We have stopped at the Hornady booth to check on novelties.
The Americans, being very pragmatic, know that the best way to market hunting ammunition is to display their terminal ballistic capabilities. This is of course best shown in ballistic gelatin or ballistic soap. Thus, the Hornady stand was full of transparent boxes with blocks of ballistic soap.
We had a look at a few of them.
The first two are in 6.5 Creedmoor in the Performance respectively Precision Hunter lines. We were curious what does the long range caliber can deliver in terms of terminal ballistics.
The pictures speak for themselves.
The first is 7,8 g/120 gr GMX
The bullet delivers 0.75 MOA (21mm) grouping at 100m. It has a V 0 of 929m/s out of a Savage 11 Lightweight Hunter which corresponds to 3320 Joule. It also opens up very smooth to approx. 11mm and retains almost 90% of its weight.
In doing so it creates a wound of 50 cm depth with a total volume of approx. 0.85 liter. The maximum diameter is of 8 cm at the depth of 7.5 cm. In other words it delivers its kinetic energy quite efficient for the type of game it is conceived for.
The second one is 9.3 g/143 gr ELD-X Precision
The heavier bullet is marginally less precise out of the same rifle (24mm group at 100 meters – but this may simply be less good performance of the shooter).
The difference is clear though in terms of terminal ballistics: the wound is 1.1 liter (more than third larger) with a diameter of 10 cm. It flies with 795 m/s at the muzzle and deliver approx. 10% less kinetic energy.
This is quite interesting: although it weighs 15% more, it delivers 10% less energy, probably because it flies significantly slower. The energy delivery occurs on a much shorter depth (the length of the wound channel is much shorter: 36 cm). It also fragments much more (it loses its “petals”) and retains only 43% of its initial weight. Thus, if you need a 6.5 Creedmoor that delivers a bigger punch fast and you don’t care about the damage to the tissue of the animal, you take the heavier bullet.
The last one is a classic hunting cartridge in a classic hunting caliber: 150 grains SPF GMX in 30.06 Springfield in the Performance line of Hornady factory ammunition.
Although it is relatively light (at least for the 7.62 mm caliber class) and it flies with 915m/s at the muzzle, it has quite a knock-down effect. It’s initial slightly over 4000 Joule make at 100 meters a wound of 1.75 liters and a depth of 43 cm.
Most notably, it retains 99% of its initial weight although it almost doubles its diameter at 15 mm.
It can obviously take any sort of game on the European continent.
Good job, Hornady!
Sebastian