Tough 6.5mm projectiles for rams

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Bob Mc Alice
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Re: Tough 6.5mm projectiles for rams

Post by Bob Mc Alice »

RBriscoe wrote:
"Some ranges and animals are just tough".

This is absolutely true. Three nationals ago in Raton me and Mr.Biggie were warming up before the days match. He spotted while I knocked over 5 in a row rams....with my light 130 gr. CPT load. Couple of years later at St.Louis, during a for score relay, I rang 4 out of five with the same exact load. I was in no way responsible for this terrible blunder. My spotter failed to spot I had the wrong ammo on the line. St.Louis rams are a tough breed. I laid waste to the second set with the correct 168's.
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Jim Beckley
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Re: Tough 6.5mm projectiles for rams

Post by Jim Beckley »

Note to McAlice and 259, When you two finish up in the bathroom and holler Hey come wipe my butt, don't look for me. I am a spotter, I can tell ya where your bullet impacted and advise ya on wind conditions! Don't carry ass wipe nor a crying towel.
U.S. Army-Donating blood since 1775.
Varn
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Re: Tough 6.5mm projectiles for rams

Post by Varn »

Jim Beckley wrote:No one has done a perfect 40 in HP as of yet, I think Sanchez has put up acouple of 39s with a standard rifle and I believe Dennis Dadian also shot a 39 at a Cali state match, Hunter Rifle is all Sanchez with a 38 I believe, someone correct me if im wrong.
Jim,
Derek Greenaway shot a 38 in HPHR at the PA State Champs in 2007. Sanchez shot his 38 HPHR in 2008. Aw
esome scores by two gifted shooters
lone ringer
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Re: Tough 6.5mm projectiles for rams

Post by lone ringer »

Varn wrote:
Jim Beckley wrote:No one has done a perfect 40 in HP as of yet, I think Sanchez has put up acouple of 39s with a standard rifle and I believe Dennis Dadian also shot a 39 at a Cali state match, Hunter Rifle is all Sanchez with a 38 I believe, someone correct me if im wrong.
Jim,
Derek Greenaway shot a 38 in HPHR at the PA State Champs in 2007. Sanchez shot his 38 HPHR in 2008. Aw
esome scores by two gifted shooters
The day Agustin shot his 38 with the Hunter rifle he shot a 39 in the morning with the same rifle in the Standard rifle match, the previous day he shot a 37 in the Hunter rifle match with it as well.
killabeez
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Re: Tough 6.5mm projectiles for rams

Post by killabeez »

DanDeMan wrote:
Snake wrote:Most all projectiles use a drawn (extruded) jacket and a lead core bonded or not. If any projectile catastrophically fails on impact as opposed to a gradual collapse consistent with its terminal velocity....de ram she no fall...maybe even no wiggle. So a hard brittle jacket isn't helpful....some boys a long time ago heated their bullets in the oven at 300 degrees for about an hour or two and raved about 'never losing a ram' thereafter.....if it was true its probably due to annealing of the jacket material and reducing its brittleness.....just a thought
Gents,

Since I've done some work focused on heat-treating jacketed bullets for HP silhouette, I thought I'd re-share my findings. First, the lead cores must have at least 1.5% antimony for heat-treating to work. Sierra MK's used to have 3% antimony. I experimented with:

107 gr, 6mm SMK's
139 gr, 6.5mm Scenars
Sierra, 6.5mm, 155 gr long-range bullets

Back then the Scenars did not have enough antimony in the cores to heat-treat. Oh, I also tried to heat-treat Bergers, no go.

The first step in the experimentation was to determine the minimum amount of time and temp required to heat-treat the bullets. A min temp was deemed the best way to minimize bullet distortion during the heating phase. A jig was made to hold 100 bullets vertically during the entire process; from heating to quenching. After much time and effort it was determined that a 1 hour heat-soak at 400 F was optimum. The jig with the bullets was removed from the oven after 1 hour and immediately quenched in a sink full of cold tap water. It takes about 1 week for the bullet-cores to completely age-harden, so don't shot them right away.

The results were quite interesting. Proper heat-treating will produce bullets that have a considerably higher ram-knockdown ability. The non-heat-treated 6mm, 107 SMK's rang 7 out of 10 rams when the rams were hit just behind the top of the front leg. The heat-treated bullets only rang 3/10 rams. And, the heat-treated bullets made a noticeably louder clang upon bullet impact.

The range used for the testing just had all of its stands and animals replaced by two shooters that did an excellent job. All of the ram stands were level and the stands and ram feet were brushed to remove any dirt or sand. The front of the ram stands have stops so the ram's feet are always on the stands exactly the same. So, as you can see, it was a fair test. All testing was done off the bench and it was completely calm, not a breath of wind, gota control the variables.

The old 6.5mm, 155 gr Long-range bullets knocked the rams silly even before heat-treating. The heat-treated bullets knocked the rams down with even more authority and a louder clang.

Gliding metal (95% Cu & 5% Zn) requires a considerably higher temp to anneal than what is required to heat-treat, jacketed bullets.

There is a downside to heat-treating jacketed bullets. Accuracy degraded a bit after the bullets were heat-treated.

Thank you, that is just the info I am after, now to find some info on antimony levels in current projectile ranges.

Cheers
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