Question about 80gr Hammer HHT Bullets

I have been researching and it looks like you can load up these babies to go almost 3900 FPS out of a 24" 6.5 CM. Please forgive my ignorance to reloading as I do not have much experience with it. To me it seems like this would be a great bullet/round to shoot out of a 6.5 CM for top performance. I would imagine even though it is only an 80gr bullet. It still would be going over 2000 FPS at over 600 yards. Seems like more than enough to take down a good size muley. Does anyone see a down side or negative to this plan for a 6.5 CM? Especially hunting Deer at longer ranges? 600-700 yards? It should not have any effect on the recoil of the rifle? Correct? Thoughts?

Woah. That’d be quite a wild load. According to the load data, a 90gr bullet is only going 3200 at max pressure. Given that the Hammer is a copper, even being 10gr lighter, I don’t think you could go any faster because copper bullets drive up more pressure.

So whoever is loading this bullet to 3900fps, I think they are going WAY WAY above safe pressure even if they don’t realize it.

But an 80gr at 3200 is still a killer round. That’s essentially what you can do with a 22 Creedmoor.

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Is there such a thing as “too fast” for mono bullets?


So does this seem unsafe then? Forgive me. Not very well versed in the reloading world yet.

Pure personal preference here, but I would be a little leery about using something that hot and fast if the only thing that was done was “we shot some and did not see any pressure signs”. It’s been well documented that you can be significantly, significantly overpressure without being able to notice in terms of primer marks, ejector swipes, etc.

Now if they’ve actually done some testing in pressure barrels and gotten some measurements that said things were okay that’s a completely different story. Maybe they have and I just haven’t read about it since it wasn’t in that video.

I just happened to be working on Gordon’s when I saw that post, doing some research on a potential 7 SAUM load. So just for S&G I looked up 6.5 Creedmoor loads with 80 grain bullets. They’re very few of them out there, one from norma, one from Sierra. At Max charge it’s reporting roughly 3400 to 3600 fos out of a 24 inch barrel. Certainly not 3800.

I wouldn’t put a ton of faith in that however because it was not using that specific bullet as that’s not in the database

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Not uncommon for Hammers, in my use they typically achieve very high velocities and pressure out further than most projectiles of similar weight.

I would consider that unsafe. Really the only way to know if you’re over pressure is to shoot it on a pressure sensor, which really only the ammo manufacturers have access to. Everyone else has to just go on the book data, and this is WAY above book. WAY above it.

Most guys say there’s “no pressure” until they see something weird showing up on the brass after it’s been shot, and while that is proof you’re over pressure for sure, you may have gone over pressure long before it shows up on the brass.

You mentioned the “book data” what book would you recommend that has all the most up to date data? Amazon.com
Or how would I find out what the “safest pressure” is for the .22 creed .25 creed 6mm creed and 6.5 creed? In all the different grain variants?

The absolute most up-to-date stuff is going to be online typically at either the bullet manufacturer’s website or the powder manufacturer’s website.

Some bullet companies like Barnes and Nosler put their stuff online for free. Hornady requires you to get an app and pay for each cartridge you’re interested in. Berger has a book but it’s not particularly up-to-date. However I’ve had good luck with emailing them with a specific question and they will respond back with a list of potential loads.

Hodgdon ( which also owns and includes data from imr, ramshot, accurate, and Winchester) has an excellent online source of information. So does Vihtavouri.

The 6.5 CM is going to be the easy button. You’ll find data all over the place and it can be useful to compare and contrast and make sure that you’re not dealing with something that’s way out of line. 6 cm is probably similar, never actually loaded for that myself. 22 and 25 cm are just too darn new right now.

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@UtesFan4Life If you’re interested in Hammer bullets, go to their message board Hammer-time forum. There’s a ton of data there (including starting load data,) and you’ll get all the info you need for those projectiles. The founder Steve is on there all the time and will answer any specific questions you have.