250 SW Bullet Performance (Yesterday)

[Dave1]

Yesterday I made a shot on a 152 lb 9 point whitetail buck and while the 250 grain SW bullet with 43 grains of 4759 powder did its job destroying the lungs and liver, it appeared the bullet shredded upon impact.

Here is the post about the hunt and buck: dougsmessageboards.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=successsmokeless&action=display&thread=6706

The shot was at about 100 yards on a broadside deer. The hit was just behind the shoulder, hitting a rib bone upon entry. The entry hole was about 2", exit hole on the far side appeared to be several slices where bullet (or bone) fragments blew out. The internal organs were destroyed by what appeared to also be bullet or bone fragments. The only remains of the bullet I could find was a tiny sliver of the jacket.

Wondering now if a bonded bullet would be a better choice.

Thoughts?

Dave

[spaniel]

The 250SW is my least favorite of the family, both the 200 and 300 have better sectional density. The longer for diameter bullets hold together better. What you experienced at 100 yards with the 250 was roughly similar to what a couple of us have experienced at 30-50 yards with the 200; what would happen with the 250 at 40 yards? Crater on the shoulder blade? Failing to reach the far lung?

Any idea on the MV of that load?

I would certainly use the bonded version if you wanted to stick with the 250 in a smokeless and plan on any shots closer that 100 yds. It did the job this time, but what if you'd hit the shoudler blade instead of the rib?

Nice shooting and congrats on the buck!

[pposey]

I killed several deer with the same load years ago, all died well, bullets all came apart but never lost a deer, couple did hit the shoulder blade and went right on through, on at under 10 yards,,,big exits? no. very dead deer yes.

[whyohe]

I shot a doe in the neck this year at 60 yards with the hornady 250 SSTs and 42 grn of VV N-110. it was a complete pass threw with no Big holes either side and i did hit bone cause neck was broken. Im a little suprized but not over ly because there have been many that had that happen to them. if you dont like it or feel uncomfortable withthe performance the i beleave a bonded would be more of what you are looking for.

[Richard]

Hey! Nice story and very nice deer (dead)........thats all that counts! The bullet did its job.
Richard

[zakjak221]

Dave,

Good job!
I used the SW's for a couple of years and lost two deer with em.
They wouldn't exit and where we hunt--you HAVE to have a blood trail cause its so thick.
One of the deer was an 8 ptr at 40 yds broadside?
Piss poor performance IMO.
One of my son's now shoots a 250 gr XTP--to replace the SW and brother they are the ticket.
Maybe not as aerodynamic, but NONE of the six deer he's shot have gone over 20 yds & four were DRT. His longest shot being about 120 yds. You may want to try the XTP's.

Mark

[jims]

Those bullets always worked well for me but I use them for lung shots primarily.

[ET]

Dave1

Your choice of load has been my favorite for deer and have never lost one. Put that 250SW in the boiler room and it decimates internal organs. Except for a few that managed to run about 70yds the others have dropped less than 40yds from point of impact. This is using the old hard nose style with less than 100yd hits.

Hope you don’t mind a question here. The 250SW that you used was it the old hard nose style or the new flex tip style?

And congrats on a nice buck.


Ed

[pposey]

For what it's worth deer that are not recovered can't be blamed on the bullet. I made a couple of bad hits with the 250 SST, both deer were recovered with very little or no tracking.

[Dave1]

The bullet is the Thompson/Center SW 250 spire point bullet that has the yellow tip. The load is 43 grains of SR 4759, WW 209 primer, MMP SB sabot.

The muzz velocity, according to the load chart, is supposed to be 2330 fps but the actual trajectory (3+ inches high at 100 and 5+ inches low at 200) of this load fired out of my gun is almost identicle to the trajectory listed for a muzz velocity of only 1900 fps.

I have taken several bucks with this bullet and load and it has been a very effective combination, but the fragmentation on a rib bone hit at 100 yards concerns me a little.

Dave

[tar12]

Dec 2, 2010 8:35:36 GMT -5 pposey said:

For what it's worth deer that are not recovered can't be blamed on the bullet. I made a couple of bad hits with the 250 SST, both deer were recovered with very little or no tracking.

I beg to differ with this one...I witnessed first hand what happens when a 250 SST "fails".My best friend draws down on a doe standing broadside at 80 yards.At the shot she goes straight down and as quick as she went down she was up and running flat out on 3 legs.She passed by my position and I could see shards of mangled flesh flailing in the wind as she sprinted by.I was dumb struck as to what I had just witnessed as she ran out of sight.I met up with my bud and we decided to give her a hour and then start looking for her.The hour passed and we started in looking for her and jumped her about 300 yds into the search.Once again it was confirmed to me that flesh wounds can bleed alot initially as this was surely the case here.We backed off and waited another hour and resumed the search where we left off and soon jumped this doe again.I could not believe it!This cat and mouse game continued for several hours that winter afternoon and we realized that this deer was not wounded to the extent that she would expire anytime soon.It had slowed her down but death was not imminent.She finally made a fatal mistake and took an over grown brush choked canal that allowed us to out flank her and limit her escape routes.This was a good thing as the blood trail had dried up.If I had not seen her slipping in there this would be the end of this story.By flanking this canal we were able to bring this game to a close as she was soon forced to bust from cover and she chose my side where I promptly finished her off.This was over the course 1.5 miles.Upon inspection of his shot placement I saw where he had hit her square in her shoulder.It looked as if a bomb had went off on her shoulder blade.Upon butchering it was noted that there was 2 very small holes that shrapnel had penetrated ever so slightly.If this was not a case of total bullet failure I do not know what is!I will not use a SST in any shape size or form on deer period in a Sav.10-ML at smokeless speeds.I have to much respect for them....

[ET]

Dave1

Sorry my query wasn’t more clearly specified.
It is my understanding from others that Hornady actually makes the 250SW for TC and when they switched over to the Flex Tip for their SST the shockwaves also started appearing with the Flex Tip.



The old hard nose 250SW does fragment and was wondering if you were using the newer Flex Tip model. I have yet to use the newer 250SW with the Flex Tip and was wondering if the same level of fragmentation still existed. Hence my question.

Ed

[Dave W]

Dec 2, 2010 23:39:26 GMT -5 ET said:

Dave1

Sorry my query wasn’t more clearly specified.
It is my understanding from others that Hornady actually makes the 250SW for TC and when they switched over to the Flex Tip for their SST the shockwaves also started appearing with the Flex Tip.



The old hard nose 250SW does fragment and was wondering if you were using the newer Flex Tip model. I have yet to use the newer 250SW with the Flex Tip and was wondering if the same level of fragmentation still existed. Hence my question.

Ed

Between me and my friends, we have taken double digit deer with the FTX since it came out. Two use book loads, two using duplex loads. The only bullet that may have fragged severely was a 20ft shot at 2600fps, 2 exit holes . The two or three recovered bullets found all weighed approx. 220gr.

The bonded SW should perform in a more "classic" way as far as expansion at the speeds a book load gives going by the bullet tests I have seen. Some have claimed less accuracy with the BSW, some no loss in accuracy.

[ET]

DaveW

Thanks for the helpful & informative feedback.

When a company alters their bullet design and basically uses the same old name it can get confusing as to which one is being used when monitoring the performance of the enhancement. Using a slightly softer tip seems to have really have made this bullet less fragmenting so far basing this from the info you have provided.
The only missing observation is what happens when this FTX bullet hits bone for a more complete evaluation.


Ed

[Dave1]

Thanks for the feedback and info.

I just noticed a difference in the yellow tipped bullets in the photo ET provided. The FTX bullet has a somewhat rounded end on the yellow tip whereas the "Hard Nose" bullet in the photo has a plastic tip that is sharp and more pointed. The FTX bullet has more pronounced grooves in the end of the jacket under the yellow tip than the hard nosed bullet. These are subtle differences but ones that could cause a noticeable difference in terminal performance on game. It seems the more rounded plastic tip would likely cause a more explosive impact which could/would increase the possibility of fragmentation that some have experienced.

I have taken quite a few deer with the XTP bullet in earlier years but I favor a more aero dynamic style (pointed) bullet over the blunt nose XTP style as it just seems the pointed bullet would fly better and be more consistent. Of course at typical muzz shot distances maybe it is a mute point.

Dave

[pposey]

Tar,,

But you recovered that deer, therefore you know where the initial hit was and what happened with that hit, when the animal isn't recovered it's hard to blame the bullet when there are so many other factors involved,,,bad hits, caught tree limbs,

how fast was your buddy pushing that bullet? I made a couple of upper shoulder shots that jellied 6 inches of spine and still exited, also squared the shoulder blade a time or two with no problems,,, never pushed the 250sst above 2300fps though

one thing I always wondered on the SST was what if people were loading it so hard and or with the wrong jag that they were pushing the tip back into to bullet causing faster expansion, once that tip goes back there is a huge hole with thin walls

[lwh723]

If the animal isn't recovered, then in most circumstances it's going to be pretty tough to pin it on the bullet with 100% certaintity. Certainly, many, many, bullet failures get blamed on bad shots.

[edge]

+1

[GMB54-120]

I WAS a big FTX/SST fan but now i only like a few of them.

The 300gr SST appears ok if not driven too hard and is very effective in the boiler room.

The 200gr SST/Shockwave is better than the 250gr IMO too.

The Bonded 250gr Shockwave is much better if the velocity at time of impact is a bit higher.

The 325gr FTX is a down right killer.

I used a 50-300gr FTX at about 1900fps this year on one deer and got a complete pass through. The deer did a back flip and went 10 yards. The Heart was nearly gone and the exit wound was quite nice. Ive seen this bullet shot from a 50S&W at over 2200fps with excellent results too but meat damage was massive.

[esshup]

I shoot that same exact load and have chrono'ed it at a mv of 2175. I shoot the same load except it's 43.5g from my ML-I with a MV of 2250. I bought a bunch of blem shockwaves (250g) a number of years ago (about 9 months after they hit the market)and still have about 100 left. They are the orig shockwaves, not the flex tip.

Back when I bought them, guys were having problems with them coming apart, but they were shooting them quicker than 2300 fps MV. Then came the bonded SW's. Most guys didn't like them because they weren't as accurate as the regular SW's/SST's.

I've shot deer from 20' out to 167 Yds with that load and haven't had a problem with the bullets not penetrating. Whenever possible, I wait for and take a high shoulder shot, which drops the deer, or if it's a bit low, goes thru both lungs. I can't remember a deer that I've shot with that load where the bullet didn't exit.

I don't know what to say.

[pposey]

I have a bunch of those blems as well, always worked and shot well though but a couple were missing the tip

[zakjak221]

Haven't used the 300 gr sw's.
Are the 200 gr's built different than the 250's?

Mark

[edge]

Now before we throw out the SW and SST, I have shot them at well over 2600 fps at deer as close as 40 yards.

If they were my most accurate bullet by a fair margin then I would shoot them and ensure I did not hit more than ribs on the way in and would expect that a raking shot would need a Coup de grâce.

edge.

[tar12]

Posey,
If I remember correctly that SST was traveling around 2700 fps.Once again we had lost all sign of blood and was back tracking and grid searching the area when I got lucky and saw the tail end of her gimping off into the canal.If not for this sighting she would not have been recovered! In this instance it was clearly bullet failure from my perspective! Long live the Barnes bullets! ;D ;D

[pposey]

Ohh you know those darn barnes just pencil through and never expand,,,,

[tar12]

Do not mistconstrue my comments.The SSTS and FTXs shot with in their design parameters work very well.Just not at smokeless speeds.My daughter is shooting the Hornady Leverloution with the 225 grn [e-mail] almost flawlessly at this speed.Big doe@approx 60 yds.Dropped in her tracks.It actually partially exited.It still fragged a little even at this speed.
Posey I will take those 1.5-2 in drain holes errr...pencil holes any day! ;D

[bigmoose]

If you hit a large bone with the bonded bullet, it will blow into tiny pieces, that is not to say it wont kill a deer sized animal.

[olegburn]

When i get to it I will post a pic of small doe I shot close range (30 feet) into the shoulder that lost most of that shoulder. It ran 60 yards and died still but the amount of damage was unreal.
Soft bullets and high speed do not fare well in some shots. I was made a believer,to an extent.
Where that doe was hit I found hair,blood and chunks of flesh. A lot of chunks.These chunks didn't come from exit hole. They were from entrance that turned into a wound 7" in diameter.
That front leg was pretty much removed from the body.
I don't doubt that it will be fine if it hits in the ribs though.
250 gr. SST's are soft bullets,I agree.

[spaniel]

Tar, this issue with blaming unrecovered deer on the bullet is you do NOT know what happened for sure. A few years ago I was hunting with a group and two guys shot deer within 80 yards and said they made perfect shots but when we FINALLY found their deer, one was shot in the stomach and the other in the intestines.

This was ML season and both blamed the 250SW. If we had not found those deer, they still would.

Your situation was a little unique in that you had the opportunity to observe the shoulder wound as the deer fled the shooter. I had a similar incident once when a Barnes slug blew up in a shallow crater on the outside of a shoulder blade.

[spaniel]

Dec 3, 2010 10:32:36 GMT -5 zakjak221 said:

Haven't used the 300 gr sw's.
Are the 200 gr's built different than the 250's?

Mark

They are built different in that they are similar engineering applied to a different platform. The 200 is longer for its diameter. This seems to be the reason it holds together much better than the 250.

Another example of this would be Powerbelts. Look how short a 50cal Powerbelt has to be to stay under 300 grains, when it expands there is no base behind the opening mushroom to hold it together so it fragments.

Regarding loading damage -- about a year ago somewhere else someone experienced a clear, recovered 250SW failure and then a few days later pushed a load out of their gun after a misfire. They observed that they had indeed pushed the tip in.

SWs are still very popular but I don't hear nearly the level of complaints of failure that I used to. When they first came out, spire bullets in MLs were new and few people had jags built to accomodate them. Now, it seems most people use the correct jag. I've got to wonder if these two observances are related.