Very short barrel 6.5CM Question

A

Anthropas

Active member
Hi all,

New member here. I am working on a plan to hunt whitetails with family on a relative's farm this upcoming fall. It's in the slug only zone of south western MN. However, they do allow pistols to be used during this season and there are not caliber restrictions (at least that I can find). I have a CVA Scout V2 pistol in 6.5CM. It has a 14" barrel. I have not confirmed the twist rate yet, but assume it to be 1:8. I'm new to Hammer bullets and am looking for advice on bullet and powder suggestions given the very short barrel. I assume I should be leaning towards the lighter weight bullets to get the velocity up and use faster burning powders as well. However all our shots are less than 100 yards on the farm. I am not concerned about BC, SD or ES at these ranges, just accuracy and whatever makes sense for terminal performance given these parameters.

Thanks for your help/advice!
 
Welcome aboard, @Anthropas !

I think your intuition is good on the lighter bullets and I like the 92gr Power Hammer for your use case;

The flat base and greater number of drive bands might be a little more forgiving, accuracy wise,

Given the short barrel and 100yd range limit, I think the larger hollow point in the Power Hammer might be the most emphatic and forgiving when it comes to distance traveled after the shot, but just a guess there as I have no experience with the 92PH myself.

A friend of mine was having bad luck with his Creedmoor - one year he had a GMX pencil and almost lost his deer. The next year he had a Powerpoint blow up on the shoulder and fail to penetrate.

Somewhat dismayed, he asked me for a recommendation "What do I have to do? Go back to .308win?!"

I loaded up some 99gr Hammer Hunters over Varget for him, and the rest his history. He's taken a handful of deer with it and couldn't be happier. "The deer was facing me at 200ish yards. Did a backflip when I hit it and never twitched."

99sHHank.jpeg

Here is some official load data;

Load Data - Hammer Bullets

Hammer Bullets™ Load Data Shooting firearms can be dangerous. Firearms and reloading equipment not taken care of can lead to catastrophic failure, danger, and death. Environmental conditions can drastically impact firearms, powders, and primers. Companies may update components such as powders...
hammerbullets.com hammerbullets.com


Here is some crowd sourced data;

Hammer Hunter Load Data

gltaylor Global Moderator (originally posted 11/1/2021) OK folks, many have wanted Hunter and Absolute Hammer load data available on this Forum. This thread is ONLY for looking up Hammer Hunter load data submitted by members. DO NOT post your loads here and clutter up this thread. Please...
hammerbullets.com

Let us know which bullet you pick - lots good choices!
 
Noob question guys. How does the terminal performance of the hammer bullet change as the bullet weight increases? I assume the shank would penetrate farther as it's length/weight increase. I also assume the petals are longer/heavier as the bullet weight increases, so they may penetrate farther as well. Other than the depth of penetration of the shank & petals what have you seen to be the differences in terminal performance between the lightest and heaviest projectiles? I'm trying to understand if there would be any appreciable difference given my hunting scenario.
 
Anthropas said:
Noob question guys. How does the terminal performance of the hammer bullet change as the bullet weight increases? I assume the shank would penetrate farther as it's length/weight increase. I also assume the petals are longer/heavier as the bullet weight increases, so they may penetrate farther as well. Other than the depth of penetration of the shank & petals what have you seen to be the differences in terminal performance between the lightest and heaviest projectiles? I'm trying to understand if there would be any appreciable difference given my hunting scenario.
Click to expand...
Im not qualified to answer your question on game but generally I agree a longer bullet penetrates better, I would guess the shedded petals would be heavier if that counts.
 
Anthropas said:
Noob question guys. How does the terminal performance of the hammer bullet change as the bullet weight increases? I assume the shank would penetrate farther as it's length/weight increase. I also assume the petals are longer/heavier as the bullet weight increases, so they may penetrate farther as well. Other than the depth of penetration of the shank & petals what have you seen to be the differences in terminal performance between the lightest and heaviest projectiles? I'm trying to understand if there would be any appreciable difference given my hunting scenario.
Click to expand...
Not always with mono's. Kind of a relationship of the parts, velocity, twist etc.
 
Anthropas said:
Noob question guys. How does the terminal performance of the hammer bullet change as the bullet weight increases? I assume the shank would penetrate farther as it's length/weight increase.
Click to expand...

That's a tricky question, like @HARPERC indicated a lot of variables effect terminal performance. In the real world heavy bullets pay a velocity penalty. Heavier bullets tend to be longer, and require faster twist to achieve the same gyroscopic stability...

Here's a pretty good 'all things equal' thread on the subject;

What am I getting out of a heavier bullet?

All things being equal (same barrel, same powder, etc), what advantage am I getting out of using a heavier vs a lighter bullet (beside the obvious gain in B.C. for longer shots)? In researching bullets for the 7SAUM I'm building, I've made some charts about projected velocities based on data...
hammerbullets.com


Anthropas said:
I also assume the petals are longer/heavier as the bullet weight increases, so they may penetrate farther as well. Other than the depth of penetration of the shank & petals what have you seen to be the differences in terminal performance between the lightest and heaviest projectiles? I'm trying to understand if there would be any appreciable difference given my hunting scenario.
Click to expand...

Pick one and go with it. With good shot placement, no whitetail is going to know the difference.

The petal thing is kind of funny. It's been shown that medium sized petals tend to penetrate the best (not too much surface area), the shape of the petal has great influence,

The real key though lies in how far the petals radiate from the shank on impact. Hammer has worked really hard to get their petals to track along with the shank as we tend to see the largest permanent would cavities when this happens.

Impact velocity and target resistance both play into the equation.

Check out this thread for more of an idea of what to expect;

Official Hammer Bullets Terminal Performance (picture heavy)

We've been asked to start a new Thread on this new Forum to duplicate the thread we had on the old forum. The original thread was started about 2018-2019 and is still located on the Long Range Hunting Forum. It is about 40-some pages long now. If you wish to see your old photos, you can go to...
hammerbullets.com

The Rathcoombe work was foundational to Hammer's design. When it comes to the mechanics of terminal performance, it's worth checking out if you have not already;

 
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