Good job DJ. Good to see you getting on a few animals in West Texas.

Thanks for the info, I appreciate getting your perspective on them. You've probably shot more large animals with the 125TNT than anyone else on the planet...

Powder Valley is running a sale on primers. Prices back under a dime each!

A couple of pages ago I mentioned wanting to try some of the different bullets available for use with the 300 HAM'R. The first thing I did was to go back and shoot a few 125gr. Sierra ProHunters to use as a baseline in my testing.
Now, I have always thought I had the perfect set-up. My range is just 200-300 yards from the house. It is located in a gully that is about 40 yards wide and 200 yards lone. The sides of the gully rise up about 50 feet at the low end and 100 plus yards at the backstop. Any direction I shoot the bullet is staying in the valley.
Yep, it is perfect! Or at least it was until the other day. I shot the best group I have ever fired in 52 years!

I looked to my left, then to my right, and even behind me, but I was alone. The one time I needed a witness and no one was around!
I followed that up with a another acceptable group.

Yes, they are only 3-shot groups. I have a habit of shooting 3 shots when trying to find a good charge for a load.
But knowing everyone expects 5-shot groups, I went back couple of days later and shot some more,


Those two extra shots will get you every time! But they were still good enough to leave me happy.
Feel free to call BS on this. I was by myself!
16" barrel, 3-9X Leupold scope
CFE-BLK powder (lot 28)
CCI 41 primers and Wilson brass.
2507 fps average

But I have created my own problem. I have a stash of ProHunters that should cover me for awhile, but Sierra has made changes to that bullet. Also, all of this is just killing paper. There are a lot of bullets with better terminal results. About time to test a few 110gr. Lehigh. .

I've been doing some group shootin too testing out our NULA M20S and converted Tikka T3x rifles.

Well, to say the least, those rifles shoot!

Do you happen to know the velocity of your Enforcer loads? I've been thinking of trying 296/Enforcer under some 110s, but not really sure where to start. I know you've stated one has to be careful as they can spike within 0.2 gr or so, but I know they also don't do their best with too much excess space in the case.

I think this info is probably somewhere in the past 151 pages, but can't find it with the search function.

Nice groups! What does the 450 of sig mean?

Not Bill, but I think "450" is the primer. CCI 450 and the "OF Sig" is Once Fired Sig manufactured brass (the Wilson nickel plated brass).

CCI450 primer and Sig mfg (WC headstamp) cases

21.2gr Enforcer for 110gr Horn SP, V-MAX or Speer SP

A nice rifle and nice load doesn't always account for groups that small, great shooting Mr. Wilson! I had a double take when I saw Enforcer. Are you going to revisit any other powders that weren't suitable for the AR platform now that you guys have the NULA? Maybe compile some "Bolt gun Only" load data? I know I cooked up a W296 Speer TNT load that's real nice in my 24" bolt gun.

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

So far none of the faster powders have shown any real advantage (especially with bullets over 110gr) over A1680/CFEBLK, especially when loading the bullets out longer which fees up powder space.

Yes, I working on bolt gun only loads now. Our NULA rifles have opened up a lot of load options we never had before due to not being limited to a OAL of 2.260". The mag box in the M20S will handle loads as long as 2.420" which means bullets like the following can now be used and the accuracy of some bullets we've already been using can be substantially improved when loaded longer.

Bullets we previously couldn't use:
Barnes 110gr TTSX (accuracy is OK)
Hornady 125gr SST (accuracy is good, but not great)
Nosler 125gr BT and AB (accuracy is outstanding at 2.400")

Bullets that accuracy can be improved if loaded longer than 2.260":
Hornady 110gr V-MAX (accuracy is outstanding at 2.310")
Lehigh 110gr TXC and TME, 110gr and 125gr CC (accuracy is substantially improved)
Speer 150gr BTHP and Gold Dot (accuracy is substantially improved)

These are just to ones I've had time to try so far.

I've found that conventional cup and core/bonded bullets typically shoot the best seated .005"-.010" off the rifling and solid copper .020"-.030" off the rifling. When limited to a 2.260" OAL you can't always achieve this.

This is a work in progress so stay tuned...

Wondering what's the twist on the NULA? Are you using 1:15 in those?

Another thought: Have you ever tried C-Products 350L Duramags in your ARs with the 300 HAM'R? That's what I've been using and they allow loading out to 2.325". They run fine in my rifles and that extra length has allowed me to use the 125BT and 125SST. Haven't shot anything with the SST, but the 125BT has been outstanding on deer and black bear. A buddy I hunt with, who was using his 30-06 with 165TTSX on deer commented "I don't know, that HAM'R does almost too much damage" 😅

I'd also be really curious to see if the 155ELDM would run in you bolt rifles and if it would expand at the 300HAMR velocities. 2.325 is still too short for it, but 2.4 would probably work. Might be another option to the 150 SST(?). That mag length opens up a lot of new ground for the HAM'R!

1-15 twist, personally I like the 1-15 better than 1-12 or 1-13

I'll give the 350L mag a try, I've got a couple of them. The Duramag 300 BLK mags won't allow for as long a OAL as the Lancers I normally use.

Shooting the Nos 125gr BT into my water test tank they blow up like a grenade, the 125gr SSTs perform better in my opinion. I don't see anyway a 155ELDM would work in the HAM'R.

The non ported bbl showed up today and the HS checked out .003" past the GO gauge

Seems like if you're shooting a bolt gun and aren't limited to ar15 mag lengths, why go with a hamr chambering? You can download a 308win to hamr velocities or bump it up to full house 180gr loads if needed. I suppose 308 twist rates might not play well with light bullets?

Guns and ammo are smaller/lighter than .308 size and the HAM'R has proven to kill deer/hogs just as well as a .308. If your a "gun guy" you gotta have both though (-:

Ha.. True enough. 😂

Maybe sometimes I'm too frugal for my own good but I'll take the performance of the Ham'r over upping to a 30-30 or .308 and getting 3 or 4 less boxes of shells per pound of powder.

Now that you're able to use both of those in your NULA, it would be interesting to.see how they perform on hogs. I know the 125 BT has been really good on deer and bear, and actually just remembered that we took the first moose with that bullet two years ago. It was a tiny yearling bull and a neck shot, so pretty much anything would.have worked, but still, it put a fist size hole through the middle of his neck. I was pretty impressed with the little HAM’R, as usual.

Based on what I'm seeing shooting them into water I wouldn't trust the 125gr BT on anything larger than a coyote, just too explosive and not enough penetration.

I just worked up a NULA bolt gun load (2.330" OAL) for the Hornady 160gr FTX (.30-30 variant) that I could never get acceptable accuracy with out of an AR at 2.250" OAL. It's shooting right at 1" and performed very well in my test tank at 50-200yds.

And I bet that would probably be a great bullet for bigger big game and would probably shoot well at 2.325" from the 350L mags. Yet another bullet I'll need to "HAM’R" a moose with...I'll be interested to hear a hog report on those.

Yes the 160gr FTX will probably do well on larger game, but I still think the best HAM'R bullet for larger game is the 150gr Speer Gold Dot (Blackout version). It maintains near 100% weight and mushrooms really good out to 250yds. It shoots OK (+/- 1.5") in my rifles at 2.260" OAL, but exceptionally well (sub 1") when loaded .005" off the lands in the NULA bolt gun at 2300fps from a 16". I've cleanly taken Hartebeest, Kudu, Nilgai (we all know how tough these are!), Wildebeest and Zebra with this bullet.

At Lehigh we're working on a new 125gr bullet for me to try on bigger game in Africa this August. Unfortunately due to the nature of solid copper bullets and the powder capacity limitations of the HAM'R we haven't had any success with anything we've tried over 125gr.. At this point the 115gr TXC and TMEs are the best we have for bigger game.