Black Hills 55 grain softpoint or 52 grain match hollow point

Yellowhammer

Yellowhammer

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Staff member
These seem to be the cheapest 2 .223 bullets that Black Hills offers.

I have been shooting the BH 60 v-max, but they seem to be about $5-7 more per box. Any one have any experience using either on coyotes?

The price of ammo is getting out of hand. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
 
im shooting the 52 match hp....shot 2 yotes so far and seem to work well! the first one i shot with it was only at about 30yds. couldnt find the entrance hole and exit hole was minimal. hope that helps! 2nd yote i never found cause the grass was so tall, but he/she didnt go anywhere, just did the spins and fell over:)
 
i can't say i have any experiance with the black hill's ammo.."but" i like softie's for coyote hunting..now i reload my own..i hope @ some point you will too..i fully realize s.p.'s are not sexy..or popular..& rarely talked about on the net..i would say buy the 55-grain s.p.'s /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif
 
I use the Red Box stuff during deer season but the Blue Box 55gr. soft point is my ammo the rest of the time. I like the accuracy and the price. I paid too much for my AR set-up to run crap ammo through it and I stick to Black Hills exclusively. With prices the way they are, my 10/22 is getting a workout and the big boys only come out for a hunt or serious target stuff. I just aquired a reloading set-up from my dad and hopefuly reloading will take some of the sting out of the price of ammo.
Trashcan
DCC
 
The 55 soft points have been the most consistent of any bullet we have used. Good accuracy with a small entrance small exit at almost any angle or distance.
We have used the match for paper where they do well and even though they are not recommended for game because of inconsistent results we would use them.
 
Sean,
Before reloading, all I hunted with was BH blue box 55gr SPs out of my .223 Probably shot close to 1000rd of the stuff, plinking & such. For coyotes, they worked well out to a hair over 300yds and a bit farther on woodchucks. Some ran but they died...

The 55s were accurate enough to get the job done, but you won't be posting any ragged holed 5 shot group pics from them.

Try a box & see how they do for you, accuracy wise. If they shoot acceptably, then go kill dogs with them! SP bullets in general have a habit of killing stuff with boring regularity...
 
Have not used the 52's but the 55'work good accurate and anchors them well,before I started reloading its all I used.
 
I have shot a bunch of the 52 gr mhps and they have always been very accurate but I have never liked their performance on coyotes. I seldom get a drt...mostly spinners and I don't like it for a fur bullet either. Usually exits and sometimes ugly. Great on prarie dogs though.
 
Sean are we talking about the Sierra 52gr hollow point boat tail match?????

If so, they are a good bullet, have never heard anything bad about them especially in the 223 rifles.

Fur friendly too!!!!!!!!!!!

I think they'll out shoot those VMax on paper too....Not saying Vmax are bad either........ /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Yellow,
I have had very poor luck with the 52 and 53 grain HP's. They are so dang accurate. But have had a lot of runners and spinners and lost dogs to them. The soft points would have my vote.
 
Recently purchased a handful of the Black Hills Bluebox 55sp on the advice of a couple of persuasive yote hunters in the Gun Shop while I was picking up my new .223 bolt rifle.
 
I killed my first coyote with a 52 grain MHP. Clubbed it dead with no exit.

Subsequent PD shoots steered me away from it however. Some PD's would come apart in an impressive fashion while others just got a pencil sized hole poked in them. in addition to the inconsistent field performance they were also more prone to ricochets than SP's or poly-tipped bullets. That's fairly important in wide open cattle country.


They were pee-your-pants accurate though.


Sadly I gave them up.
 
I use the 52gr MHP exclusively in my .223. And they are devastating to say the least. EVERY coyote shot with this round so far has dropped like a sack full of axe handles. However ALL of the shots were shoulder shots. Caliber sized entrance and no exits. I lied, one shot was a frontal chest shot but still no exit. Stick to shoulder shots and they are very fur friendly /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif

Chupa
 
I killed a bunch of youtes with the Sierra 52 loaded at 3550 fps, seems as if shot placement is a little more critical. I believe that the 55g Sierra Sp creates a bigger temporary wound cavity than it's 52g counter part. I base this on the number of yotes that I shot in the stomach and back of the stomach that were DRT.

When you shoot yotes on the run, no telling where in the body you will hit them due to leade. To my way of thinking, the 55 Sp gives a guy a slight edge.

Using the same gun with a 1-14 twist, same loads on a dog town, there was no comparison; the 52's shot holes through many p. dogs. Some of them would just keep on eating and you could see them leaking blood. The shots on the p. dogs with the 55's blew them up violently.

Also, a gun with a 1-9 twist may see a slight increase in bullet performance on coyotes over a 1-14 twist, hence the reason that you see some guys like the bullet and some don't. Also, you have to account for shot placement.
 
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