In your experience...which brand of pellets/slugs showed you the most expansion after impact?
Lead Expansion
- Thread starter Jnewood
- Start date
My favorite Fx hybrids in all caliber. What also works very well are crow magnum pellets. Or especially varmint knocker slugs. (Grenades on impact )
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For the price of the hybrids and their BC, I would steer you away from them and go for the Varmint Knockers. They are a few dollars cheaper, and the expansion is nuts. He has them in .177- .30 as far as I know, unsure of the .35 for your leshiy. If it's .35 your after I will say Hybrids, followed by the zans.
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If you want to see an honest test of slug expansion look up dang.ol.winner on youtube he made several videos a few years back testing different brands, and weights of slugs into the brown ballistic gel which give you a more realistic results with expasion and they are at point blank, 50yds and 96yds
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Thanks for sharing the photos.
However, I need to ask: In what material did these projectiles expand so nicely?
Water, clay, playdough — or 10% ballistic gel or flesh?
Matthias
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20 % gelThanks for sharing the photos.
However, I need to ask: In what material did these projectiles expand so nicely?
Water, clay, playdough — or 10% ballistic gel or flesh?
Matthias
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Thanks!
20% is somewhat harder than the 10% Alphabet org gel formula — so the expansion in flesh will be somewhat less.
However, the expansions you show are great.
What were the impact velocities for these tests (or, what were the muzzle velocities and range)?
For the amazing hollowpoint H&N Crow Magnum it's really hard to keep up a high impact velocity — because of its lousy BC (like most HP pellets). Even whe shot at 900fps (probably messing with precision for this near-wadcutter shaped projectile), it will loose velocity so quickly that at 38y its down to 700fps — where significant expansion is doubtful.
Matthias
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The biggest expansion I have seen was from the MAKO .177 slugs recovered from prey after hunting sessions by a UK pest controller. That was from 12FPE rifles at usual hunting distances.
Thanks, Miles, I never heard of MAKO — because they are in the UK.
However, they do ship internationally.
They make slugs that expand at low UK power settings — mainly 12FPE for .177cal.
Their webpage:
Slugs | Precision Ballistics
www.precision-ballistics.co.uk 
Their discussion how magazines can introduce precision errors with slugs is eye-opening! Simply excellent! Here:
Getting the Best from your Slugs | Precision Ballistics
How to get the best and optimise your results when using the Precision Ballistics Mako 01.77 Airgun Slug
www.precision-ballistics.co.uk Matthias
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We dont have gel blocks to test ammo with, but have some experience on small pests. I would say speed is critical for any expansion out of any pcp. Different lead alloys and mold designs are also obviously important. Most ammo wont actually expand reliably in game. But the ones that work the best for us are:
22/25 Hades will deform if the target fps is at least ~850fps. Muzzle velocity are 1000fps in our setups or more.
H&N Hunter Extremes, Crow Magnums, and Barracuda Hunters will deform some if target fps at least ~800fps.
FX Hybrids in all Cals expand great for slugs at most hunting speeds.
JSB Knockouts MK1 have a medium amount of deformation at most hunting speeds.
JSB Knockouts MK3 177 expand well for small pests, squirrel size and smaller; but need a 900fps muzzle velocity minimum.
There is another aspect most people dont understand or talk about when using pellets to hunt. Sometime a slower speed is better and can cause a pellet to tumble upon impact and the skirt does a lot of terminal performance. Depends on the target medium, distance, fps, pellet design, and lead alloy. I use a lot of Nielsen slugs as well, as I find them to be a great combo of BC, Deformation, Penetration, and Accuracy. Even out to 150-200yds the Nielsen slugs will crush a California Ground Squirrel.
22/25 Hades will deform if the target fps is at least ~850fps. Muzzle velocity are 1000fps in our setups or more.
H&N Hunter Extremes, Crow Magnums, and Barracuda Hunters will deform some if target fps at least ~800fps.
FX Hybrids in all Cals expand great for slugs at most hunting speeds.
JSB Knockouts MK1 have a medium amount of deformation at most hunting speeds.
JSB Knockouts MK3 177 expand well for small pests, squirrel size and smaller; but need a 900fps muzzle velocity minimum.
There is another aspect most people dont understand or talk about when using pellets to hunt. Sometime a slower speed is better and can cause a pellet to tumble upon impact and the skirt does a lot of terminal performance. Depends on the target medium, distance, fps, pellet design, and lead alloy. I use a lot of Nielsen slugs as well, as I find them to be a great combo of BC, Deformation, Penetration, and Accuracy. Even out to 150-200yds the Nielsen slugs will crush a California Ground Squirrel.
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I agree with you.....I have been using the same slug (47.2 NSA).....in my Leshy throughout the last year. The expansion was INCREDIBLE after turning the speed up to around 915fps. The devastation to these AZ ground squirrels was impressive.
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The .30cal FX Hybrid Slugs expansion after a full passthrough on a groundhog. Shot from the FX Maverick VP at 930fps.
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