Muzzle Loader bullet ????? Argh.

[nontypical176]

2 shots at one elk.  Hornady SST bullets, 777 loose 100 grains, knight 50 caliber.  First shot 60 yards was hi and broke the back, second shot was 20 yards in the neck, kill shot.  Not sure wich bullet hit where, I wasn't there during the skinning and my drunk buddies couldn't remember which bullet came from which spot.  Don't like the looks of the one bullet though.  What do you think might have happened to make the bullet not mushroom?

[Lowedog]

My guess and just a wild guess is that it was the first shot and maybe that load had been in the barrel long enough to get a little moisture causing it not to have the energy needed to fully expand.     If it broke the back though you would think it would have enough energy to expand. 

[WestPlains_Drifter]

I am not sure how much sense this makes, but i will give you my experience (minus the technical facts).

I shoot the SST's also, out of a CVA Elkhorn, 100 grains of pyro. Out of 5 deer now I have found that the sabot needs air time (not sure if thats the right term) to hit and expand. Anything under 75 yards my bullets pass right through, bone, muscle, whatever, usually little to no expansion. 75-115 yards i get decent expansion. 115+ massive expansion and serious effing damage. Not sure why this is, but letting you know its not you.

P.S. I hit a doe in the neck this year at about 160, almost took the head off.

Keith

[Grouse Hunter]

Out of 5 deer now I have found that the sabot needs air time (not sure if thats the right term) to hit and expand. Anything under 75 yards my bullets pass right through, bone, muscle, whatever, usually little to no expansion. 75-115 yards i get decent expansion. 115+ massive expansion and serious effing damage. Not sure why this is, but letting you know its not you.

You should get more expansion the closer you are. More velocity = more expansion.

[WestPlains_Drifter]

Out of 5 deer now I have found that the sabot needs air time (not sure if thats the right term) to hit and expand. Anything under 75 yards my bullets pass right through, bone, muscle, whatever, usually little to no expansion. 75-115 yards i get decent expansion. 115+ massive expansion and serious effing damage. Not sure why this is, but letting you know its not you.

You should get more expansion the closer you are. More velocity = more expansion.

Like I said

I am not sure how much sense this makes, but i will give you my experience (minus the technical facts).

Not arguing the technical aspect, just sayin it doesn't seem these sabots follow your rules

[BoomWhop]

I shot a nice bull with these bullets and the same powder, recovered both.  I would bet big money goofy bullet 1st shot, neck shot mushroom.  I have also shot 2 bucks, and my brother shot another buck same bullets and powder, recovered all 3 bullets.  All bullets mushroomed nice but did not hit a major bone.

[ML_Hunter]

My experience with the STS is that they really do not expand well at all. I've never shot at game with the bullet but after test firing them, just found that expansion sucked. They may act much differently with hitting an animal over phone books however! I am now using the Barns T-MZ's and get much greater velocity, better accuracy, and the bullet will do massive damage on both deer and elk! Couldn't be more pleased with the tmz's!!

[jstone]

Shot my cow with the SST at 100 yards the bullet did not expand. from what i could tell. bullet entered between 2 ribs through the heart and through a rib on the other side. Same size hole on both sides of the elk??

[nontypical176]

Well guys, thanks for the help.  I wanted to use the Barnes bullets, but nobody carries them locally and I have always had good luck with Hornady so I gave them a chance.  I really don't think the powder was wet, but it is possible.  Nothing seemed wrong when the lead was flying, the shots looked and sounded normal.  The performance reviews for the Barnes bullets have been great, so maybe the best thing is to switch now.  I could stick with the Hornady, there have been 3 bulls killed with my gun and this is the only bullet I found that didn't perform well out of 4 shots taken.  They seem accurate enough for sure. 

Its hard to keep switching gear, but the rules changed and I want the most thump for my money, but I trust muzzle loaders less than bows or rifles.  Every year its horror stories of guns not going off, wounded game and other problems.  If it weren't for the late muzzle loader hunt close to home I would have switched back to flinging arrows.  Anyhow.....I'll probably try Barnes bullets and see if they up my odds of a good clean kill.
Back to the practice range.......with all my muzzle loader cleaning hoopla.  Muzzle loaders are a pain in the ars.

[Lowedog]

Barnes 250gr TMZ that I recovered from my bull elk.

[CP]

I’ll throw my theory out for what it’s worth:

The SST is very similar to the XTP bullet.  I’ve found that both will expand nicely when they hit soft tissue but they do not expand much when they hit something hard, like bone. 

I’d guess that the bullet on the right traveled through something soft before hitting bone, the one on the left hit some bone pretty quickly.

The bottom line is the elk is dead; the bullets did their job. 

[Skillet]

I had a bunch of .45 cal 300 grain XTP Mag's in black sabots my muzzleloader shot very well with 90g of RS, but I didn't use them hunting because they recommend velocities higher than 1800 FPS for proper expansion, if I recall correctly.  I've never chrono'd that load, but it seemed REALLY high for an ol' caplock Hawken at any reasonable hunting range.

[CP]

1800 fps would be near the top end:

[Blsum]

So here's my experience with the sst bullets. They shoot great, they are easy to load and they are very accurate. However after doing some testing with them and several other bullets I'm not impressed with them. I'll post a link to a couple of threads where I tested them and others.

http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,50883.msg619220.html#msg619220

http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,46720.0.html

Check these threads out. My suggestion would be to find someone who has the barnes 290 tmz bullets. Even if you have to order them. The way I figure it. If you spent all this money on tags and equipment they why go cheap on the most important part of the hunt. The bullet. This is the first year that I've hunted with the tmz's and they did a great job. In our group we got two deer this year. Both of them dropped right in there tracks after being hit with a tmz. We recovered both bullets and they looked exactly like they did in my test. Even after hitting bone. They preformed awesome. I don't think I will use any other bullet. As far as muzzle loaders being a pain in the arse. Well that's just the joy's of muzzy hunting.

[Skillet]

1800 fps would be near the top end:

Thanks - that is the chart I was looking for!