6.5 Grendel - Federal Fusion - 200 lb boar - Terminal Ballistic Report (Graphic Images)

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

Wouldn't have expected it to come apart that much either, but that shoulder is a very solid thing to hit.

All in all I think through and through penetration of a 200 lb boar is a lot to ask of the Grendel without FMJ or monometal bullets.

I’m going to shoot the next one in the shoulder with that 338 fusion and see how that goes...

Good report and nice kill. Looks like the bullet opened up fast and destroyed everything in its path. I gotta try some of those!



On a 200 lb boar with a broadside shot, factory loaded Grendel Hornady SST 123 gr. almost always overpenetrates for me, sometimes even if it hits the humerus. After 200 or so, the chances of over penetration seem to go down.