The text and photos are from a New Zealand hunting forum,Thanks to Bruce for allowing me to post this over here. There has been quite a bit of conjcture about the SST's performance. Previously I have seen them used on reds to good effect, but was intersted to see how they would go on Tahr and Chamois.

A bit of a gory topic, and I hope you lot appreciate me delving into the depths of dead animals while hanging onto the sides of cliffs, especially to retrieve the one from the Tahr

The left hand projectile is from a Chamois shot at 230 yards. Entry just above the tail, rear on. The bullet broke both hips, punched through the paunch and liver, through the diaphram and was resting under the skin just behind the shoulder.

The right hand one is from a good sized bull Tahr shot at 437 yards. Entry was through the brisket. It skipped past the vitals except for busting the top off the heart. The angle of the shot meant that it also broke about five ribs and came to rest just under the skin behind the shoulder. The bottom pic is the entry hole. There was no blood on the ground. He ran no more than 10 yards before tipping over.

On a smaller Chamois neck shot at 88 yards the bullet passed through and made a hell of a big hole (as you would expect).

These were fired from a 280rem (139 grn) and chronoed at 2986 fps. I'm please and will stick to them. The chamois one: 80 grains (57.5%). The Thar one 65 grains (47%).

Tp,

I am surprised that the Thar bullet at well over 400yds lost so much weight.
Why did you choose the SST over the Interbond?

Thanks for the pictures TOP_PREDATOR. Very interesting.

One thing to be kept in mind, is that bullet failure is most likely to happen at high impact velocity - in particular for "conventional" cup and core bullets, and even more so for boat tails. So it is quite common to observe literally perfect bullet performance at long range, yet experience failures up close.

I'm not trying to invalidate your data in any way, or make a statement about the useability of SST bullets. But impact velocity is an important part of the equation when you consider bullet performance. Even more so, when you consider the wide range of calibers available to us - e.g. consider velocity differences in 7mm calibers from the 7x57 over the .280 Rem to the 7mm STW, say.

Weidmannsheil on your Tahr and Chamois.

- mike

Very interesting. I loaded SST's for my .338 Win. Mag. I know the reason I loaded them was the price. They're about $8 dollars cheaper per 100 bullets than the Interbonds. I know the Interbonds are highly recomended, but I figured I'd give the SST's a try.

Glad to see some people are starting to use them. Data will start to show up now.

mike

I shot a chamois at 200 yards with a 165 gr SST; complete penetration. Shot a chamois at 285 yards (or something like that). One shot put him down. Did not recover the bullet. Caliber was .300 SAUM. That same year I shot a mule deer with the same bullet. One shot dropped him.

Well, I for one am quite glad to hear that people are having success using the SST bullets.

I've had one heck of a time loading for it as there's "no" loading data for it.(I used load data for the 225 Interbond).

mike