I've been testing some wide-mouth HP's from Bob Vogel. These are 136 grainers in .308 that travel at around 816 fps

First I did the wet telephone book test at 50 yards. What was interesting was that these HP's acted like a fragmentation round, shedding the hollow-point in petals by about 2 1/2 inches into the wet telephone books..you can see the petals of lead in this pic

and the base of the slug travelled a few more inches into the books

I was thinking a slug like this would be devastating on our most prolific pest species, the Australian Brushtail Possum. Last night I had a chance to find out

The big hollow made a nice neat entry

and quite a small exit

...which leads me to believe that the slug left some nasty destructive petals of lead within this unfortunate boy, with only the base exiting. He expired very quickly, a good result for these pests which can be notoriously hard to kill, especially with a body shot.
Cheers
Neil

You da Man!

Thanks for the post. Very interesting.

Good to see you enjoying your sport.

Thumb's Up!

Gary



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2010 06:20PM by barnespneumatic.

Nice post Neil. Those slugs seem to be just the ticket. With shot placement like that though, you could have used anything, nice shooting. I suppose you're doing the autopsy now to find the lead debris...

Thanks Gary and Jerry.
It's true, Jerry, probably any old piece of lead might have done the trick, though it's interesting that a lot of guys I have spoken to have fired 3 or more .22 rimfire shots into these pests and they have still resisted dying On the other hand, there are many skilled hunters over here who regularly knock them over with carefully placed shots from a .177 airgun. I have cleaned out countless numbers with my .22 Falcon, but even with a good head-shot, I would always follow up with one to the chest, just to be sure. They play possum, you know!
I resisted the temptation to perform an autopsy...something about the fact that these critters carry bovine tuberculosis
Cheers
Neil

Now Neil ....

That Immigration Specialist Lawyer you cleverly placed in the background material there .... is that a .... 3-3-2? Or a 3-3-3? Ink smeared on that soggy paper ....

Gary

Hehehe, Gary, I love your attention to detail, and your subliminal desire to emigrate to NZ.....I keep thinking of you and the other guys heading up the harbour in this...with a hold stacked with guns of course...

And in regard to phone books, this is my favourite shot...

I wonder whose number that is..983 what??
Cheers
Neil

WOW, you smacked that lil critter good. And i do like the way those HP's opened up in the phone book and shed a lil lead. NICE.

But yeah, as far as those 22 lr HP's most of em suck. Those little holes in the .22 lr bullets don't allow the bullet to open up at all.

Here's something for you if you have a .22 lr and you use HP's in it and want a performance gain.

Go here as they make a neat little HP tool that opens up the mouth of .22 HP bullets. I have one and it definitely works:
[www.eabco.com]

Something this all reminded me of.






Gary

Gary, I see you've done it all before! Nice testing. I like the way the wood records the compression caused by the slug so graphically

Thanks for that Tofaz! No powderburners in my house but an interesting gadget!
Cheers
Neil

Great job Neil.

That's a critter I've wanted to go get for a long time. I got to see one when I was down there, but I didn't have a clue as to what it was. Later on in life I was checking out supressors online (dangerous place) at sub-silentsuppressors.com (I don't know this guy, but it's an interesting site) and he had some videos of them out hunting for them thar possums. There were numerous times when they had to shoot the possum 2-4 times (.22LR and .22 airguns of different varieties) to get them to stop kicking. So if the .308 stop them dead. Sweet.

Do you have a lot of these critters wandering around your place?

Thanks for the pics.

Hi and thanks Griffin
There were substantial numbers around my area until I got my Falcon .22 and cleaned most of them up, plus the local council has ben poisoning them as well. There was a time when I could guarantee seeing 3 or 4 on any hunt, now I'm lucky to see one. My best hunt was 5 in the space of about 5 minutes with the Falcon, in a little patch of native bush about 4 minutes walk from the house. It was carnage, blood literally dripping from the trees! Never see any there now.....
Cheers
Neil