RPRNY
Member
The Hornady .452 250 grain SST used in factory slug loads, sold as a sabot bullet for muzzle loading, used in the factory 450 Bushmaster load and tagged as FTX in Leverevolution rounds seems a pretty versatile bullet. I have been loading it in 45 LC and 454 Casull for my H&R break action based carbine and it shoots paper very nicely.
Recently on another forum (SGW), the performance of that bullet has been heavily criticized by people with not only good ballistics knowledge but real field experience - including one respondent who butchered 100 donated deer and did extensive necropsy work digging SST/FTX bullets out of deer shot multiple times with this bullet. Another respondent critical of the SST was Ed Hubel, who certainly has an informed basis for an opinion.
The criticism seems to be essentially that it is too fragile, the core is insufficiently bonded to the jacket and as a result suffers from rapid fragmentation on contact at high velocities and overly rapid expansion, ergo poor penetration at medium velocities and spotty expansion at lower velocities.
I would be interested to hear the views here and any anecdotal evidence to support or disprove these theories.
Recently on another forum (SGW), the performance of that bullet has been heavily criticized by people with not only good ballistics knowledge but real field experience - including one respondent who butchered 100 donated deer and did extensive necropsy work digging SST/FTX bullets out of deer shot multiple times with this bullet. Another respondent critical of the SST was Ed Hubel, who certainly has an informed basis for an opinion.
The criticism seems to be essentially that it is too fragile, the core is insufficiently bonded to the jacket and as a result suffers from rapid fragmentation on contact at high velocities and overly rapid expansion, ergo poor penetration at medium velocities and spotty expansion at lower velocities.
I would be interested to hear the views here and any anecdotal evidence to support or disprove these theories.