Does a thicker jacket make for more down rams? Yes..probably unless the jacket is brittle and explodes on contact. The exploding/disintegrating bullet is the reason for lost targets...the energy is dissipated before it can fully transfer to the steel...thus no or insufficient push. Target bullets have thin jackets ...so if they are also work hardened guilding metal..then they are also brittle.....so heavier and slower would likely improve matters. I personally saw 8 old maids ...one hit with a 168 7mm-08 and 3 hit with a 168 7BR and 4 hit with 142MKs in a 260. The Br shooter was under loaded ...way too light a charge. The 7=08 was a rockin' roller...with a vapor trail and all...the 260 was just sad. All were center--"dead spot" hits... left nice grey splotches. There's only one true answer...bigger, longer bullets and more powder ;)
Memo to JB...the law in Missouri that applies refers to animal husbandry

In my experience, a big splotch on the ram, sort of like a paintball hit, is a near certainty of bullet failure. If a bullet is simply not going fast enough to do the job, its bullet mark on the animal is still very normal looking. It just does not have enough push.

One might talk in terms of a probability of success (or "kill") with various bullet/load combinations. A bigger, heavier bullet will almost certainly have a higher Pk than a smaller/lighter one in a broad range of circumstances. At some ranges the rams almost fall over from the shock wave of the bullet going by. At others loads that work most everywhere else just bounce off the rams like so many ping pong balls.

There was one 6.5mm shooter at the Missouri Regional that did not lose a single ram with self described "marginal loads". I did not see his impacts, but I would be willing to guess that they were not all "center hits" or "heart shots". Those hits are the most likely to experience "failure" in my view because it is attempting to push the ram off the rail rather than merely topple it over. (The same is true of pigs.) Here is a thought. If you are experiencing a lot of ram failures and are shooting them in the center, try picking a different aiming point and see if your have a better result.There is a trade-off in recoil versus knock down power (Pk).

More often than not, we run to a computer to calculate the momentum of the bullet and use that as a means of comparing ram loads. That is all fine and well, but there are things that just do not correlate well with the momentum calculation. Sometimes the very same bullet will perform better when at a lower velocity (even though the higher velocity was not so fast as to destroy the bullet). There was discussion of one individual attempting some tests to measure the energy actually transferred to a ram by various load combinations, but it has not come to pass at this time. It would be very interesting to conduct such tests, but all we can do at the present time is tailor caliber and load combinations to particular ranges which experience suggests have a higher probability of success.

Has anybody tried to buy any 6.5mm x 107 gr Serria bullets?

Jerry G wrote:Has anybody tried to buy any 6.5mm x 107 gr Serria bullets?

I have a bunch of them, but I've had them for a while.

Greetings Ladies and Gents,

Just returned from the Whittington Center's NRA BPCR Target Rifle Championships, an annual pilgrimage. I see ram knock-down is once again the topic of the day. There is no doubt that heavy, tough, 7mm bullets will rule the ram-line. But, rams are only 1/4 of the targets. And, recoil is everybody's challenge, the more the not better. The 6.5mm, light-weight VLD's rule the C, P & T lines, when ram knock-down is factored in. Certainly 6mm, heavy VLD's are super for the C, P & T lines, but rams are a sticky wicket when using that caliber. Compromise shows that balance favors the 6.5mm bullets in the HP silhouette game. But, nothing like a properly designed 7mmBR rifle loaded with 177-grain Cauterucio bullets (or similar bullets,) launched at 2,350 fps, to do the best job on rams from a recoil and knockdown reliability standpoint.

I'VE GOT IT!!!!

I'm building a Drillings rifle. One barrel in 6.5 Creedmoor, one barrel in 7mm Creedmoor and one barrel in .22lr. I could shoot it in Standard class for both HP and Smallbore, and I could use the 7mm bullets on the Ram line and the 6.5 bullets on everything else!!

Now... how do I get a scoped Drillings rifle scoped to come in under 10lbs 2oz??

Trent wrote:I'VE GOT IT!!!!

I'm building a Drillings rifle. One barrel in 6.5 Creedmoor, one barrel in 7mm Creedmoor and one barrel in .22lr. I could shoot it in Standard class for both HP and Smallbore, and I could use the 7mm bullets on the Ram line and the 6.5 bullets on everything else!!

Now... how do I get a scoped Drillings rifle scoped to come in under 10lbs 2oz??

And I thought you were going to link to the video of the .700 Nitro Express.