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Randy Garrett · November 20, 1999, 02:30 PM

Probably it would be more appropriate for us to describe our bullets from a point of view of strength instead of hardness. I found a long time ago that if my bullets were too hard they tended to break when stressed beyond their inherent strength, no matter what the alloy content. Although quite hard and resistent to deformation, when stressed beyond their inherent hardness our bullets deform, invariably modestly, at least when the game is heavy and close. From my point of view a bullet that is hard but can shatter is bad news. One of the tests I run on our bullets involves a free falling sledge hammer. I have observed that virtually all of the commercial castings that appear to have been cast with some care, will break when subjected to this torture test. This appears to be the result of achieving hardness through high antimony levels. By contrast, our bullets will, after repeated contacts with the sledge hammer eventually flatten out into what rather resembles a coin. At this point cracks are apparent around the edge of the bullet, but the casting has demomstrated terrific freedom from fracture by then. This is at least partly due to our use of minimal antimony in our alloy. This freedom from fracture has been a major player in the success we have enjoyed when our ammo has been used against extremely heavy game. As far as lube is concerned, for years we have used LBT commercial blue, but now that LBT is out of business we will be getting the same formula from another source. Interestingly, it was Paco Kelly who first came up with the formula Veral Smith used in his LBT lube. I haven't tried SPG, however I might give it a try since you like it so much. Another extremely relevent factor in the performance of our bullets is the configuration of the designs. Our HAMMERHEADs are designed to put as much of the bullet weight out front as possible, freeing up as much powder capacity as possible. Both our 310-grainer and our 330-grainer seat to .400-inch into the case, and this is about the same seating depth of most 240-grainers. This obviously gives us a velocity to pressure advantage over other heavy bullet designs that seat deeper (usually much deeper). The other extremely relevant attribute is the broad meplat. For years we used smaller meplated bullets, but have found that broader meplats just don't seem to limit penetration, indeed they seem to stabilize it. If I were to speculate why, I would guess that when the wieght carrying characteristics of the front of the bullet compare well to the rear of the bullet, there is little or no tendency for the forces of inertia to favor one end over the other, thus pushing that end (usually the rear of the bullet) towards the front,causing the bullet to go sideways. This is what we found would happen too frequently with truncated cones, which led us to the SWC which was more stable in that regard, and ultimatley to our HAMMERHEADs which are the least likely designs to go sideways, at least in our testing. Our HAMMERHEADs carry virtually the same amount of wieght in the front as they do in the back. Also, I like broad front ends as they must hurt the target animal more per unit of penetration than smaller meplated bullets.

November 20, 1999, 02:30 PM	#6
Randy Garrett Senior Member Join Date: November 2, 1999 Location: Chehalis, WA Posts: 142	Probably it would be more appropriate for us to describe our bullets from a point of view of strength instead of hardness. I found a long time ago that if my bullets were too hard they tended to break when stressed beyond their inherent strength, no matter what the alloy content. Although quite hard and resistent to deformation, when stressed beyond their inherent hardness our bullets deform, invariably modestly, at least when the game is heavy and close. From my point of view a bullet that is hard but can shatter is bad news. One of the tests I run on our bullets involves a free falling sledge hammer. I have observed that virtually all of the commercial castings that appear to have been cast with some care, will break when subjected to this torture test. This appears to be the result of achieving hardness through high antimony levels. By contrast, our bullets will, after repeated contacts with the sledge hammer eventually flatten out into what rather resembles a coin. At this point cracks are apparent around the edge of the bullet, but the casting has demomstrated terrific freedom from fracture by then. This is at least partly due to our use of minimal antimony in our alloy. This freedom from fracture has been a major player in the success we have enjoyed when our ammo has been used against extremely heavy game. As far as lube is concerned, for years we have used LBT commercial blue, but now that LBT is out of business we will be getting the same formula from another source. Interestingly, it was Paco Kelly who first came up with the formula Veral Smith used in his LBT lube. I haven't tried SPG, however I might give it a try since you like it so much. Another extremely relevent factor in the performance of our bullets is the configuration of the designs. Our HAMMERHEADs are designed to put as much of the bullet weight out front as possible, freeing up as much powder capacity as possible. Both our 310-grainer and our 330-grainer seat to .400-inch into the case, and this is about the same seating depth of most 240-grainers. This obviously gives us a velocity to pressure advantage over other heavy bullet designs that seat deeper (usually much deeper). The other extremely relevant attribute is the broad meplat. For years we used smaller meplated bullets, but have found that broader meplats just don't seem to limit penetration, indeed they seem to stabilize it. If I were to speculate why, I would guess that when the wieght carrying characteristics of the front of the bullet compare well to the rear of the bullet, there is little or no tendency for the forces of inertia to favor one end over the other, thus pushing that end (usually the rear of the bullet) towards the front,causing the bullet to go sideways. This is what we found would happen too frequently with truncated cones, which led us to the SWC which was more stable in that regard, and ultimatley to our HAMMERHEADs which are the least likely designs to go sideways, at least in our testing. Our HAMMERHEADs carry virtually the same amount of wieght in the front as they do in the back. Also, I like broad front ends as they must hurt the target animal more per unit of penetration than smaller meplated bullets.