Sierra GameChanger
- Thread starter Malxwal
- Start date
I've asked around and Sierra can't confirm when they will arrive in UK so UK importers could only guess that it might be December apparently.
Can’t help you with your question, but I can shed some light on their performance... by regurgitating stuff from the interweb!
I found this while looking for evidence of their performance. What interested me with this thread was that the range (350m) is identical to a deer I shot with the 143gr ELD-X, and I recovered the bullet from the bank behind the dead animal. Point of impact as described is identical. The GameChanger in this instance didn’t exit, not that one case is indicative. Also the guy’s MV is the same as mine.
I like bullets to dump all or most of their energy inside the animal and not into the countryside in the adjoining county. So for me, bullets that don’t exit aren’t bad, as they tend to kill immediately or very quickly after impact.
My ELD-X on the left, random American bloke’s GameChanger on the right.
The ELD-X lead core had popped out into the bank (it wasn’t in the animal), so a retained weight comparison isn’t really valid. What is noticeable is that the top half of the ELD-X has fragmented more violently, whilst the GameChanger has peeled back in a more ‘traditional’ manner. His deer ran 20yds, mine dropped stone dead on the spot. So I guess this supports the view that the GameChanger is a tougher bullet than their traditional lineup, as GameKings in the 80-140gr weight range tend to fragment quite a lot, its only when you get to the 180gr .30 cals that they toughen up significantly. Certainly the jacket thickness on the GameChanger has increased retained weight.
Link to thread:
130gr GameChanger
Looks like a good option for 6.5 Creedmoor.
One of the NZ guys has been running some tests in various calibres on various game, I hear initial reports are favourable with a definite increase in bullet toughness further up the calibre / weight range. Its for a magazine so hopefully it’ll be published soon.
I see this lot squabble as much as we do. Hopefully the story behind the pictures is factual, seems a fairly genuine kind of report.
I found this while looking for evidence of their performance. What interested me with this thread was that the range (350m) is identical to a deer I shot with the 143gr ELD-X, and I recovered the bullet from the bank behind the dead animal. Point of impact as described is identical. The GameChanger in this instance didn’t exit, not that one case is indicative. Also the guy’s MV is the same as mine.
I like bullets to dump all or most of their energy inside the animal and not into the countryside in the adjoining county. So for me, bullets that don’t exit aren’t bad, as they tend to kill immediately or very quickly after impact.
My ELD-X on the left, random American bloke’s GameChanger on the right.
The ELD-X lead core had popped out into the bank (it wasn’t in the animal), so a retained weight comparison isn’t really valid. What is noticeable is that the top half of the ELD-X has fragmented more violently, whilst the GameChanger has peeled back in a more ‘traditional’ manner. His deer ran 20yds, mine dropped stone dead on the spot. So I guess this supports the view that the GameChanger is a tougher bullet than their traditional lineup, as GameKings in the 80-140gr weight range tend to fragment quite a lot, its only when you get to the 180gr .30 cals that they toughen up significantly. Certainly the jacket thickness on the GameChanger has increased retained weight.
Link to thread:
130gr GameChanger
Looks like a good option for 6.5 Creedmoor.
One of the NZ guys has been running some tests in various calibres on various game, I hear initial reports are favourable with a definite increase in bullet toughness further up the calibre / weight range. Its for a magazine so hopefully it’ll be published soon.
I see this lot squabble as much as we do. Hopefully the story behind the pictures is factual, seems a fairly genuine kind of report.
nun_hunter
Well-Known Member
I had almost the same result as you DK but this was 100m or so on a fox cub hit square in the chest. Velocity at the muzzle about 2650 143 ELD-X from a 6.5 Creedmoor. I was surprised that hitting such a small soft animal would cause the core to come straight out. The jacket was found sitting on hard earth right behind the cub, hadn't even gone into the dirt, maybe the lead core stayed together and went into the ground though and the jacket acted almost like a parachute and slowed right down.
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Malxwal
Well-Known Member
Not sure that's a great selling point for the ELD-X...
nun_hunter
Well-Known Member
No me either, however I also shot a fallow pricket shortly after about 150m through the heart and there was a reasonably small exit wound , no bullet fragments found in the deer and it dropped on the spot. Quite a bit of bloodied shoulders so maybe at the slower velocities theyr'e intended for they would hold together better??
Bottom line for me is that stuff dies very fast with the ELD-X, whether its 60m or 600m. I like a bullet where the top half breaks up and spreads the message over a wider area internally. But I totally get why the market demands stauncher bullets. Horses for courses and all that. If you absolutely must have a blood trail (decent sized exit) then something that is guaranteed to mushroom to 2x calibre is what you need. Hit them in through the front lungs and they’ll spew blood left rfight and centre if they run, rear lungs not so much.
@nun_hunter I’ve recovered 3 or 4 ELD-X now where the lead core has popped out, all have been dug out of the ground in such a way that there is zero possibility that only the jacket made the hole in the ground. Only once though did I find the lead core, quite a bit further into the ground from the remains of the jacket.
The different views on bullet performance are as deeply entrenched as any of the other debates we have about calibre or cartridge. For medium game, Sierra for many years subscribed to the frangible bullet philosophy, and the GameChanger is their first thick jacketed design. Berger has only ever made exploding bullets, Hornady has made a mix of soft and hard and inbetween bullets, Nosler has a range of frangibles (BT) and a range of hard bullets (Accubond).
Chuck Hawks summed it up for me yonks ago, when he said:
I would submit that among modern bullets, over penetration is a bigger problem than under penetration. In order to advertise that "Brand-X Bullets retain 99% of their original weight," manufacturers have created a generation of bullets that expand minimally at modest impact velocities, leave a narrow wound track and expend most of their energy on the landscape beyond the animal. Even when perfectly hit, the all too common result is a wounded animal that runs a long way before expiring. Naturally, this substantially reduces the hunter's chance of recovery.
This is exactly why I don’t like most monolithics, some bonded designs and very hard “big game” bullets for use on medium deer. If it doesn’t partially fragment, I’m not interested. Will be interesting to look at the GameChanger reviews in a couple of years from now. Early signs look pretty good.
The different views on bullet performance are as deeply entrenched as any of the other debates we have about calibre or cartridge. For medium game, Sierra for many years subscribed to the frangible bullet philosophy, and the GameChanger is their first thick jacketed design. Berger has only ever made exploding bullets, Hornady has made a mix of soft and hard and inbetween bullets, Nosler has a range of frangibles (BT) and a range of hard bullets (Accubond).
Chuck Hawks summed it up for me yonks ago, when he said:
I would submit that among modern bullets, over penetration is a bigger problem than under penetration. In order to advertise that "Brand-X Bullets retain 99% of their original weight," manufacturers have created a generation of bullets that expand minimally at modest impact velocities, leave a narrow wound track and expend most of their energy on the landscape beyond the animal. Even when perfectly hit, the all too common result is a wounded animal that runs a long way before expiring. Naturally, this substantially reduces the hunter's chance of recovery.
This is exactly why I don’t like most monolithics, some bonded designs and very hard “big game” bullets for use on medium deer. If it doesn’t partially fragment, I’m not interested. Will be interesting to look at the GameChanger reviews in a couple of years from now. Early signs look pretty good.
I have no firsthand experience with that bullet, which obviously makes me an expert! But on 24hr campfire, if you post, be sure to wear flame retardant, there was a heated discussion on this bullet. long story short, a guy shot a deer, it ran off, he looked, couldn't find, found next day. Thr bullet had penciled through.he called Sierra. and IIRC, they said, it was due to not enough velocity. You might call or email Sierra. capt david
nun_hunter
Well-Known Member
I didn't think the game changer was for long range like the ELD bullets but was a tougher bullet like the game King but simply with a plastic tip which improves the BC. I don't remember reading in the Sierra blurb these are meant for long range shots or designed to expand at lower velocities like ELD but simply a "more accurate" tougher hunting bullet. In much the same way as they added a plastic tip on their range of Blitz bullets to make them as accurate as their matchking bullets, and the same way they have added a plastic tip to their match bullets to make them a tipped matchking. Doesn't mention any real change to the construction of the bullet apart from the plastic tip.
Well I’m up to well over 300 goats and two dozen deer with the 6.5mm ELD-X, most taken in the 250-500m range, and only had the one long runner. I call that pretty damn predictable, and true! I’ve recovered several bullets post impact and all have done exactly what it says on the box. So I’ll ignore the truth about predictability.
The definition of “long range” varies but is generally considered 600-700m +. The GameChanger absolutely is not a long range hunting bullet. Its construction goes against all the accepted wisdom of a low velocity impact bullet. Proper long range bullets are soft and frangible. Surely we can all agree on that? Think ABLR, Berger VLD / EOL / Elite Hunter, A-Max and ELD-M. I haven’t seen any mention of “long range” in any Sierra marketing material, but they are emphasizing BC as of course this is the new normal these days.
On the Sierra Blog the tech says minimum impact velocity should be “1800fps+”. Conveniently that is the same as what Hornady imply on their website without actually saying the word “minimum”. Yet the interweb is full of supposed quotes from Sierra techs suggesting that impact velocity should be higher than 1800fps, e.g. 1800-2000fps+, or 2000fps+. There’s one very interesting discussion that claims to be quoting the designer of the GameChanger himself, and that the bullet was designed simply to meet demand for a tip vs soft point, and thicker jacket to improve penetration on heavy game vs the frangible GameKing. Whether that’s a true reflection of the designer’s views is an unknown. Whatever, I think the market has invented this myth that the GameChanger is designed as a long range bullet.
I’ve always found the Sierra technicians to be a very informative and open minded bunch, there are two there who I’ve emailed and had constructive conversations with, Philip Mahin in particular. Subjects like “are there construction differences between GameKing SP and ProHunter SP?” (answer: no). If someone has a sensible question, ask the techs directly, that’s what they are there for. Get the view from the horse’s mouth so to speak, not what someone like me says on an internet forum.
What the ELD-X has done (very successfully in my book) is split the difference - a soft and frangible upper, and a thicker jacketed, locked lower, so the top half of the bullet fragments and the bottom half punches through. At 400-600m, they just flatten goats and small to medium deer (fallow, young reds). But if I was going to start hunting proper long range I wouldn’t use it, I’d use the ELD-M. I wouldn’t give the GameChanger a second thought for that application, it doesn’t qualify for consideration.
But I would very happily use it for close range hunting of heavier red deer in 7mm or .308, and now I’ve got my .308 project complete I might just give them a go. But then again I might just stick to the good old half-the-price 180gr ProHunters, they’ve worked well for the last 30 years... have red stags evolved to counteract their effect? I don’t think so.
(I’ve given up with long, high BC bullets like ELD-X in my 1:11” twist .308, it doesn’t like them, yet like last night it’ll shoot old school soft points into tiny wee groups... so old school it will be.)
I have seen unpredictable performance at the 200 yard mark several time this season alone. From penciling to acting like a small explosive warhead.That said, OVER 200 yards they have been very good -or as good as any. The problem is that you can't always pick and choose the range you will shoot at which is why I like the Game King and Pro Hunters. JMO.~Muir
Hmm, reading that thread is an exercise in mental self flaggelation. This forum seems like a tea party at the local rest home compared to 24hours.
How to be a silly billy
All good, would love to see some examples of this variability, as reliable death has been my only experience over hundreds of shots, including those in the 50-200m bracket. Pencilling just doesn’t stack up for me at close range, I’ve only seen significant fragmentation (and instant death).
caorach
Well-Known Member
I like it as well and can't see a single problem with a relatively soft front and a relatively indestructible rear as you get the best of both worlds. I've only recovered one partition but it was a head shot deer from a relatively high angle and the bullet travelled down its neck so by the time it was recovered it had passed through about 3 feet of deer and quite a lot of bone as well as it rattled down the spine. I'm shooting the 150 grain 308 Partition but gain the impression that as you go to heavier bullets the front half gets rather more robust and so doesn't perform so well at anything less that the highest speeds. Nosler have had a lot of time to develop and fine tune the Partition and that in itself is worth a lot.
I used to use the 150 grain Interlocks and they performed well but I just fancied giving the Partition a try and have stuck with them.
Just edited to add a few photos of the recovered Partition:
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