Light vs Heavy Bullets for Hunting – Episode 16

Today on the podcast, Dale is joined by Gregg and Mitchell to discuss why you would choose light or heavy bullets for hunting. The guys dive into the practical, real world experience; the data behind it; how it can change depending on your specific hunting needs; and more. You’ll not want to miss this, and make sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments.

#Barnes #Podcast #Light #Heavy #Hunting #Copper #LongRange #Learning

Yeah, welcome back to another Barnes Bullets podcast. I’m your host Dale Evans. Today I’ve got Gregory Sloan and Mitchell Cooken. And as you guys can see, if you’re watching the podcast, is we have our new mic stands that everybody was complaining about that they couldn’t see our beautiful faces. I think it was mainly Greg’s face, but you’re a little bit shorter than us and you sit in a lower chair. You could raise your chair up and then people could see your face a little bit better. That’s true. I don’t want to intimidate Mitchell though. That that that’s what it is. Yeah. I I sit down lower. Um before we start jumping into what we’re going to talk about with this podcast, I want to do a little product shout out of this new merch that we have on our website. We’re going to call this the Elk Patch hat, I think is what we’re calling it. It’s cool hat. Um we’re here in midepptember recording this, so perfect time to show off this hat. It’s got a elk there with the Barnes logo. So, if you haven’t checked out uh all the new merch that we have on our website, it’s at barnsbullets.com. Merchandise. We’ve got a lot of new shirts and a lot of new hats. So, wanted to put that out there. Also, we just set up a new email address that we want people to start sending in their questions to the podcast and that’s going to be podcastbullets.com. Pretty easy email. So, can they use it to suggest topics or just questions? I think first off, we’d like to get like any user questions. I mean, it’s pretty open. Uh, you can also, you know, request photos of Mitchell’s goats. I’ll send them potentially. Um, you know, if you got any questions for Allan, if you got any questions for Greg, um, we could throw those in there. but podcastbesullets.com. You’ll be able to send in your questions, user user questions. And I think that every couple months we’re going to kind of look through there, figure out some questions, you know, depending on how many we get in and do podcasts strictly on answering consumers questions. So, that’ll be good. I’m excited. Yeah, I think that’ll be fun. So, with that, um, now that we’re a couple minutes in, we’ve got all the all the things knocked out that we wanted to there. Let’s talk about the topic today. And again, we’re in midepptember. So, hunting season is starting to get in full swing kind of out west. Um, probably about to kick off in, you know, the on the east coast, Midwest, mostly archery seasons except South Carolina and a few others. But we want to talk why you would choose light projectiles or heavy projectiles for your I think hunting loads is mainly what we want to talk about, right? Yeah. I think we should mostly focus on hunting um for this conversation. Like you said, light versus heavy. Yeah. Why one over the other? Where does one shine? you know, we can we can really deep dive into the why behind this selection both from a bullet projectile. You know, obviously the weight is what we’re considering, right? Whether you’re a hand loader or you’re shooting our loaded ammunition, you’ve got to make the decision either way, right? Which bullet should I shoot? Which weight should I shoot? And the why behind it, right? And and also, I mean, with that, I think that we could probably look through some of our offerings that we have in loaded ammo. um you know we were kind of talking offline as we kind of discussed doing this type of topic right was like why are some out selling others when there’s a better offering out there you know so be it a light load a heavy load whatever that it is so I think that’s that’s kind of where we’re going to start is let let’s start with why you would choose a light load um in a certain situation. And I guess, you know, if you were only going to have one bullet for your specific caliber cartridge, you know, why would you want to select a light load versus a heavy load? Yeah. Um and I’d love to hear your ballistics thought process from it from your side. And then I’d like to hear your engineering brain tell me why he’s wrong and you should shoot heavy or vice versa. I think there’s a time and a place for both. You know, I think we can definitely deep dive into that. Um, you know, when you say things like you can only pick one. Yeah. Okay. That might change things a little bit. Um, but I think it’s worth addressing up front and we can just I’m not going to exactly ask your answer your question yet. Okay. because I think it’s worth hitting right off the bat of and we’re not only going to talk about the Barnes copper bullets today, TSX, TTSX, LRX. We can talk about lead core as well. Yeah. Um we talk about some of the TGKs we load in Harvest, right? Um we can Yeah, because I mean with Harvest, right, like we loaded a lot of heavy for caliber um in that lead. So that yeah, we can talk about the Pioneer, you know, with the original. We have some really heavy forc caliber offerings there. And those are going to be good examples as kind of the why in certain scenarios you would make that choice. Um, and with that, I think it’s worth addressing up front though with a monolithic copper projectile. Um, you know, the Barnes offers, you know, some great options be the TSX, TTSX, LRX or in the loaded Vortex or Vortex LR ammo. um as well as muzzle loader bullets with the you know the Barnes copper muzzle loader, the TEZ, the TMZ, the Magnum MZ, um the copper pistol bullets with the XPvs. Really, one of the things up front worth mentioning is obviously um because of the high weight retention Mhm. that you get with these bullets, they penetrate deep. Yeah. Right. I mean, that’s a known performance characteristics of a monolithic copper bullet is you get good penetration. Yeah. So, with that, there’s some drawbacks being the material, you know, and Mitchell may want to deep dive into this, but with the density of the material, the copper isn’t as dense. It doesn’t have a lead core. Um, and then with that big open cavity, we can be longer for a given caliber and weight versus a traditional lead core of the same caliber and weight. Um, so use that to your advantage. You know, right off the bat, you’re already getting in penetration. you can step up in weight from what would be considered traditional weight offering for a given cartridge and application. Yeah, depending on the species that you’re going to go hunt. Um, take that to your advantage. And that’s where I would start off by saying the reason, one of the reasons you’re going to shoot lighter is because with our copper bullets, you can and it can actually work to your advantage as a benefit um to give you better performance. And we can deep dive into why and where, you know, but really to me I want to address that is right up front, right off the bat with the copper bullets, you can get away with a lighter than normal offering and use it to your advantage to actually get performance gains in some areas. So when you say quote lighter than normal, you’re putting the normal as a lead core. Yeah. I’d say traditional. Yeah. traditional, you know, and I think even to that point, a lot of times I think we as hunters, you know, we are we can be very traditional, right? Um, we can go off of what we know, what we’re comfortable with, and sometimes for good reason. Um, what our dad shot, what our grandpa shot, what we grew up with, what we read, what sounds normal. If I’m shooting a a 30 six, I want a 180 grain bullet or a 300 Win Mag, you know, with a 180 grain. And you know, you could say where the traditional weight for a 270 might be, you know, that one’s there’s maybe an argument to be made that 130 is as popular as 140’s ever been. But yeah, that’s what I mean by that is compared to a normal traditional cup and core lead core projectile. With a copper projectile, you can get away with lighter and still get good performance because of that weight retention. Once you hit an impact with a lead core bullet, you’re shedding more weight. Right. Generally. Yeah. Um, and so what you’re left with could actually be less material than what you started with in comparison to a copper bullet, right? Because you retain more of it. Yeah. One one thing, it’s funny that you brought up a 270 because I was actually over here googling something because I wanted to prove a point, but um, so I, you know, I we’ve talked about it multiple times on the podcast, right? I grew up shooting a 270. I hunted with 270 for a long time. And you kind of look at what the quote traditional load is for a 270 is like 150 grain bullet. But when I started shooting a 270 and started shooting Barnes 20 plus years ago now, um I instantly went to the 130 Mhm. for whatever reason, right? And and it was like I don’t think my mind wrapped around other than it’s a lighter bullet, it’s going to go faster. And because of understanding what a monolithic can do with that deeper penetration, I was like, I’m still going to get the performance that I need out of it. Why shoot a 150 if I can get away with it with a for 130? I’ve killed elk with it. I’ve killed white tails. I’ve killed hogs, right? I’ve killed all these different species with it. So, it still does it. So, it it’s I don’t want to like give away the ending, if you will, of the podcast, but I always lean to the lighter side of things because I like that performance of speed and I know it’s still going to hit hard, right? Yeah. Are you saying copper bullets or all bullets in general? I’m saying copper bullets mainly, right? is because that’s why again I go back to it’s like I was shooting copper, I was shooting TTSXs, right? So like I went to 130 grain bullet to load in my 270 and then when I started loading for my seven rim mag, right, I loaded a 140 instead of loading a 150 or 160. So anyway, sure. Go for it, Mitchell. I I know you’re itching to get in. Yeah. Yeah. I uh I got the same opinion. Um, copper bullets, you can get away with a lot lighter bullet. I think uh, you know, popular 65 Creedmoor, you have a a copper 120 or 127 grain that’s going to retain more weight than a traditional lead core 140 grain. Yeah. Um, and as I design bullets, it’s often you get requests from guys all the time. They want heavier. They want heavier. Uh, they don’t understand there’s limitations to copper bullets. Um, but a really good case study is the 7PRC. Yep. Everyone wanted a heavier bullet. We make 168 grain that works and everyone thought we were going to load that. Well, we didn’t. We loaded a lighter 160 grain. Developed and loaded, right? Like I mean, you went and developed a bullet specifically for that cartridge, right? So, I can optimize that for the the 7PRC. It has a more aggressive nose shape. It’s sleeker. Uh, I think both tail lengths about the same, but really fits that 7PRC a lot better. And I actually get a higher BC with the 160 grain and you get velocity. Yeah. So, you have two good things going for you versus the 168 that everyone wants because it’s heavier. But when you run ballistics, it’s not. And you if you think 160 versus 168 in terms of uh penetration or any real world performance, Yeah. it’s not there. Yeah. And I think there are times depending on bullet material where that is kind of more that conventional wisdom that that common thought of you’re almost compensating, right? You’re making up for lack of robustness, material, and strength of the projectile by shooting a heavy for caliber, say like in a cup cup and core projectile. Yeah. Um maybe not even realizing that’s the why. I think the simple terms a lot and we hear this when people call in and we talk to people at trade shows and we talk to people on the phone. It’s almost like and I’m not dogging on anybody. I think it’s just I’m trying to help educate but I think there’s a lack of understanding if somebody doesn’t really deep dive into ballistics and they they’re not fully, you know, researching and they’re not shooting it every day like you guys are. They’re not they may just look at the number and think heavier equals more power, right? Whatever power is, define power however you want to. But in their mind, it’s like power, right? We all love higher horsepower engines. Yeah. You know, faster is always better, bigger is always better, more torque, however you want to look at it. Like if you’re a truck guy or whatever. I mean, if you’re going to be American, you want bigger is better, right? For everything, right? And so for some reason in their mind, and I get why, it’s kind of just that normal thought process of, well, the heavier’s got to be more powerful, which again, depending on how that bullet was developed, how it was designed, how it’s intended to expand or not expand, retain weight or not retain weight. Um, you know, there are times where you will compensate for lack of construction by purposely shooting a heavier caliber projectile to get more penetration. you know, okay, maybe if you’re shooting a bullet that’s more in the 60 70% weight retention, you know, you’re going to step up in weight and maybe you’re telling yourself, I’m also doing it for higher BC. You know, I think Mitchell brought up a good point though of the best of both worlds is can I keep my muzzle velocity up and get good BC if I’m talking long range shooting and long range hunting. You know, we’re only shooting out to 300 yards, maybe it’s not as critical. Um, yeah, I think that you brought up a good point there. Like the 7PRC, um, the 160 grain stomps the 168 MBC. Plus, it’s lighter. You get more muzzle velocity, you get less wind drift, you get more retain velocity downrange, and on top of that, you know, we purposely engineered that bullet to expand to a larger diameter at a low velocity. So, it really is for long-range hunting, the best of all aspects. Yeah. So, the other the other angle to look at, so the 160 was a a very different design bullet. Um, it’s interesting to look at like a 30 cal 160 VI versus a 30 cal 180 grain. Those are the same O drive, aren’t they? The TTSX in 300 mag version. Yeah. Yeah. That goes in ammo. Um, so we’re not all you’re changing from the 165 to 180 grain is 15 grains and you just add shank length. You don’t there’s no difference in the boat tail, no difference in the Ojive. So those are really the big factors that affect your BC. So when you’re stepping up 15 grains in weight, you just the percent difference is weight is really the percent difference in BC. And often times muzzle velocity trumps that. You get a higher gain in muzzle velocity going to a lighter projectile and you still get a good enough BC. And I think that’s worth noting as well. You can if you run ballistics a lot of the time lighter bullets do just as well. Yeah. I mean it’s funny because I feel like you guys are hitting on things like as as I’m thinking of something to talk about like you’re already kind of like everybody’s kind of on the same wavelength here, right? Because that was where I was going was like couldn’t you argue that a heavier bullet’s going to give you a little bit higher BC? But again like you said you’re going to lose muzzle velocity. So that gain muzzle velocity is going to almost make up for the BC lost of the of the weight potentially. Yeah. I mean like like Mitchell brought up, the 160 is a more streamlined profile. So even though it’s lighter, it has a higher BC than our 168 LRX, but you’re right in in a normal comparison, generally speaking, the heavier the higher BC potentially depending on its overall shape, boat tail, you know that there’s other factors. weight is one of them though that will help in BC. And I’m glad you actually said good enough BC because that’s honestly like at the end of the day like I like to get technical. Um man I work in a ballistics lab. I I get into the numbers obviously. Um I’m not the Mitchell engineer but I’m a pretty technical guy but when it really comes down to it I try to look at things especially when I go to the field. I’m a very practical perspective and I use this term and I have for a lot of years. Um, and that’s good enough BC. Give me velocity and a bullet with a good enough BC. Yeah. I’ll take it every day, right? You know, I’m not I’m not going to get wrapped around, well, this BC is 25 points higher, but I’m going to lose 200 feet per second muzzle velocity in order to shoot. It doesn’t matter, right? You got to look at it from a practical application perspective. Um, I I did think of a story that I want to back up when Mitchell said about the 65 and you brought up the 120 grain and the 127. Um, this goes back a long time ago. Um, I’m going to say like 14 15 years ago. I’ve talked multiple times about my 65284 Norma on this podcast. Um, you know, people if you’ve listened to this, you know that’s a favorite of mine. Back then we did not build a 127 grain LRX. It’s before the LRX was offered. That’s when been one of my favorite projectiles to load in that cartridge. Um, but back then we didn’t build a 127. Um, we it the 120 grain TTSX was actually fairly newer offering. And then we had the 130 grain TSX. Okay. Um, I was going to go hunt elk. Um, it was a cow elk hunt. I had a cow elk tag. Um, I had this X524 rifle. You know, I was more of a deer gun, but I wanted to go hunt a cow elk with it. And I knew the 120 grain TTSX would would work awesome. But my question was like, hey, maybe I should load the 130. You know, we build this 130 grain TSX. I was going to keep shots. You know, I figured potentially 3 400 yards and in. Should I shoot the 120 TTSX or should I shoot the 130 TSX? I was going to handload obviously either way. So, I had some time. Um, I I decided, hey, I’m going to go test it. So, I actually was out in the lab, set up a gel block, um, simulated I downloaded to simulate like a 200 yard impact velocity, and I loaded up and shot gel ballistics gel with a 120 grain TTSX, a 130 grain TSX. Mhm. And I actually had some old uh, Spear Grand Slam 140 grain, okay, lead core, which is a heavy well- constructed lead core projectile. You know, Grand Slams are not like a they’re not meant to really fragment. They’re meant to mushroom but really retain weight. You know, it’s a it’s a good constructed bullet. And so I thought, well, that will be kind of my baseline. Nobody’s going to bat an eye on, hey, I’m going to shoot an elk with 140 grain grand slam. Yeah. So, I shot gel with all three. Mhm. And the 120 TTSX out penetrated the 140 grain grand slam, which is pretty awesome when you think about it. Yeah. Right. Um because 140 grain is going to have a higher sectional density. In theory, it should penetrate deep. Grand Slam has a high weight retention. It’s not a fragmenting bullet. Um the 130 TSX looked good. It performed awesome. The Grand Slam looked good. I’m not gonna say it didn’t look good. Um but it was amazing because that little 120 penetrated further than the 140. Still more penetration, plenty of penetration for an elk. Got huge expansion, big wound cavity, and I actually liked its performance over the 130 TSX as far as the the gel cavity. And so it helped me give me confidence. Hey, I’m going to go load this and shoot an elk. So I did. Ended up killing a cow elk at 400 y. Um, put it in this shoulder. It exited this shoulder. It dumped it and take two steps. Everything in between was tore up, you know, and so there you go. Somebody might say, “Hey, 65 is on the small side for elk. 120 grains definitely on the light side for a 65, you know, diameter bullet, right?” But based off that experience 15 plus years ago, I just thought there’s a firsthand example of you would think that’s lighter, but I took it to my advantage. Got muzzle velocity up a little bit, a little bit flatter shooting. The TTSX had a good BC, especially compared to a 130 TSX and a 140 Grand Slam. So, I also had the BC on my advantage for wind drift and retain velocity. So, so as you’re talking about this, this makes me think of something that I wanted to ask about. Um, recently I sent Brady some ammo to test. Um, you know, we’re doing that mountain goat hunt here next month and he’s shooting a 65 PRC. So, I shot him or I sent him both the 127 LR, right? Long range ammo. And then I also sending the 65 PRC 130 grain TSX. Yeah. For the mountain goat hunt, what would be your thought knowing that the shots shouldn’t be further than 300 yards? um knowing that they’re pretty tough critters that you you want that quote knockdown pack out type of Yeah. uh performance, right? That because that’s one thing with mountain goats is you don’t want them to run because potentially they fall off a cliff or something like that, right? You’re trying to knock them down in their tracks. What would be your recommendation for Brady for me to tell Brady as we go further? I mean, I know that they’re both going to probably perform pretty dang well. Yeah. But um you know I look back and it’s like our 65 PRC 127 is crushing, right? Like it like it does really really well. We sell it well. Um but the 130 doesn’t really sell that well. So my my initial thought was like the 130 is going to be fine. Um and it’s a way for us to help promote that a little bit more. Like what’s your thoughts on it? So first I’ll just add um the 130 TSX that I’m referring to was actually the flatbed version. Okay. Um that’s a component. The 130 TSX that we load in the 65 PRC ammo is a boat tail version. Okay. So that is a little bit different. Um but just anyways back to your question. I mean because I’m looking at BC over here, right? And and you look at it and it’s like 468 for the 127 with like a Making sure that I get my numbers correct 411. Yeah. With 30. This would be my suggestion. And you’re right. You hit it already. They’re both going to work. Yeah. Um, if I knew, and you never can know, but you always can put limits on yourself, the terrain you’re hunting them in, where are they hanging out, if you’ve done scouting, you know, more than likely, are you going to be less than 400 yards? Yeah. Or do you have an opportunity that you could potentially have a shot outside of 400 yards? If you were going to shoot five potentially 600 yards on a mountain goat with a 65 PRC, I would suggest the 127. Yeah, it’s a higher BC. It’s going to do better to retain velocity. It’s going to have less wind drift with a 468 BC versus a 411. Right. They’re close enough in weight. You’re not a huge advantage to velocity, but there is a big enough advantage in BC. Yeah. And the 127 being an LRX is designed to expand to a larger diameter at a lower velocity versus the 130. Um, if you’re like, you know, I’m not going to shoot past 300 yards. Um, and I just want to go as heavy as I can. You know, you could argue mountain goats are tough. Yeah. You know, they’re not necessarily big animals, but they’re known to be tough. Um, and I’d say, hey, shoot the 130 TSX. Yeah. I mean, to me, they’re just they’re very dense animals, right? And and and they’re front end dense, and that’s obviously where you’re shooting as well. So, that’s why I looked at it. And I mean, my thought also was like with the TSX, right? It’s known for a little bit faster expansion. We’ve already talked about that on on on a on a podcast in the past, right? Is that it’s going to have a little bit faster expansion than like an LRX if if I’m remembering correctly how we kind of spoke with that, right? It’s just they both expand quickly. Yeah. Um the the TSX will have higher weight retention at high velocity. Got it. Um it’s going to expand to a smaller diameter at a lower velocity compared to an LRX. You know, if you impacted a mountain go at 100 yards. Yeah. at 65 PRC velocity, you could shed a pedal on an LRX, where on a TSX, you’re more than likely going to have full weight retention. Okay? And again, that’s more designed 300 yard in, I’d shoot the the 130 green. Well, and and the reason that I say that, you know, I would say for most mountain goats, right, if you were just drawing a tag and going on a hunt and everything, a lot of times that people are probably going to say a 500 yard shot’s probably not going to be out of the question, right? But being that we are going to Alaska, being that we’re doing a guided hunt and all that and and speaking with the outfitter, right? Um that was one of the things that he said. He’s like, “I want the shots to be 300 yards in because I want to pin those animals. I want to make sure.” And he’s like, “If we can get to 100 yards, we’re going to damn sure try to get to 100 yards because it it takes so many things out of the equation.” So, sorry to kind of It’s a good question. I honestly and and send him both and let him shoot both. Well, and that was my thought, right? is like, “Hey, I’ll send you some. You shoot them. You like go hunt with what you want. I’m not going to like force you to shoot one specific thing.” But, you know, I I I would love for you to be able to shoot this 130 just because I think that it gives an opportunity for us to to show something that probably hasn’t been getting near the love that these other things have. One good thing on that 130 I can say, and the one this isn’t to take away from the 127 and the 65PRC, that Vortex LR load shoots awesome. Um, but that 130 grain TSX in the Vortex load, it flat out shoots. Like from an accuracy standpoint, just in our test barrels in the range when we’re producing that ammo, that load can shoot. It’s pretty forgiving. Yeah. I remember the first time we we launched that was right around COVID time frame. And out of accuracy, well, uh, PV barrels, it was just shooting stupid groups. And PV barrels are kind of hit or miss just the way they’re mounted. They’re not meant to shoot accuracy well. They’re they’re kind of just snugged up to to shoot pressure and velocity. But when he was getting half inch groups consistently across PV barrels, act barrels, rifles, and I don’t know, from a design standpoint, when you design bullets, it’s no different from anything else. But sometimes you just get a a magic bullet that has the right the right oive shape and the right bearing surface to diameter ratio and for whatever reason they just it works out and it just is super forgiving. Um but that thing is a shooter. Yeah. So if you’re trying to pin it, get it exactly in the shoulder, you know, if he if he shoots both loads and shoots 3/4 inch with the 127 but shoots half or better with the the 130, right? All else being equal, and like you said, you’re hopefully going to keep him within 300 yard shots. Yeah, that 130 is probably a good choice. Okay. I feel like we just kind of like jumped right into like deeper conversations rather than letting you go That’s all good. Light and heavy. But with that, you know, we have in our 308, right? We’ve got three different weights. Yeah. For that 130, 150, and 168. Why would you choose the 130 over the 150 over the 168 or vice versa? Good one. It’s a good question. Um, this is one that I think really depends on your game. Now, again, we’ve already talked about this. They’re all copper bullets. Yeah, they’re all going to have good weight retention. Um, but 130 grain TTSX is a very short shanked bullet. Um, a lot of the weight in that projectile because of the caliber being so large at 30 caliber, it’s mostly in the nose. It’s mostly in the ojive. That bullet expands very well. You’re not left with a ton of shank left, right? And it’s only 130 grain, 30 cal. The sectional density is quite low. Um, they don’t penetrate, you know, super deep. I mean, they do penetrate deep. You’re blowing right through a deer. Yeah. Um, but do you feel like it would be light on an elk side? I think it’d be light. Um, perfect outside 200 yards or so. Yeah. And not that you couldn’t do it like my my suggestion, throw it wind, the 130 grain is an awesome load. It’s an awesome deer load. It’s high velocity. You know, most people don’t associate 308 win with velocity. Um, you can look at it right there, but I think our box velocity is like 31 3125 somewhere right in there. 3125. 3125. I told you I got a lot of numbers in saying I don’t know what they mean, but Yeah. 3125. That’s smoking fast. Yeah. You know, everyone’s like, “Oh, 65 Creedmore. That’s a 308 win with a 130 grain going 3125.” Yeah. Um, no. There’s doesn’t have a ton of BC. Um, that’s a But if you’re going to shoot deer out of 300 yards, analopee, whitetail, mu deer, that 130 is awesome. It shoots flat, it shoots fast, it expands awesome. Um, now if I may go hunt elk with a 308, it’s not going to be my choice. You know, this is a good example of where I would air on the side of more traditional weight, 150, maybe even 168 grain. Um, I know I talked to you both this morning was was showing off pictures. My niece had a youth elk tag in Utah just this past weekend. Um she killed a bull just a couple days ago. She used a 308, you know, with the suppressor lightweight. It was a Savage ultral light with the carbon barrel. Um we wanted something that was capable on elk. She’s only 12-year-old girl. Hasn’t done a ton of shooting. You know, she doesn’t need to shoot a 7 PRC or a 300 Win Mag, right? We knew the shots we’re going to try to keep as close as possible, you know, so she could have good success. but put a suppressor on it and I actually had help side in the gun and I went with the 168 TTSX. Okay. Um it shot good in that gun. I’m thinking she’s shooting elk with a 308, you know, let’s give her, you know, as much added benefit as we can from a from a weight perspective. Um but it’s not like I got to go load 180 grain bullet because I’m going to hunt elk with a 38 win. You know, 168’s plenty heavy enough, ton of weight retention, good sectional density. That 168 TTSX expands really well across the velocity range. Um and it it worked awesome. She ended up killing a bull. I think she hit it somewhere around 150 yards. Nice. Um behind the shoulder. It went maybe 30 yards. Um it was dying. My brother had to do a follow-up shot. She put it in the neck and it just dumped it. Nice. So that’s awesome. Now, could she have killed that bull with a 150 grain TTSX? Absolutely. Um could she have killed it with a 130? Probably. You know, absolutely. But that’s where I’m gonna air more on 308 win on a bull elk. I’m gonna be in that 150 to 168. Well, and I think, you know, you kind of hit the nail on the head as we started to talk about that, right? Is like I know I started the conversation with if you were only going to be able to pick one, would you pick light or heavy? Um, but I think that there’s always the, you know, know your intended game. Yeah. Right. Or or what you’re hunting. let’s say 90% of the time and then go with what makes sense for you. Well, and I think there’s a balance. You know, Mitchell started hitting on this and you even brought this up like all things considered, what is my cartridge? You know, what’s the velocity range of that cartridge? You know, we’ll talk one here in a minute. I know we we kind of talked offline, the 7M Remag. Yeah, we’ve got some good choices there. And there’s some pretty good opinions as to why you’d pick one over the other. Yeah. Little bit different scenario than a three-way win on that one. Yeah, that I would argue. Um, but anyways, it’s a balance of good enough BC. We already talked about that. Muzzle velocity, where’s that tradeoff, you know? I mean, if you’re giving up two, three, 400 feet per second muzzle velocity to gain very minimal in BC, you know, and I’m never going to shoot past 400 yards, you’re kind of missing it, right? Right. You know, you could spin it the other way. You know, I have examples. I’ve talked about my 300 Win Mag that I built with a 1 and8 twist specifically to shoot the 208 grain LRX. You know, it’s a great bullet. It’s a super high BC. It’s designed to expand at low velocity. You know, if you really want to push the limits with long range hunting in a 300 Win Mag or any 30 caliber Magnum, that 208 grain LRX is it’s awesome. Well, I mean, and you could even go further, right? Like in with the reserve and doing and then doing the Super Wisdom, right? With the 300 Super Wism with the 212. I mean, you start doing the math on that, right, and it quickly becomes a six 800 yard gun and it’s like that doesn’t make sense, right? Yeah. And you’re But you’ve gone so far the other way. The 212 Bor Rider has a BC of what, like 705 G15 and that retain velocity and energy down range, right? So, you don’t need 3200 feet per second in the front of the muzzle to get the gain. It’s efficient enough at 28 2850. Yeah. Okay. So there again very different scenario than hey which bullet weight are you going to choose in 30 win right there’s another thing I think we should bring up and that’s I kind of mentioned briefly more the extreme on the heavy for caliber with my 208 grain um there are times and and examples and I’ve done it personally and I’ve talked to a lot of people over a lot of years that have great success with Barnes copper bullets pushing them lightning fast and going super light for caliber I I mean, we get guys and we even like joke about it to a point cuz they go almost so extreme, but let’s talk like 110 grain TTSX loaded in a even 30 out six, maybe even three in a Winback. Um 110 grain 270. Yeah. I mean, that’s a product that we actually have in Vortex. We offer now 110 grain TTSX in 270 Win. Um it’s a newer offering. You can pull it up there. I think muzzle velocity on that one’s I’m just guessing right here, but I’m going to say it’s like 33. I’ll let I’ll wait until you pull it up. Were you going to say something, Mitchell? I was going to guess, but it was way higher than what what Greg said. So, I want to say more. I could be way wrong. I should have just waited. I think you said 35 yesterday, but I could have. That seems too high. Anybody’s final answer? I’m I’m too high. 3350 higher. Yeah. 3410. 3410. That’s smoking. Yeah. So, but because it’s copper, it’s not going to hit bone and muscle and just completely bomb, you know, and have zero integrity to that bullet. That bullet is designed to function at the high velocity. You get crazy lightning fast. You’re flat shooting as all get out. Now, it’s a low BC bolt. That bolt is not designed for 5, 6, 7, 800 yard shots on game. But if you want to point and shoot super flat, super fast, 300 yards, 300 yard in for deer and analopee and white tail, you’re going to flatten stuff. Yeah. Because it’s going to hit, it’s going to expand like crazy. You’re still going to penetrate. You still have the integrity because it’s a monolithic solid. And so it’s kind of the example on the other way. You know, we’ve had guys load 110 grain TTSXs and 300 WSM. Um, we get guys that call in and want data for 110 grains and a 300 Ultra Mag, you know. Okay, maybe they’re getting a little carried away there, but it’s just kind of the example on the other other end of the spectrum of where you can use it to your advantage, you know, to get the benefits of shorter time of flight, flat shooting, high velocity. Okay, I don’t need to worry that I don’t have some crazy high BC because I’m not going to shoot past 400 yards anyways. Yeah. And I’m get the benefits of a flat shooting solution all the way to three or 400 yards, you know, that’s going to hit like crazy when it gets there, too. Yeah, I think that’s that’s overlooked so often. Oh, yeah. Even myself. Um, I just built a seven PRC. I’m looking at the box as I was sighting it in today and it’s got 6 in of drop at 300 yards, which isn’t a ton, but I just had a a stupid 65300 I had. I mean, it was like two, three inches of drop, right? And you don’t have to compensate at all for a really long time. Now, it has a much lower BC, but um when you’re dialing, there’s so much less air. Yeah. Just because it’s flat shooting. A 7 PRC or 300 PRC, they’re they’re kind of big rainbows, but you get very minimal wind drift. you have higher uh retained velocity and energy, but as far as drop, faster um it’s always going to or I mean to a point, but generally fast and light is going to be a lot flatter shooting. It’s going to have more drift, but even a super high BC projectile like the 300 PRC 2008 grain, the thing drops like a tank. So, I mean, you you talk about the higher velocities and the and and retain velocity downrange, right? That’s where I my head went, you know, and this was again 10 plus years ago when I started kind of reloading for myself and everything else. And I definitely did not know near what I know today about ballistics or anything else, but I was like, I know that most my shots are 300 yards and in, so why wouldn’t I shoot a lighter bullet that’s still going to hit hard? And I don’t, you know, I I used to just always sight my stuff in it dead on at 200. And I was like, “Okay, cool. I’m an inch and a half to two inches low at three. Big deal. Don’t have to worry about any hold over. Don’t worry about I mean I never had a dial scope or anything like that on turrets, right? It was just, oh, I need to hold high shoulder at 300 or 350 and then anything less than that, it’s just deadon and you just knock it down where you need to because again, I’m a shoulder shooter and that’s what I want. So that’s, you know, why I started shooting copper even way back then. Well, and like Mitchell just reminded me of this thought when you said your 65300 and that was a 65300 Win Mag custom rifle, but I remember when Weatherbe launched their 65300 Weatherbe um cartridge and and their rifles and they actually started loading and they still load our 127 grain LRX as one of the offerings, one of the bullet offerings in that ammo line in that. Yeah. I mean, it’s something like 3500 give or take. Screaming. I remember doing a rider event um way back when we did out a range and one of the riders had brought along it was it was Joseph Bon Benedict. He brought along a a Weatherbe rifle that they just sent him. He was doing some work with um and just we had some extra time after the event. So he broke it out. We were shooting it cuz I never shot one. It was like brand new and he had some of those 127s and we were pretty limited on shots cuz like he only had so much ammo, you know, it’s super high. But I remember shooting it. You we shot at like 300 yards and we were out at our outdoor range. We had a steel target at 1,000 yards and I remember we dialed up, you know, we’re just rough doing some numbers. He hadn’t shot this gun past like 230 yards. We ended up being something like 15 or 16 MOAs all adjustment to get to a,000 yard zero. Crazy. Which if you’ve shot along long any amount of long range, you know, that’s like crazy flat. Yeah. So, to your point, you know, yeah, the 127 doesn’t have the highest BC. It’s good. It’s good enough BC. It’s high force. But when you start launching at 3500 feet per second, all of a sudden you’re in a whole other realm of performance. Yeah, for sure. It’s uh it’s one less thing to think about, too. Kind of almost like the analopee gun concept, just point and shoot, right? Um so, under quick shots, high stress, just point and shoot or like I’m taking my wife out uh just in I guess three weeks on her elk hunt. Um it’d be nice to have a flatter shooting rifle, just pull up and shoot. I don’t want to at 300 yards. I don’t want to tell her, “Okay, dial 2 MOA.” I’d rather just say, “Okay, shoot it.” Right? So, I mean, what’s your thoughts on just making the zero at 300 and then, you know, if it’s within 300, it’s just like basically it’s the difference of holding on its heart or just holding midshoulder. Yeah, that’s actually what I did today. Okay. Um, our box is zero at 200, you’re 1.3 high at 100, 6 in low at 300. So, I just cranked it up at 100. So, I’m maybe two inches high. I haven’t seen what my true zero is. It’s probably more like 250. Yeah. Um and your drop at 300 is maybe reduced to 30 in. So at that point, right, like it’s basically you could hold center of the shoulder if you would on an elk, you know, at 300 yards and it’s probably going to hit into its let’s call it its heart lower part of its shoulder. Or if you needed to, you could say hold high shoulder and it’s going to just center mass it. Right. Yeah. What I like to do and kind of what you just got to and it depends the setup, right? If if I’ve got a, you know, you mentioned an analopee gun. If I’ve got a scope that’s kind of more what I’m going to say old school, maybe it’s a higher power optic, but I don’t have modern turrets that are resettable to zero and, you know, have indicators of how many MOA have come up or anything like that. It’s like old school like I want to be able to shoot three 400 yards. I am in go with the more like 300 yard zero. Yeah. But I need a flat shooting cartridge to get me there, right? Otherwise, you’re mid-range, you’re just too high. I do. I never want to think about me personally. I never want to think about in the field, I got to hold low, right? That’s just my mind doesn’t go there. My mind can go, I got to hold high, right? You know, when it’s out there 400 yards, hold on its back or depending on the the drop, but my mind never just maybe it’s just me. I don’t work in hold low. Yeah. And so what I actually do with even my modern long-range rifles and hunting rifles, um, I’m a 100 yard zero guy no matter what. That doesn’t mean that you have to hunt with it on 100 yard zero, but I base everything off a 100 yard zero. That’s my zero stops at 100 yards. That’s what my drop date is all based off of. I run everything off 100 yard zero. And one reason is I can get a very consistent zero. I can check that zero anywhere. Right. It doesn’t matter if you’re traveling, where you’re going, you can always generally find a 100 yards to check your gun versus 300 yards. Yeah. You know, so there’s that advantage. And you have your drop data whether it’s a a chart or you got your app on your phone or it’s tied into your rangefinder, you know, or your your Garmin or your watch or however you’re doing it, right? Um doesn’t mean you have to walk around with it on 100 yard and say, “Crap, I’m going to drop 10 inches at 300 yards.” I just dial for 225, 250. And then I know within an acceptable margin of error of the vital zone of a target. Yeah. For me to 300 yards, I just point shoot, right? I don’t need to think about holding low. I don’t need to think about holding high. And then anything past 300 yards, I’m ranging, dialing for the correction, and making that shot. So you dial like 2 MOA or something. Yeah. So walk around with it. I walk around basically. It’s based off a 100 yard zero, you know, but I’ll be dialed for like a 250 yard shot. And then you just walk I just walk around with it at that. If I’m if I’m in the field, my turret’s actually set for a 200 to 250 yard zero depending on the cartridge how flat it is. And then I know from me to 300 yards, I don’t even have to think about it. Yeah, I think that’s an interesting concept. I think that, you know, I go back to like having Jess, right? And she hasn’t shot a lot. She hasn’t killed a lot of animals. So, I mean, my I think my mind kind of goes where your went is like if I can just set it up at 300 yards knowing that like anything inside of that dead. Yeah. Right. And and knowing that more than likely you’re probably going to hold her to a 300ish type of yard shot anyway. Right. So, I think it makes a lot of sense there. But like that that’s an interesting concept to like walk around with it essentially cranked up a little bit or you know giving it a little bit of your MOA. Yeah. There you go. And to this argument and conversation of light for caliber, that’s where if it is super flat shooting, you do have your 110 grain TTSX and a 270. Yeah. Or you’re you decide to handload a 139 grain LRX in your 7PRC instead of shooting our 160, which I’m not saying you do that, but you could. Um, you can have it at 300 yard zero and it’s easy, right? A lot of guys, they want simplicity. Yeah. They don’t want to have to think about it. They don’t want to dial turrets. They don’t want to have to understand MOA or have anything like that. They want to be able to just know that I’m zeroed at 300 yards. I’m in a hold on its back out to 400 depending how flat shooting it is. That kind of thing. Well, and and one thing to talk about that, right, is I recently went on the caribou and the sheep hunt and stuff and I was shooting 257 weather beef for both of those. Well, I had a 300 yard zero because inside of 300 yards, I think my highest point was only like two inches high anywhere. But then I also had a turret on it that I had quick adjustments. I was shooting a Soro. what is Z5 or whatever with the ballistic turret. And I had um that one it has like three little notches that you can just turn it to. And I had it for um 400 or sorry 350 400 and then 450. And then I knew that another six clicks got me to five. So that was just an easy way that you know cuz once you get past that 300 yards it starts dropping off pretty pretty quick. you know, I mean, a couple inches every 50 yard. Um, so that’s why I was like, I want to I want every 50 yard like because that doesn’t really show you your click your clicks. It’s not like regular MOA, right? Because it’s a swarro. So, I just made it where it’s like every 50 yards I did it. And then I checked it on the sheep hunt like in the middle of it and ended up shooting like a five 500 yard target and like smacked it just like click and I was like, “Okay, we’re still good.” Yeah. And then went on the caribou hunt, you know, and crushed. So, what do you got next? Do you want to start talking about seven rim mag? I kind of want to jump into seven rim mag. I have some very strong opinions about our seven rim mag offerings. Okay, let’s um unless Mitchell has anything to jump in with. So, with our seven rim mag, um let’s just talk about all the different offerings we have and why for whatever reason some drastically outsell the others. Yeah. Um why you’re Well, go ahead. Okay. Do we want to go all the way down to reduced recoil or not? Do you want to just do standards? We can add it. It’s all good. So, so we have a reduced recoil at 120, right? Mhm. And then we have 139 grain LRX. Yeah. We have a 140 and 150 in regular Vortex and a TTSX and then a TSX at 160 grain. And then we’ll also kind of throw in that we have harvest collection at 150 grain for your lead. Yeah. So, which I would say the 150 grain harvest is quote your standard right seven uh rim mag. And this is one that’s interesting because outside of the reduced recoil at 120 grain, I would say that our 139 grain LRX loaded in the Vortex LR all the way to the 160 grain TSX loaded in Vortex, they’re all still in a fairly standard weight class, right? We’re not talking 110 grain TTSX at 3500 plus. Um, you know, these are still fairly normal weights, right? 139. You know, there’s lead core 139 offerings in in 7 millimeter. Um, so we’re not like crazy light for caliber, but this one’s an interesting one from the guys who develop the loads, built the bullets, test them, because the reason being the 139 is an awesome load. Um, it’s an LRX bullet, which I love the LRXs. I love the way they expand. Um, they expand to a larger diameter to lower velocity, which I enjoy that performance. I’ve seen where it does great, especially the type of hunting I do. You know, I’m not some crazy go out and try to kill an animal at 1,000 yards by any means, but I regularly encounter three, four, five, six, 700 yard shots. Um, so when I think about those offerings in our loaded ammo, Yeah. I bring it up and I already mentioned I have strong opinions because we know based off of sales that our 150 grain and our 160 grain very much outsells our 139 grain. Yeah. And I find that super interesting. I mean, I’m not trying to bash on either of those products because they’re great products, but I can tell you which one I’d shoot. I can tell you which one I’d shoot. Yeah. Which one would you shoot, Mitchell? He would probably shoot the 160. I I’d do the 139. I have shot the 140 grain. Actually, my first Alkai killed it with that. It didn’t get a pass through, which I was a little I guess I wasn’t upset cuz I recovered two bullets. So, it was really cool. I was going to say, how far did the elk go? Uh, I shot it, it hunched up, I shot it again, and it dropped, right? Um, it was at 300 yards, but I mean 100% the energy went into it. I hit it in the shoulder. Um, but I would like two holes. So, I want to say 139 because it’s a LRX, but just based on my experience, I didn’t get an exit, but I hit shoulder, too. But you shot it with the 140. Yeah. So, it is different bullet, right? Um, I don’t know. So, this is where I’m going to go with this. And again, a guy could argue, hey, if I’m in a hunt elk with a 7 rem, I want a heavier and I’m going to shoot the 150 and I’m going to shoot the 160. Before we get in this, do we have any recent like historical um sales data versus recent sales data? cuz I would like to see if there’s been a shift in the past, let’s call it two to three years. Uh, no, I don’t have any. Mhm. Cuz that’s where I think that you could have potentially seen this shift, right? because with cuz I I I know where you’re going with this, but I I’ll let you go ahead and go, but I I I think that there could be a potential shift of that’s why certain things like the 160, right? Is so Mitchell brings up a fair argument. Um if he if you if you absolutely want to pass through on an elkiz game with a seven mag, that’s where you could make the argument the 150 TTSX and especially the 160 grain TSX is going to be your best option. I mean, if that’s what you’re after. Um, but I bring this up because I’ve seen examples where we’ve participated in um a rider event. I’ll call it this is many years ago. We were doing some work with a with Remington Custom Shop and they were doing it at a long range training school. So, keep in mind this isn’t even hunting right now. They’re using hunting ammunition, right? But the application, the purpose of the training was long-range shooting. Now, it was it was geared towards from a hunter’s perspective. They’re using hunting equipment. Okay. Um but they had custom seven red mag rifles. Um and you know, they looked at the ammunition offerings and automatically just went to the 160 grain. And I think it’s because kind of that traditional kind of normal thought process, conventional wisdom, whatever you want to call it. Well, it’s heavier. It’s got to be better for long range. Um, but it’s interesting because the 139 grain LRX loaded in the Vortex LR ammo has a higher BC than the 160 grain. And it’s a boat tail version that’s loaded in the in the 7 mag um TSX. And it’s not dramatically, but it’s like 47 versus 443. It’s I mean it’s enough to make a difference, especially when you start looking out past 500 yards. Yeah. And so if you think at it from a perspective of we’re doing a long range training school, we’re going to be hitting steel targets beyond 500 yard, right? You know, you really got to take a step back and consider all the performance characteristics, all the factors. So the 139 is obviously a much higher muzzle velocity. Plus, you have higher BC. We already talked about this earlier. So you have the best of both worlds there to have less wind drift, less time of flight, less bullet drop, right? Um and outside of your which was a valid point. Um you know, if you want that objective of a pass through guaranteed on elk, you know, I would say outside of that scenario, hands down, I would select the 139 over the 160. I think a lot of people too, one of the biggest complaints we get is it does pass through, right? People want it to put all the energy into the animal. So, if you’re that type of guy that you you want to shoot a lighter bullet, too. Well, and there’s also the benefit of especially with the TSXs, you know, we’ve already talked about the difference of TSX versus TTSX versus LRX in a previous podcast and kind of the generalized application of those. Um, especially with the TSXs though, I would argue lighter for caliber, especially within 300 yards. You’re going to get higher muzzle velocity, higher impact velocity, you know, less drop, shorter time of flight, and the bullet’s going to expand to a larger diameter, which is going to create a bigger wound cavity, you know. So unless you’re specialized applications of very large game where penetration is everything, you know, that’s when I think and on top of that, it’s a copper bullet, right? So even though it’s lighter than the traditional lead core that you’re comparing it to, it’s still going to have good penetration, you know, and and I go back to it’s like, you know, I was shooting 140 grain. Actually, I’ve killed elk with it as well. Um, and I am almost positive I didn’t get pass through penetration, but I shot Nek in the shoulder and he dropped where he was. So, it’s like it did exactly what I needed to do. One thing that I started looking at and and you kind of hit on it with, you know, shorter time of flight, right? But like I mean, it’s almost 300 feet per second faster to shoot that 139 versus the 160. I mean, that’s a big difference, especially when you start talking about having your drop, right? And and if you’re a shooter that’s not really shooting past three or 400 yards, I mean, again, to go back to Mitchell’s point, to go back to your point about, you know, having hold over, having to, you know, make a couple adjustments or something like that to shoot 300 yards if you want to be a 100red yard zero guy or a 200 yard zero guy, whatever it is. I mean, that that makes a big difference to me and and I would rather have that faster speed and know that it’s still going to penetrate, but maybe you don’t get the complete pass through, but at the same time, I mean, maybe you will, but I would ask, did you shoot both? Did you shoot your elk in the shoulder both times? Mhm. Okay. So, I did the same thing, right? So, now you’re talking bull elk at you said 300ish yards. 300. And I think I shot mine at like 225, 250, something like that. And I shot mine in the shoulder, right? And it still just dropped. You’re very much maybe didn’t pass through. And I get why you want that. I prefer two holes as well. Um, but you could have done that if you would have shot it behind the shoulder and you’re still getting adequate penetration. Right. Right. You know, it’s still reaching vitals. It’s breaking through bone. It’s not stopping on the onside and and fragmenting and coming apart and not reaching the vitals. Um, but back to your two, this the 160 grain and the 139 grain and the 7 remag. It’s interesting. I have some numbers pulled up here. At 500 yards, and this is based off of muzzle velocity, box velocity at at standard conditions, um, as far as MET data, at 500 yards, the 139 grain is retaining and and traveling just shy of 2200 feet per second. It’s 2192. Um, and that 139 Grand LRX is going to get good expansion at 2200 feet per second. The 160 TSX has dropped below 2,000. It’s going 1982. So again, if we talk about long range hunting, and I don’t want to just talk about long range hunting, but there’s times where it comes up, and you might see where a guy says, “Well, the barns don’t expand as as well at low velocity.” Well, which bullet are you using? It’s it’s unfair really to go compare a TSX that was really designed for 300 yards and in. And there’s rare exceptions. You know, we’ve talked about the 162 grain TSX boat tail that we developed for the 28 Nosler. That’s a special exception. Yeah. Right. There’s some of those that are outside the the norm, but generally speaking, as a family, TSX bullets aren’t designed necessarily for 5600 yard hunting. The LRX is, you know, so again, it’s your application. If if your goal is bull elk and two 300 yards is your further shot, then maybe you can make the argument why the 160 is a better choice. Yeah. If your if your goal is bull elk at 5 600 yards all day long I’m going to take the 139. Well, and as you were kind of looking at that and you’re looking at velocity, I’m looking at retained energy. Right. So, one thing that I think is kind of interesting is that the 160 at 500 yards is just below 1,400 foot-lbs of energy. Right? It’s 1396 where that 139 is 1452. So, lighter bullet is still carrying more energy at 500 yards because it’s traveling faster. Exactly. Yeah. So, I’m going to I’m going to blow a lot of people’s minds here. When we’re running these calculations and you look at the the backend math, 139 and 160 grain going into the math, it doesn’t do anything to the trajectory, the drift, the drop, anything. It’s the only number that that goes into is the energy. So, you have to look at BC. Yep. You can I mean, try it at home. Take your ballistic app, look at your drop, change your grain weight from 160 to 300 or 10 grains. It doesn’t change your drop, doesn’t change your drift. The only thing that goes into the calculation is BC. So, you talk about that long range shooting school and those guys are saying, “Hey, I want the 160 grain. It’s got it’s going to have less drop and have more retained energy.” No, you got to look at the BC. Grain weight means nothing. Grain weight goes into the energy, right? but is in terms of the math on the ballistic calculator is 100% BC for drop and drift which surprisingly a lot of people don’t know. Yeah. No, it’s I’m glad you brought that up because you’re absolutely right. And again, you have the added benefit of not only higher BC on this example with a much higher muzzle velocity. Right. Yeah. So, in the application of long range shooting, why would you ever pick the 160 grain in a seven round mag in the Vortex ammo over the 139? We’re not selling We’re not saying not to buy that ammo as well, right? It’s just it’s it’s application dependent, right? And and that’s one thing that we always try to explain to people is that I mean, I even go back to when we launched Harvest, right? Is why in the hell would you guys ever launch Harvest? Because we’re loading lead. We’re not telling you to change. It’s just this is for a different application and we’re just trying to give people options. And that’s why we have four or five different loads for a seven rim mag is because we want to give people the option to do different things depending on their hunting application. Yeah. Or shooting application. Right. I think that’s a good point to transition real quick too into why do we go heavy for caliber sometimes? Yeah. Um you talked about harvest. you know, some of those, especially if you said, “Hey, some of these are just white tail other thin skin game, right?” Um, why would you load 180 grain in a 306 or why would you load, you know, 140 grain in a 65 Creedmore? Um, and some of that was, you know, the load worked well. That’s where we got good accuracy. Some of that was we are now offering a lead core bullet, right? You know, we wanted to differ from our copper offerings. Well, it it’s kind of funny because for the longest time, right, when we were essentially only doing copper, if you will, um I know that we weren’t. Mitchell, don’t jump jump on me like you did on that guy on YouTube about that, but um you know, when we were quote a copper bullet manufacturer and that’s all we did for loaded ammo is everybody’s like, I want heavier. I want heavier. So then we went heavier on harvest and they’re like, why’d you go so heavy? And it’s like, hold on a second. Like you guys were just preaching something else. Yeah. Sometimes you can’t win. I know. Sometimes you can’t win. No, but that really I mean that a little bit of that was we are now loading this lead core bullet. Yeah. Let’s offer something that differs not only in material but weight offerings. Okay. We have a great 120 grain 65 Creedmore load in the Vortex with the TTSX. We have an awesome 127 grain LRX in the Vortex LR. This allows us to load 140 grain. Right. Yeah. it’s lead corp, but now we have an offering in that weight class that we didn’t before just to broaden our our portfolio and and you know catalog of offerings. Well, and I would almost argue as well that you know I know that some people will get mad at me internally for this but we are a hunting ammunition company, right? Like that is kind of our bread and butter, right? So with that, we think about penetration probably a heck of a lot more than let’s say other people might. Yeah. Um and we want that, you know, one of our taglines is knockdown packout champion. We want that knockdown, you know, power if you will. So by offering these heavier for caliber loads, you’re going to probably achieve a lot more of that. So you know, I think it makes a lot of sense with Harvest. And then also right it goes into what you guys did with Pioneer. Yeah. Of of offering some heavy like very heavy forc caliber stuff. So if you do you want to talk about um some of these Pioneer offerings that we have as well? Yeah. So I mentioned this earlier but from a material perspective one of the disadvantages of copper is it’s not as dense of a material. Right. So means which means for the same caliber and weight you’re going to be longer, right? The projectile is going to be longer to achieve that given weight for caliber. Does that make sense? Yeah. um in copper, meaning if I want to hit a certain weight class in a handgun offering, for example, Pioneer or in a lever gun offering, um I can’t always get there with copper and and fit in magazines or stay within Sammy cartridge raw length or stabilize in a conventional twist. Um we already talked about material, too. Sometimes we we compensate for the lack of the robustness of the material and design by going heavier. um in a lead core and any bullet, but we already talked about that. It’s going to increase sectional density by going heavier for caliber. Yeah. Um it’s going to increase penetration, right? The the originals that are loaded in Pioneer um are designed to have decent weight retention. Um they’re not bonded, but they are thicker jackets. Um they’re not a bullet that just fragments, right? Um they will mushroom um but they don’t just break apart. Yeah. They’re designed to hunt big game. Um, and so with that, we wanted to hit those weight classes that traditional handgun hunters desire. They want penetration. Yeah. And I find this interesting. Um, and I don’t want to get too deep into it and talk about archery and their and their things, but like you’ve mentioned a couple times like you you want two holes. You mentioned on that elk it didn’t exit. You wanted it to exit. Go talk to heavy handgun hunters. They rely on penetration, right? That’s that’s everything, right? They want straight line penetration. You know, you’re shooting large calibers. It’s putting a big hole in it. Sometimes all the way to really big nasty stuff where I don’t want it to pen or to expand at all. I just want it to put a big hole in it. I want it to just drive deep no matter what. Cuz as a bullet mushrooms and expands, it does what? It slows it down. It has more frontal area, more resistance. The more that bullet mushrooms, the less it’s going to penetrate, right? Unless there’s still enough mass driving it forward. So with the Pioneer, we took the opportunity to say we’re using a lead core projectile and we’re going to hit weights that are above the standard to give those end users that desire heavy forc calor offerings in revolvers and in lever guns. So we did a 400 grain in 4570. You know, we did 180 grain in 357, 190 grain in 3030. Um, so where you can really step it up and understanding that these aren’t copper bullets. We’re not relying on super high weight retention like a TSX. Um, and so we’re compensating for that by going heavier for caliber. Yeah. Deeper penetrating um, you know, higher weight retention by having the benefit of that offering being outside of the norm. The other direction, you know, we talked about the benefits with a TTSX or TSX to go super light. These are the benefits of an original to go heavy, right? Yeah. Um Andy and I were on a call, was that two weeks ago I guess now with a group out of the Northeast that hunts whitetails, right? And they hunt a lot with like traditional lever action type um rifles because they’re literally tracking bucks through the snow and the first time that they see the buck it might be at 30 yards because it’s super thick timber. You know, it’s up in that Maine, North Minnesota, right? And I mean they’re doing literally just miles tracking tracking deer and they’re shooting it. And when we started talking to them about like different offerings that we had and everything like that because again they’re traditional. They absolutely fell in love with the idea of Pioneer and shooting those um heavy for caliber originals. Like for example, one of the guys shoots a 3030 and he’s like, “Dude, you have 190 grain.” He’s like, “That’s going to crush a deer.” And and also because it’s so thick, right, they might have a little bit of debris when that buck gets up out of its bed or or or you know figures out something’s wrong and they’re shooting something because a lot of times the animals moving or or running, right? So, um, it it was super cool to hear that, um, from them as they kind of learned about our stuff and and wanting to do something with us. Um, that we did have those like heavier offerings and doing it for these more traditional type of guys, if you want to call it that, with like lever action type stuff. Yeah, they’re cool. It’s a cool option. I mean, like you mentioned the 190 grain, you know, that really if a guy wants to go hunt elk with a 3030, right? I mean, that’s a load to use. Yeah. Um I I mean obviously your your range is you’re probably within 100 yards, right? Um but I mean a 3030 is not a Yeah. You know, it’s 150 yard gun anyway, right? So unless you’re Mitchell, he tries to shoot elk with them at stupid distances. Did you try to shoot an elk with a 3030? No. I don’t even own a 3030. I’m just making stuff up. So always thought it’d be fun to to do that though. stalk them through the thick woods like in the Uennas where it’s just thick pines and find a find a track when it snows and just just have a 4570 or 3030 and just try to get close. Yeah, I I definitely was talking to those guys cuz you know I mean I’ I’ve hunted whitetails truly kind of like all over the country, right? Um but that’s one place that I haven’t is up in that northeast and the New England, you know, the big woods type of stuff. And I really want to because I think that that would be very interesting especially for a guy that grew up hunting the south where it’s you know just swamp and you know you never see any snow or anything. But um you know I I go back to obviously I did the bison thing earlier this year right and shot the 4570 shot the 400 grain original and I mean it just absolutely crushed it. And that’s where proving the penetration. I mean I shot that bison at 120 130 yards right for 4570. I mean, that’s starting to be a little bit of a poke out there, right? Um, and full penetration. Never found a single bullet on on any of those, right? So, um, with that, I I got an invite, and I don’t think that we’ve really talked about it. I was talking to Kagan about it earlier, but I got an invite to do a a bear hunt down in the southeast, and one of the things I started thinking about was like, it’d be cool to go shoot one with a 3030. Yeah. I I started hunting with a 3030. That was my first rifle that I ever hunted with. I killed like my first like dozen white tails down in the southeast with a 3030. And you know, I think it’d be cool to kind of go back and hunt the southeast because this is like South Georgia. Um, and I haven’t hunted down there in so long for big game. You know, I’ve hunted turkeys and some hogs and stuff like that, but like to go back and do like a big game hunt and kind of go back to my roots and shoot a 3030 would be like super fun. Obviously, I know that Kagan, you know, he recently did bear hunt with his daughter, right? and she shot a 4570 with the original or with Pioneer, right? Yeah. Um, was she shooting copper or was she shooting I honestly can’t remember which one he ended up using. He was going back and forth on which one. She might have shot copper. Okay. But I think her shot was 30 yards, maybe something like that, and just absolutely crushed that bear and actually killed the bear so quickly as it was falling, it bit the bit the branch and was holding off the ground because it’s it was wild. You seen that video? I did. Yeah, it was super interesting. So yeah, I think I think it was the 300 grain TSX flat that was in the Pioneer. I mean, but again, shooting a Black Bear at 30 yards with a 4570, I think thing’s going to crush. That That’s pretty cool. Yeah. You got any got any more ideas? I do. Um go for it. I guess I have I have one more example I’m going to share from like a personal comparison and then I have my I’ll let you guys obviously if you have anything else, but I do have like a closing a closing thought, a closing recap. Okay. So, one more example I’ll bring up. Um 280 improved. Okay. Um I’ve had a friend ask he recently used one to hunt a mountain goat. Okay. Um, I think we shared a story about that. I did. Travis Ryan, that’s right. Killed a Mountain Goat in Montana with it. Um, he’s a 280 Aley fan as well. I’ve looked at it personally because I’ve loaded the 139 LRX. Um, I’ve actually loaded the 145 LRX before we even had the 139. Okay. Mine is a Fast Twist. It’s a 108.44. I’ve loaded the 168 LRX. Um, some older 280 Aleys I had, not the rifle I have today, I used to load the 150 TTSX. Okay. Okay. So, I’ve shot a little bit of different bullets in into um I currently shoot the 152 that we load in the Vortex LR ammo and obviously you’ve mentioned the 160 grain in the 7PRC. It’s an awesome bullet. We’ve talked about it multiple times, right? Um we did launch the 152 as a reloading component. That’s right. Um that bullet after a lot of requests. After a lot of requests, so I will bring that up. It’s a great bullet and it’s actually selling quite a bit, I think. Yeah, if you want to handload the 152, it’s a great option for the 280. Um, but we have the 160 LRX 284 as a component as well. If you want just the allout extreme long range performance and you have a fast twist, right, you could look at that. Like that’s super important to understand, right? Is that one and nine for average for a 280? Yeah, that’s a standard one and eight. Yep. Standard is one and nine. Um, that’s why with the ammo, we developed the 152. We tried to go as heavy as we could, balancing velocity, accuracy, BC, all those factors. Um, but what I want to get at is I’ve looked at myself to say, “Okay, if I’m handloading the 152, I’ve shot the 139s, they’re awesome. I’ve killed with them. I’ve killed Elk with them. Um, my brother killed his his Big Bull in Utah with the 280 Acrx. It worked awesome.” Um, you know, they they all work. So, I will bring I will I will clarify that. At the end of the day, you can get so deep and wrapped around the axle on these. They all they’re all going to work. The 139, the 145, the 152. But Travis reached out to me and said, “Which one should I shoot?” Yeah. Should I load the 139? Should I load the 145? Should I load the 152? Should I lo Should I load the new 160? Yeah. And so I really kind of deep dove into the numbers and compared them. And this is where and I was mostly looking at the 152 and the 160 because I’m loading the 152 now. Y should I handload the 160 LRX in my 280 Aley? I can stabilize. I have a fast enough twist. Um I’m shooting at high elevation, you know, air density where I’m at. it’ll stabilize and have good BC with the 160. This is where I ended up out to 300, 400 yards. Doesn’t matter. They’re all going to work. Awesome. Yeah. I mean, that’s practical, simple terms. Um, if you’re shooting and you’re potentially going to have shots 5, 600 yard range, I think the balance of velocity with the 152 and the BC and where that bullet functions, I’m still going to go with the 152. Over the 139. Over the 160. I’m most sorry. Yeah. Um, the 139, it’s close enough. I honestly think it’s a wash. Yeah, honestly, you’re going to gain a little velocity. You’re going to lose some in BC. It’s probably wash. Both bullets are going to function similar. Well, again, I think that goes back to application, right? Are you hunting elk or you hunting mildeer, for example? Right. Generally, with like my 280, I want one load that’s just going to work for both. Yeah. But I was really diving deep on should I load the 160 LRX or should I just keep shooting the 152 LRX? And where I ended with is out to 500 yards, the 152 is the way to go. It’s flatter shooting. It’s higher velocity. It’s higher impact velocity. It still does awesome in wind drift. It has a good enough, we’ve talked about that already. It has a good enough VC. Yeah. With the advantage of muzzle velocity past 500 yards. Okay. Now, I want to back up quick and say most people probably are not going to I think if we’re honest with ourselves, even when we’re hunting open country, most people probably aren’t going to take shots past I’m going to even say 5 600 yards. Yeah. Um, but if you really you have to go beyond 600, I’d even say, yeah. Um, to really start to see the benefits of that 160. Now, if you pull ethics out of it, which you can’t do, but from a pure just technical science perspective of looking at numbers, yeah, if I pull ethics out of it, 800 yards, 900 yards, 1,000 yards, the 160 has the edge. Yeah, there’s no doubt you’re going to give up that muzzle velocity for that big benefit of BC. You start looking at a 47, you know, 47 give or take BC versus point, what is it? 60 608. 608. Yeah, that’s a big jump in BC. Yeah. You know, and if you start running the numbers, even though you started out slower, guess which one’s going faster at 700 yards? The 160. Yeah. Because it’s retaining that energy, right? Yeah. It has more velocity and energy. it has less wind drift. You’re now impacting at a higher velocity. So, that’s kind of where you have to really stand back and say, what’s your application? What’s your game? You know, chances are, are you going to encounter game past 500 yards or within 500 yards? What limits do you put on yourself as a hunter? You know, we talked about long-range hunting multiple times already, but again, it’s it’s an interesting one. Um, Travis ended up using the 152. How far was this shot? I think like 380 something yards. Okay. somewhere right around there. Worked awesome. Yeah. So, he could have used the 139. He could have used the 160. They’d all work, too. But it it’s fun. I mean, that’s I think part of it is we all we like options and we have options. Well, and I I I think that also I mean, we haven’t even gotten into this, right? Is like figuring out what your gun likes as well to an extent. Um, you know, for however long your barrel is or whatever, right? like there might be some harmonics that for whatever reason a 139 is better than the 152 versus the 160, whatever. And I know we want to we’ve talked about diving into barrel length. So I don’t want to get too deep here, but you bring up a good point is that how long’s your barrel, right? You know, if we’ve talked multiple times, we all like to shoot suppressed. You know, you just put together a 20in Mhm. 7PRC. Yep. You know, and this and I just put together a 26 in 280. You know what I mean? So like I’m actually getting more speed out of what I should be. you’re losing. It’s, you know, that’s a good example, though. You can shoot a 160 grain and a 20in 7PRC and still get good velocity. Yeah. If I’m going to cut my 280 AI off to 20 in, I definitely don’t want to shoot the 160 grain. Right. You know, that’s where you’re 152 might start to maybe you want to step down to the 139 and get velocity back up because you have a shorter barrel. Yeah. So, there’s there’s other factors to consider for sure. Yeah. I think everyone needs a fast light option in their gun safe. There you go. It’s Yeah. I mean, it’s almost like I feel like we definitely trended that light tends to be better for most use cases most on this podcast. I would love to hear what the audience, you know, are are are they on the the light and fast side or do they want heavy and hit hard, if you want to call it that, right? More weight equals more power. That’s Yeah. Sometimes. Do you believe that? No. That’s That’s what people tell me. That’s what people think. Yeah. And again, 7PRC 160 grain, a 30 cal magnum fast twist with a 208 grain, a 300 superwisom with a 212 bore rider. There are absolutely those those use cases where heavier for caliber, super high BC, those cases have enough velocity to launch them at an adequate velocity to have reasonable downrange, you know. But you’re right. I think for most people that are hunting and three 400 yards is a far shot, I’d go light. Take advantage of the copper bullet, the monolithic bullet. Step down in weight, take advantage. Get velocity up. Better expansion. You know, you’re going to impact at a higher velocity where I went through you have a shorter time of flight, right? Like it there’s definitely something to be said there when you look at our light for caliber options. But I mean, everybody tells you right now that you need to shoot heavy heavy heavy. It’s a trend. Yeah, it’s a trend. Again, it’s uh you got to look at BC2, right? Yep. Into that ballistic calculator. That’s the only thing that matters. So, you look at the 7PRC 160 versus traditional 170, 175. That 160 grain has a pretty dang good BC that competes with bullets that are 10 15 grains heavier, right? Yeah. So, educate yourself. And a really cool app actually um Ballistic Explorer is probably one of my favorites to compare two two trajectories. Yeah, you can pull up u two entries and you can you can modify the velocity and the BC and then you can see them side by side. There’s other better ballistic calculators I would say for in the field use. Yeah. Uh but looking at two trajectories side by side is super helpful because I get questions all the time at trade show. Should I should I do this or should I do this? how much how much difference is it going to make? And I’m like, I don’t know. Just go find out. Go run it. You just type in muzzle velocity in BC and that’s really all you need. You need weight for energy. But um I mean do your homework yourself and kind of just mess around with it and do what Greg did with the the seven mag. Do the 139, the 140, the 150, the 160 and say, “Okay, that 139 is a mean little bullet. That’s probably what I should go with.” I know. I want to load my 28 in it right now. Pretty bad. I mean, and what’s crazy is that it’s only 13 grains, right? But it’s like we’re kind of estimating because we haven’t shot it yet. We technically we could do a little bit different powder and more powder and blah blah blah, right? But, um, you know, I think it’s going to get another 75 foot per second, maybe 100 foot per second faster, right? So, it’s like that’s quite a bit of gain velocity. I bet we can get 100. Yeah. Yeah. So, we haven’t done a podcast in a while. It’s fun. It is fun. It’s a good conversation. Yeah. Hopefully everybody’s enjoying this. Um, and yeah, again, uh, check out new merch that we have on our website. And if you have any questions, please send them in to podcastsbullets.com. And thanks for listening to another Barnes Bullets