BARNES VARMINT GRANADE

[shoot57]

My local reloading supplier has some of these bullet heads in stock, 62g varmint granade in 243, i thought i would load some for fox control. Has anybody got any experience with these bullets? i would be interested in the performance and how you rate them

[steve_b_wales]

^{I bought some a few years ago. They are supposed to be a favourite with vermin shooters in America,owing to their explosive nature when hitting quarry ( rock chucks/prairie dogs) I tried a few on some pumpkins, against 70 grn soft points. I was expecting some dramatic results, with the pumpkins exploding, but found no difference with the two different bullet heads.}

^{I think they could possibly wound a fox, by not penetrating deep enough into the body,owing to the very thin copper coat on the bullet head. They would be excellent on Crow's and smaller quarry though. I have approx 60 left, and may pull them and re-use the powder.}

[Beretta28g]

From what i have seen they need to be loaded "hot" that is so they are very fast then they are very destructive.

[Vermincinerator]

I loaded the 36grn 224 versions very hot in my 22-250 AI, 4890fps to be exact but at that speed they were dreadfully inaccurate and accuracy did not improve even when i dropped the velocity to 4200fps and 4000fps.

Destructiveness was no better then any other varmint bullet.

I gave up trying to get this bullet to shoot accurately and settled on the Berger 52grn flat base varmint bullet travelling at 3900fps.

 

Ian.

[Fib new]

Same here... Tried them in 22-250, never got them to stabilize during flight. Accuracy was terrible, so never tried them on anything but paper.