85gr sierras on coyotes

[Dt219]

[tdbru]

DT,
not what i wanted to hear. I'll be testing those 85gr. Sierras out on coyotes later this spring. we'll see how it goes. If I can call any in and hit one, I'll give a report.
-tdbru

[Dt219]

[lazyengineer]

Thanks for this post. From what I can tell, the actual terminal performance of this bullet appears to be mixed. I will say, it's a strikingly accurate bullet. But a strikingly accurate bullet with a terrible BC. If you are doing bench shooting, plinking, 3-gun style shooting in the 200 yard range or less, it is a fantastic bullet. However, for longer range shooting or for game-hunting, I have my doubts. I would have expected it to be nuclear on coyote's, so the story that an imperfect shot on a coyote that should have just exploded and shredded anyway, did not, isn't super encouraging about using this bullet even for varmint game hunting.

6.5 Grendel is a fantastic AR15 hog and deer rifle, but this doesn't sound like the bullet for it. That said, I will repeat, it's amazingly accurate. I've even run it in 6.5 Creedmoor now, and get crazy good accuracy. For fun, I'll run it to 500 yards in 6.5 Creedmoor, and it does OK, but you really have to start watching wind. Basically, great bullet for range-day out to 200 yard bench shooting. If I took it deer hunting, I would stick with neck-shots only with this one.

[Sinclair]

I find this thread to be very unusual, back in the day I used 85gr Sierras in a 6mm Rem with a 24inch Springfield Armory barreled action a Bshop Stock, glass bedded to hunt coyotes. I do not remember how far my longest shot at a coyote was, but I dropped 2 groundhogs at 250 yrds and the bullets did not exit. Their insides was mush. I did not have a chronograph, but by Sierra's data the MV was just under 3000 fps. I am shocked that there would be that much difference between the 6mm and a 6.5mm in the same bullet family. By the way, the gun shot cloverleaf groups at 100 yds confirming that the were very accurate.

[VASCAR2]

[Double Naught Spy]

I am going to play devil's advocate here and be a bit critical of the information (not the shooter) and sort of compare it with my results in doing testing. I will say from the beginning that I tried the Sierra Varminter 85 on hogs and was not pleased with the initial results. I had very limited (critic of data) testing indicated that the bullet did not penetrate deeply on hogs in any sort of consistent manner and appeared to come apart on entry, even shedding the jacket just under the entry side skin. My sample was small and/or corrupted by having shot animals multiple times. I knew enough at that point to understand that from the few decent bits of data that I had that the information wasn't headed in the right direction and that it was not worth my time to pursue it further given I had other good ammo I was pleased with. You may be in the same boat.

You have a sample of 3. This is very small, but obviously the data are not pointing in the direction you like. I get that.

You have a throat/frontal shot coyote that you did recover and 2 coyotes you didn't recover. In my experience, the sort of throat shot you describe often does not produce DRT kills unless the bullet somehow involves the spine (CNS). If not, then you are looking at how long it takes for the coyote to bleed out or suffocate due to lung damage. This shot does not break down the locomotor function and so while the coyote is mortally wounded, it is free to run as all the legs and joints still work. A 40 yard run really isn't too bad in this regard.

The other two coyotes were shots where the coyote went down and got back up. Not to be critical of your shots, but I have seen that happen even with gut shot and above the spine neck shots. That the coyote dropped doesn't mean that it was necessarily a good shot, but just how the coyote reacted to the insult. These coyotes also got up and ran.

Blood trails. Bullets don't produce good blood trails. I know that while this is often claimed about bullets, the concept is misunderstood. The best blood trails tend to be produced by through and through shots that either hit a major blood vessel or highly vascularized organ just under the surface of the skin, and/or are below the midline of the body, the lower the better such that when the animal bleed out internally, it literally drains out externally. If the shot hits above the midline, it may take a while (relative, I know) before the body fills up enough internally with blood for it to reach a drain hole. That is basic fluid dynamics - lower impacting shots drain faster than higher impacting shots, all else being equal. If you hit the aorta with a low shot and the coyote runs, you are apt to not only have a blood trail, but all 4 of the coyote's legs will be covered in blood, even using a non-expanding bullet. Shot placement and what the bullet hits inside are big factors in the creation of blood trails. How much fat the coyote has to seal up wounds and keep loose blood inside is also a factor, sometimes. The bullet helps increase the possibility of a good blood trail, but isn't actually responsible for the blood trail being good. Does that make sense?

You mentioned using a thermal. I don't know which thermal you use but all electronic devices introduce a small amount of lag between reality and when you see the image. I am not talking about image refresh rate, but actual electronic processing delay. Some thermals are better than others, but it is a factor. Add to this the notion that if your coyotes were say about 100 yards away, there was probably a full third of a second or more between the time you decided you pull the trigger and when the bullet finally arrived on target. That can move your point of impact anywhere from and inch or two to maybe 3 or 4 depending if the coyote started to move when you decided to pull the trigger. I have actually seen this in my own videos where two frames before the shot broke, I am still on target. In the frame before the shot broke, the hog has started to move and I am off target from where I intended, only by an inch or so at that point, and then the shot impacts in a spot a few inches from where I intended as the hog continued to move while the bullet was in flight.

Did that happen with you? No way to know. I don't think it necessarily happened with 2 out of 3 three of your shots, but I don't doubt the possibility is there that one of your shots was negatively impacted by the coyote moving at the last fraction of a second. This is the sort of thing you may not even notice in real time and the only way that I learned about it was by doing frame by frame analysis of why some of my shots were wonky.

For the sake of argument, you have said that you are a good shot. I don't doubt that. Are you always, absolutely, 100% a good shot? I am a "good" shot, but I am not absolutely, 100% a good shot. Once in a while a flinch or jerk creeps in to my shots. Sometimes, I 'drift' off target at the last moment. I don't get buck fever very much any more, but I can certainly have an elevated heart rate from trudging 400 yards through high grass to make a shot. The thing is that at the time of the shot, I don't always know if I had an issue. I can see it in the video analysis later, however. It happens to most people. Not saying it happened with these coyotes, only with such a small sample size, this is a factor that even if it happened with one shot would skew your sample by 1/3 and really since we are only talking about the lost coyotes, it would skew your sample by 1/2. That is huge from a statistical standpoint, if you had a valid sample size, but it is the reality of small samples.

The problem of these unknowns, of course, is that you didn't recover 2 out of the 3 coyotes you shot. You don't actually know where they were hit. You don't know what damage was or was not done to them to actually assess how well the bullet is or is NOT doing its job. You seem to be implying that it must be the bullet's fault, in part, because you know you are a good shot. No doubt we have all made similar rationalizations at some point. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have proclaimed or heard others proclaim "I know it was a good shot..." in expressing their lack of understanding of why they can't find their hog or coyote, right? AND, I will admit openly that there have been a couple of nights that I have hunted where I simply could not get my act together and noticeably fumbled shots and just simply went home.

At this point, if you believe that the bullets may be at fault, you have two choices. (1) You can reverify your zero and try to kill 2 or 3 more. If the trend continues, then you can arguably say that the bullets weren't doing a good job for you. (2) You can save yourself the trouble right now and say the Sierras aren't worth any more of your time and just move on to something different. I firmly believe that people do better in the field when they are using gear and ammo that they have confidence in. I know that sounds really hokey and has some implications for people not performing at their best when they don't think their kit is fully up to the task, but I think that it really happens. That alone may be enough reason for you to abandon the Sierra 85s and try something else. It is your time, your money, and how you feel about whether these bullets are producing appropriately ethical kills or not.

There are plenty of other options. VASCAR2 mentioned Speer TNT 90 and Hornady V-Max 95. Based on my limited experience with it, I think I would give the V-Max a try. I love the TNT 90s for hog and coyote hunting, but if I was just doing the coyotes, then I think I could find something a bit better for the task.

[Dt219]