Terminal performance with shedding monos

[Fordy]

Gday
The journey is still evolving but I also see it getting to the top end just like the true solids & not a lot to gain left in those but I’ll take it if it can be shown ( i still believe some can be )

But let’s step back a touch & think over the years the advancements in pill preformance & capabilities with those the gains have been seen to what we have today

Started I guess on the old musket & ball & a touch before my time lol

Eventually Someone saw the way forward to improve those & went from the ball to cast then to hard cast then to jacketed over lead then bonding then monos & lot in between most likely I’ve messed that all up on a timeline but you get the idea and one that has improved the outcome for us & the critter

Really a lot like the true solid pills we have today that have really shown what can occur if one clears their heads & looks @ it from a different perspective we can basically reach the pinnacle of what’s possible ( still can improve I believe but man alive it’s not a lot & better another day for those true solids I think as the shedding pills are where this thread is aimed)

So moving forward & I’ll have to confirm off my notes to the first truely designed shedding mono id seen was GPA in I think 1998/99 or early 2000’s @ latest

This pill took the way of the terminals of the earlier Barnes X results in 1997 on caribou & moose I’d got with the default of those Barnes shedding petals to another level but the caribou & moose were instrumental for me going hmmm yes pill failed from a design point but the critters were dead way quicker than normal ( my Indian guides words also reinforced this who had been guiding for a lot of years from Alaska to BC ) so must be something in this & the search started all over the world with the contacts I had ( no internet for me as it was all phone calls or asking who I knew face to face )

I’ll have to get my old mini vhs videos out to get better terminal pictures to show in detail but this is all I have in a photo album of the Barnes sorry & that 180 gr Barnes pill was @ 432 meters ( funny story on how that was measured as no range finder lol ) out of a 300 wm & shed petals same as caribou @ a much higher velocity impact as I think that was about 130/40 ish meters on caribou

but irrelevant really as been surpassed now anyway by other companies unless that gpa had been tweaked

Anyway overtime I found a weakness in these gpa pills( the one on left & was repeated numerous times to confirm)

& one that has shown the same traits in so many brands of the shedding monos where the likes of the Mushroom pills have the advantage of weight forward ( but other issues exist with them) so shedding the petals & all of them has shown to be very important for consistency especially if one requires straight line & penetration length which a flat meplat being extremely important ( think true solids as here’s your answer )


The next ones I started to get excited about were raptors & that took levels of consistency to another level but same old trait of needing speed to work or should say results were better with speed as the pill itself worked perfectly @ lower speeds just didn’t kill as efficiently

Today the raptor is still the most consistent shedding of the petals on the market today I’ve found & here even @ 1800 ish impact

you get that nearly perfect star pattern on a incredibly consistent bases but patterns also are not the full equation & why the likes of other companies upto 375 have surpassed the raptor on killing efficiency but above 375 no company surpasses this pill design YET , yes it was done in the sub 375 so why not above ?? ( I’ve also got sub 375 cal raptors to go another level by tinkering but another day on that also but so far I’ve failed to get the 50 cal to improve )

a lot more on this to come if people wish & it’s not on small numbers of critters that these results have been taken on & those that do know me will know I’ve taken some pretty high numbers in a fairly wide variety of species that offer different resistances & some of those will come out in data sheets that some of my mates have done up for me as overall my notes are a scribble mess as seen in the gpa pic

So bare with me please as I add more to this thread

But more importantly please challenge these findings ( show actuals even better ) as I don’t know everything & by someone challenging it maybe the one piece of the puzzle that takes the shedding monos to the status the true solids have today

Lastly sorry for my writing skills & please ask if I’m not clear
So let’s delve a little deeper to hopefully raise that bar
Cheers

 

[Altitude sickness]

I appreciate the pic of the blade holes from the Raptor

 

[Luvthunt]

Yes, more then a hypothetical

 

[Altitude sickness]

I’ve had great results with 100 grain Raptors from a .308. And 370 grain Raptors on Buffalo

 

[grand veneur]

Cavitation causes the greatest damage in a shot wound and if the few bullet fragments play additionally a role is questionable.

 

[Fordy]

Gday altitude sickness

I’ve had great results with 100 grain Raptors from a .308. And 370 grain Raptors on Buffalo

Yes I believe you would’ve what caliber is the 370 gr raptor & do you have internal pics by chance as I’d love to see those

Here’s a great one from the 475 raptor @ just over 2700 impact ( I have video of this )

That’s on the onside of approx 600 kg bovine after a knuckle impact Some of the additional holes are bone fragments so I can’t show the petals holes sorry but the interesting thing was on closer examination & wiping my hand on the inside of the rib cage you could see what ones were the petals as they still had blood free flowing out of them when you cleaned the site & perfect star pattern they were once again

That leads to another part that when we used to use c&c a lot all the deer we used to shoot for human consumption we always cut their throats to help get that extra bit of blood out but basically don’t do that these days as no real need as the wounds are more free flowing & you see that on sxs hung overnight by the comparison of the blood pool on the floor the next morning as same shots with a mono vrs c&c ( cup&core ) regardless of being bonded or not the mono has less blood & put that to the c&c crushing the tissue but could be off also on my thoughts , once hydraulic pressure is present in the critter things change somewhat in a good way also


Once again if I’m unclear please ask as some of the words i use aren’t technically correct I’m sure but through talking with mates we’ve come up with things like shapecharge etc & no doubt more will come out as we go

cheers

 

[Fordy]

Gday grand veneur

Cavitation causes the greatest damage in a shot wound and if the few bullet fragments play additionally a role is questionable.

Please explain & that is based off what
Cheers

 

[grand veneur]

Gday grand veneur

Please explain & that is based off what
Cheers

Cavitation is the most severe damage a bullet causes, and it has been proven impossible, due to pressure and the destruction of the blood supply, to estimate the degree of destruction at distance in the tissue. The bullet fragments can only cause very localized additional damage like secondary projectiles, like bone fragments or similar.

 

[Altitude sickness]

One my last trip I shot 8 Impala. 2 with a .375 H&H and 300 grain TSX. The two with the TSX ran and died quickly, 60-100 yards


The 6 with the 100 grain raptors were usually dead in their tracks.

We were hunting them for bait. Two were lined up for a 2 for 1 shot. The first one the bullet impacted dropped on impact the one behind it ran about 10 yards.

My Buffalo bull fell forward and died almost immediately.

Aframes, TSX, Northfork, all work great. But don’t underestimate the Raptors

 

[Altitude sickness]

I don’t have pics of the heart or lungs. This bull was in the brush at the red X when shot with the 370 grain Raptor. He fell forward down into the spot he lays and was dead when we walked the short yardage to him.


In this pic we turned him 180 degrees from his original position. We moved him for hero pics. He was shot once straight up the leg in the top of the heart. I shot the bull while standing left of this picture

 

[Aaron N]

I’ve had great results with 100 grain Raptors from a .308. And 370 grain Raptors on Buffalo

Id love to hear more about the 100gr. We seem to only get reports about CEB’s in big bores

 

[Altitude sickness]

These 100 grain Raptors in my wife’s .308 were at approximately 3300 fps. and proved devastating on Impala. I’m guessing the same on pronghorn or whitetail. Thank you Michael458

 

[Fordy]

Gday grand veneur

Cavitation is the most severe damage a bullet causes, and it has been proven impossible, due to pressure and the destruction of the blood supply, to estimate the degree of destruction at distance in the tissue. The bullet fragments can only cause very localized additional damage like secondary projectiles, like bone fragments or similar.

I would like to see where it’s been proven as unless we are talking different things I’ll dispute it to some extent

I’m going to leave impact to tip distance / time of the critter out as that’s another useful indicator of killing efficiency of a pill as once we understand the following we can move along to other things

Yes we need to clear our heads & look @ actuals & by this I mean no disrespect but it’s easily proven that the petals have a huge effect to deny this one is not looking @ wounds it’s that simple

Now sxs is the best & that’s where I’ve been extremely lucky as a lot of cases it wasn’t unusual to run 2, 3 or 4 ( I’ve done upto 10 or so ) different pill designs or weights together & in a cull situation the critters can then be put sxs & no interpretation needed as it’s plain as day but it’s also replicated so outliers are somewhat alleviated ( nothings 100% but it’s better than one offs & reliability is better ) failing that I’ve also bagged the vitals for later evaluation & even place in a fridge till enough time for a better analysis ( hard to do on big bovines but a walk in cool room is a help but sometimes there is nothing around so you do what you need to do )

Moving forward
let’s take the raptors as they are the easiest to see & then you’ll see why you’ll see the raptor’s design show the traits your somewhat talking of also (“bullet fragments can only cause very localised additional damage “ ) except in the above 375 cal as now you’re getting to petal mass that causes their own above caliber wounds that do enough to be a issue to most critters so those are not needing the higher velocity of the smaller offerings but welcomed imo

The raptors have the advantage of having the exact same pill design in the parent fn solids & here’s your answer as pretty well everyone will agree that the raptor will give a greater initial wound channel yet if you take away the petals once they are outside of the TWC & look @ the recovered shanks you see this looks pretty similar in meplat % to the solid ( a area that needs more discussion but another day on that as once again a good meplat is so so important )

& this is where you see the wounding of the different wounding zones ea & every pill has ( 4 exsist that the group I work with have found but getting real anal there’s probably more but more on that later as this is already getting long & I’ve got work to do sorry ) once petals are gone outside of TWC you’ll see similarities of the raptor shank & the parent solid pill but the fn solid will give it more consistent & longer for all the reasons I hope people know today so no need to go through those

Now I’m about to get a little more anal so please bear with me

We need to understand permanent wound channels ( PWC ) & temporary wound channel ( TWC )
The bubble as I call it is very dependent on the shape charge that the projectile is designed to do or can achieve under certain resistances ( I’ll leave out another process as if a company cracks that one that is a game changer as killing is even better then @ lower velocity impacts especially , not so much the high )

& let’s go back to a lead core base pill
Watch the likes of the non bonded produce wider wounds in critters but the recovered diameter of the pills are often close to the same ( yes they are also shorter if comparing same size pill to start & retained weight shows this )

Why is simple as the cavity stretches the little tiny lead particles nick /cut/bust the stretch part of some of the TWC that’s not torn under a pill that doesn’t shed weight & hence you’ve now got a larger PWC When these particles do what they do but due to the erosion of the pill the wounds are shallower on the whole or smaller as the velocity decreases the TWC & PWC on the whole is also decreased & why speed is a key to not only monos

A little caveat on that
The only reason that a bonded can produce a real good above caliber wound channel is from either velocity & meplat shape
Combine the 2 & now your getting a good PWC that can produce some very impressive wounds but penertration is one that suffers ( maybe adequate for a chosen critter just as a non bonded can achieve yes match hatch to catch ) & over penetration has more leeway than under it’s why the bonded are more reliable on big critters than non bonded

So now back to the raptor & it’s parent solid

The only thing that’s different is the petals in zone 2&3 of the pills terminal characteristics & this is where you’ll see the raptors not kill as efficiently as a pill that has the petals that stay closer to the shank (375& below) taking into account angles of the critter but now we need to look @ structure of the alloy as then you can get a too rounded meplat on the shank & just like even mushroom pills once it gets too rounded you get a smaller wound channel & also important the way the tissue is directed away from the meplat one pushes tissue more sideways the other the tissue roles around the pill & a great article on this is in shooting holes in wounding theories
& here’s a good illustration of that

understanding true solids in flat nose vrs round nose is pretty basic knowledge these days .we just need to apply these to the mushroom & shedding varieties to understand the full potential of a pill or to me IT’s weakness & try to avoid those

Yes meplat shape & size is very important in not only true solids & that’s about as simple as I can put it

Now if I’m unclear please ask or if you dispute the above information that I have no issues with if you can show where the above information is flawed as I’m all ears

Please don’t take that as having a go @ you as a lot to learn on this front & im still learning & a lot to go

Cheers

 

[Aaron N]

These 100 grain Raptors in my wife’s .308 were at approximately 3300 fps. and proved devastating on Impala. I’m guessing the same on pronghorn or whitetail. Thank you Michael458
View attachment 691085

Would you try them stateside on a meat hunt? Do the blades make it to the offside shoulder?

 

[grand veneur]

An additional damage, but there is also the cavitation which dominates.

Sologne GPA - Cartouches Sologne

Sologne GPA Grande Puissance d'Arrêt

www.cartouches-sologne.fr

 

[Altitude sickness]

The blades did not get to the off side of the Impala. But destroyed a lot of impacted shoulder meat.

 

[grand veneur]

I don't want to argue about the effectiveness of GPA bullets. In Burkina Faso a French hunter shot a buffalo with his double rifle caliber 9,3x74R and the 238gr GPA bullet. I expressed my concerns before the hunt, but after shooting and a perfect shot placement the buffalo was found dead after a few hundred meters.

 

[Fordy]

Gday grand veneur

An additional damage, but there is also the cavitation which dominates.

On above why not have both ? Or even an extra throw into those ? Yes others exist

Going back to these pictures

What is the form of cavitation you want to see & the sweet spot of velocity vrs cavitation is somewhat determined by the material used in the pill but once again the most important part is the meplat shape now add those petals
& The 2 patterns that occur
The ones that go wide
The ones that follow the shank

The wide definatly give more insurance on the less than ideal placed shots like this

& no cavitation only pill will give the recovery results ( comparing apples to apples on caliber & velocity impact) compared too a shedding on these shots but a low % yes but it occurs & one I like to cover ( no that zebra wasn’t shot with a raptor it was a shedding though )

The stay closer give more consistent killing on the angled shots & still a bit of room for error on placement

But now it’s where we get into the plus 375 & below 375 pills but that’s previously been put up

Sologne GPA - Cartouches Sologne

Sologne GPA Grande Puissance d'Arrêt

www.cartouches-sologne.fr

Guess the gpa are still around but that link is no good to me as my language only works too taswegian lol

But thanks I did pull up the video & that shows GPA hasn’t tweaked their design so they will still fail & the need to run them fast of it will end like my picture above in one of my first posts of the recovered shanks & some poor sole when this happens will be not happy that I guarantee we’ll unless it’s just a dead critter they are after then it doesn’t matter right

Cheers

 

[Fordy]

Gday grand veneur

I don't want to argue about the effectiveness of GPA bullets. In Burkina Faso a French hunter shot a buffalo with his double rifle caliber 9,3x74R and the 238gr GPA bullet. I expressed my concerns before the hunt, but after shooting and a perfect shot placement the buffalo was found dead after a few hundred meters.

Thanks it reinforces with the gpa they need speed & without that things can & do get way worse than you were concerned with & saw

The 9.3x74 due to its limitations on MV & the GPA traits it would be better suited to a lot of other brands before that

So it’s not “arguing about the effectiveness“ it’s about showing & learning in a discussion that hopefully we can understand a little bit more
Myself included

Thanks for the info

Cheers

 

[michael458]

These 100 grain Raptors in my wife’s .308 were at approximately 3300 fps. and proved devastating on Impala. I’m guessing the same on pronghorn or whitetail. Thank you Michael458

Would you try them stateside on a meat hunt? Do the blades make it to the offside shoulder?

Sometime in 2012 CEB made a 100 gr ESP Raptor. Enhanced System Projectile. This could be used as a Raptor on one end, Solid on the other. The Nose Projection for the solid end is way too short, and not as effective as it could be. Used as a Tipped Raptor, it was wicked in 308 Winchester. I loaded this for my deer hunting, bear and hog hunting pals for a few years, with incredible success, bang flop DRT success. I liked the 130 ESP because the Nose Projection on the solid end was longer, and indeed made an effective solid, and of course the Raptor end worked as normal.

In late 2015 I had Dan make the 100 Flat Base Raptor, that we have today. I started loading it in all my .308 caliber rifles, 30/30 without the Talon Tip, 300 Blackout, 7.62X40, 308 Winchester, and 300 Winchester. In the 300 BLK and 7.62X40 the 100 Raptor at 2550 fps to 2800 fps is a fantastic bullet in those two cartridges for Younger Hunters, we have had many success stories with kids in the field for deer, hogs and even black bear. I have loaded since 2015 for my local deer/pig and bear pals in their 308 Winchesters. Over the years they have taken collectively a few hundred deer +....... I have yet to hear of any deer being lost, and the longest run I have heard so far has been 5 steps. Again, most all reports coming back are DRT.

No, the "Blades" on smaller caliber Raptors normally rip and tear internal organs and get caught up there and do not make it to the far side. The Main bullet exits the far side on all broad side or even severe angled shots. Even on the bears and hogs that were shot the center main bullet, or sometimes called the Blunt Trauma Bullet exits far side.

My oldest Son Matthew shot this deer on our farm with his Winchester M70 308 Winchester, and of course the 100 Flat Base Raptor. DRT.......

Couple of years previously he shot this deer on our farm with a 223 loaded with 50 Raptors. The deer went 20 yards before piling up stone cold..........