a function not only of the wound's length but of its diameter. An arrow shot through an elk makes a relatively small wound, while a bullet that stops halfway can destroy a huge amount of tissue. Tests at Federal with Nosler Partition and Trophy Bonded bullets typically show that Partitions drive deeper but that Trophy Bondeds open larger wounds. For sure killing of big game under a variety of circumstances, you need both reliable penetration and dramatic upset.
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Table I | |||||
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cartridge |
bullet |
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(grains) |
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.257 Roberts |
117 Light Magnum |
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7mm-08 Remington |
139 |
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.270 Winchester |
140 |
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.308 Winchester |
150 |
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.30-06 |
180 |
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.300 Winchester Magnum |
180 Heavy Magnum |
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.338 Winchester Magnum |
225 |
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Table II | |||||
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cartridge |
bullet |
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(grains) |
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.308 Winchester |
165 High Energy |
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.30-06 |
180 |
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.300 Winchester Magnum |
200 |
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.338 Winchester Magnum |
250 |
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For elk, I prefer an ordinary softnose if the range is long, because the distance will drain velocity, and I'll be waiting for a side shot anyway. I've hit elk with a variety of bullets, and sometimes &endash; in thick cover at short yardage from oblique angles &endash; needed the deep penetration of Nosler Partitions, but I've taken elk with regular bullets from Hornady, Speer, Sierra, Winchester and Remington too. I've never lost one from bullet failure. Nor in my seasons of guiding elk hunters has a client ever gone home empty-handed because of a misbehaving bullet.
Correcting for high impact velocities at the target can create more problems in the rifle. Ductile bullet jackets made to weather high-speed hits may increase copper fouling. Long bearing surfaces can boost pressures at a faster rate than velocities &endash; something to consider if you're using a solid alloy bullet with low sectional density. Extra bullet length also reduces powder capacity, paring speed or elevating pressure. Bullets with soft lead cores, on the other hand, "slug-up" as they're thrust ahead sharply, increasing friction and pressure. Throats wear quickly with hot loads; this wear can result in pressure spikes when a bullet must suddenly slow down to engage the rifling.
A few seasons ago I was looking for elk with a hunter and his guide. We spotted one at dusk, and though I'd have preferred to stalk the animal, both other men decided the shot could be made at long range. After hurriedly improvising a rest, the hunter opened up. At no time during the ensuing barrage did the rifle appear to be still enough for aiming. The elk fell down, struggled to its feet and started to flail around in the brush. Finally I told the shooter to stop firing. I sprinted the 350 yards to the animal and found it with both front legs clipped low by one bullet. It jumped when it saw me, and I fired as it lunged toward heavier cover. It dropped at the shot.
My rifle was a .250 Savage with iron sights. The bullet, an ordinary 100-grain Speer softnose handloaded to 2,800 fps, destroyed both lungs, penetrating the chest completely. Had the hunter with his potent rifle cared to stalk this elk, then taken care to shoot it in the right place, he might have had equally dramatic results.
Special hunting bullets and high velocities have entertained handloaders for years. Now both are available to shooters buying ammunition over the counter, but add-ing killing power to factory rounds will hardly make handload- ing obsolete. Handloaders still have more components to choose from and myriad combinations to try. They're able to tailor loads to rifles for better accuracy, throttle loads for practice and earn the satisfaction of making, not just firing, cartridges. Handloaders get big price discounts on ammunition too.
Perhaps most importantly, handloaders have more cause to shoot than do hunters who pick up ammunition as they might frozen pizza. Like a chef tasting his sauce, handloaders must test frequently to make certain their product is just right. Frequent shooting makes riflemen better shots &endash; and good marksmanship kills game, whatever the bullet, no matter the velocity.
Copyright 1997 Mark Harris Publishing Associates, Inc.
