I hunt Federal Fusion bullets any chance I get, I've been praising them to anybody that will listen ever since they were called Speer Deep Curls (the predecessor to Federal's bonded bullet).
Anyhow here are some recovered .308
Deep Curl bullets and one .338
Federal Fusion bullet, all but the .338 (perfect flower) were recovered from pigs
So I picked up a few boxes of Federal's new 6.5mm Grendel "MSR" ammo that has the Fusion bullet @ 2600 FPS muzzle velocity and I expected more of the same bullet performance.
Well my first pig with this ammo provided some interesting takeaways....
The boar emerged at our clearing cut up the face of a small hill, he was about 170 yards out which would yield 2100 FPS / 1183 ft lbs of terminal ballistics (on a good day....).
I hit him in the shoulder as he was faced left (broadside) and he absorbed the shot and started running downhill ~30 yards before he crashed and flopped. He seemed intent on getting up so I sent a finishing shot --- "Quality Assurance" as our Pig Legend Double Naught Spy would say --- into him at about 145 yards.
Here are the necropsy photos:
ENTRY WOUND (left shoulder)
FRONT SHOULDER, ENTRY SIDE, BONE SHATTERED
FRONT SHOULDER, ENTRY SIDE, OFF-SIDE of Leg
BULLET PATH, traveled below vitals across the chest and ended up on the off-side shoulder
RECOVERED BULLET:
68 grains of 120 grain bullet
So, more testing is obviously in order before a final determination is made in my mind on the viability of Fusion/Grendel for medium to large game BUT I didn't expect the mushroom to shear from the base on a bonded bullet from a bone strike at the velocities mentioned.
Back to my original photo of the .30 cal Speer Deep Curls, those were deposited into some good size hogs and what I had become accustomed to was seeing the bullet fold back further along the shank/bearing surface depending on bones and velocity/distance BUT staying together as a single projectile.
I've never had a Fusion come apart until this weekend.......
Sorry, no video (technical difficulty) so unfortunately a hog video of 6.5 Federal Fusion performance is still needing to be captured by someone "mo gooder" than me