I have seen alot of talk about hunting with subsonic's, such as the 300blk, .308's, whispers and such. I've often wondered how these rounds perform on an actual deer, but I've never had the chance to shoot one with them. Let me start by saying this thread is not to discuss the ethics of SS hunting, just bullet performance.
We can probably all agree that a shot to the pudding pot will put any game animal down if it hits the right spot, I set out to see what two different bullets did to meat and bone.
The two bullets in question are: Hornady 220gr RNSP, and the Berger Hunting VLD 210. The reason I decided on these two is simple, they are the only two I had, and had shot with any degree of accuracy.
The 220's used to be my standby load, 10.2gr of Clays seated to the cannelure. They worked ok I guess, accuracy was around 1-2.5 MOA, and they were whisper quiet. After shooting those for a while, I was turned on to the Berger's by hide member bigsky23. We successfully shot them well beyond my previous envelope of 300 yds, in fact the first time I tried them, I hit a 6 inch disc at 484 yds.
Here is a pic of the 220's loaded:
I had some deer parts that someone had given me years ago, and they had not been taken care of properly. I have been thinking of using them as bait, but this seemed like a good way to get rid of them. I took a deer hind quarter, and a couple backstraps rolled up into a ball, and packed them together with some duct tape. I set them on some soft dirt , as to catch the bullets should they make it all the way through. Here is what the Berger's looked and sounded like:
They went through it with ease, and I was expecting to see some good damage channels, but I was surprised at how mild they were. Looked as if they had been cut with a real dull knife.
The recovered Berger's were quite intact, I was expecting some degree of expansion. But to my surprise, they looked very much the same:
After shooting several of them, I decided I would shoot the 220's and see how they did.
I was surprised at how much harder the 220's hit, I guess they should with their larger meplat. And as you can hear and see in the video, the 220's went zinging off into the distance, everytime. (notice the chunks of meat flying too) Upon closer inspection of the meat pile, it was obvious that the 220's were doing <span style="font-weight: bold">ALOT</span> more damage. The wound channels were much wider when compared to the Berger holes.
Almost cut this backstrap in half, it really looked as if a small bulldozer had driven through the meat pile.
Nice bone fragments, unfortunately I am not sure which of the two bullets made this hole, but I believe it was the Berger.
My overall impression was that, while the Bergers are both ballisticly superior, and far better in accuracy and distance, they do not do as much damage as one would like. The 220's while not so accurate, and poor in range, hit like a hammer in comparison, penetrating deeply into the flesh, and spinning off into the distance with plenty of mail left to carry.
If I were to actually go hunting with an SS load, I think I would still go for the Berger though, because they are accurate enough to put right between the eyes of my quarry. And while the 220 rn would do better in puncturing vitals, I dont know if I want to take the risk of such a shot.
We can probably all agree that a shot to the pudding pot will put any game animal down if it hits the right spot, I set out to see what two different bullets did to meat and bone.
The two bullets in question are: Hornady 220gr RNSP, and the Berger Hunting VLD 210. The reason I decided on these two is simple, they are the only two I had, and had shot with any degree of accuracy.
The 220's used to be my standby load, 10.2gr of Clays seated to the cannelure. They worked ok I guess, accuracy was around 1-2.5 MOA, and they were whisper quiet. After shooting those for a while, I was turned on to the Berger's by hide member bigsky23. We successfully shot them well beyond my previous envelope of 300 yds, in fact the first time I tried them, I hit a 6 inch disc at 484 yds.
Here is a pic of the 220's loaded:
I had some deer parts that someone had given me years ago, and they had not been taken care of properly. I have been thinking of using them as bait, but this seemed like a good way to get rid of them. I took a deer hind quarter, and a couple backstraps rolled up into a ball, and packed them together with some duct tape. I set them on some soft dirt , as to catch the bullets should they make it all the way through. Here is what the Berger's looked and sounded like:
They went through it with ease, and I was expecting to see some good damage channels, but I was surprised at how mild they were. Looked as if they had been cut with a real dull knife.
The recovered Berger's were quite intact, I was expecting some degree of expansion. But to my surprise, they looked very much the same:
After shooting several of them, I decided I would shoot the 220's and see how they did.
I was surprised at how much harder the 220's hit, I guess they should with their larger meplat. And as you can hear and see in the video, the 220's went zinging off into the distance, everytime. (notice the chunks of meat flying too) Upon closer inspection of the meat pile, it was obvious that the 220's were doing <span style="font-weight: bold">ALOT</span> more damage. The wound channels were much wider when compared to the Berger holes.
Almost cut this backstrap in half, it really looked as if a small bulldozer had driven through the meat pile.
Nice bone fragments, unfortunately I am not sure which of the two bullets made this hole, but I believe it was the Berger.
My overall impression was that, while the Bergers are both ballisticly superior, and far better in accuracy and distance, they do not do as much damage as one would like. The 220's while not so accurate, and poor in range, hit like a hammer in comparison, penetrating deeply into the flesh, and spinning off into the distance with plenty of mail left to carry.
If I were to actually go hunting with an SS load, I think I would still go for the Berger though, because they are accurate enough to put right between the eyes of my quarry. And while the 220 rn would do better in puncturing vitals, I dont know if I want to take the risk of such a shot.
