The time was the early 90`s and the place was the Wasatch Mtns. of northern Utah for elk. After supper we all sat around the campfire and as the conversation usually goes around a hunting campfire the topic of bullets and big game was brought up. I will never forget when the outfitter mentioned what the crew of Thompson Center Arms, who hunted there often, said about testing bullets. "The only sure way to test a bullet is to go out and shoot something"... With that said I will bring us up to March 13/14, 2014 with the place being Tioga Ranch in north central Pennsylvania along with my chronograph, my Freedom Arms 457 Linebaugh and some handloads using the fairly new 280gr Raptor HP by Cutting Edge Bullets. After spending a day at Tioga`s 100yd range I came up with some interesting ballistic information on CEB`s Raptor hollow point. First a little info on C.E.Bullets, whose headquarters is in Drifting, PA and have expanded their line of rifle bullets to include 100% copper handgun bullets in solid or hollow point. After some correspondence with the guys at CEB I was sent some of their bullets along with a printout of appropriate load data and some various caliber Raptor hollow point bullets and their petals that were recovered from ballistic gelatin.
My handload consisted of a .475 caliber 280 grain Raptor HP over 22.6grs of 2400 ignited by a Federal 155 M primer. Cases were by Buffalo Bore. My powder charge was one grain lower then CEB listed max of 23.6grs of 2400. My mistake was only loading 15 of the 280`s over each of the two powders tested. AA# 9 was the other powder. First came accuracy testing with 3 shots making a single 5/8" hole at 25 yards. I moved the C-More targets out to 100 yards and after adjusting the scope for this load, I was rewarded with three shots taking out the bullseye with a 7/8" end to end group. This is the 2nd best 100 yard group, I`ve made with a revolver, in my 30 years of shooting. Since I needed five rounds for the hunt I was left with four of my handloads to test over my chronograph. The average velocity was 1366fps along with an ES of 15.85 and SD of 7.93. Pretty good....
The weather the next morning was cloudy but decent and after a few hours of spot and stalk and trying to put my crosshair on one of the boar, who wanted nothing to do with humans, I climbed into a double seat tree stand surrounded by pines. To make a long story short the sounder slowly made its way toward my location and when my boar stepped out from behind a tree I put it to him...... I will say he was, quartered toward me, 40 yards to my extreme left when I pulled the trigger. This is where "I`ed rather be lucky" comes into play even though he made a mad 50yd dash and slide to a stop and I climbed down to put a 22 finish to the brain. After field dressing I noticed that neither the lungs or heart were damaged with the front of a lung showing a slight bruise but yet the boar was down with a great blood trail. After skinning I looked in the chest cavity and saw a chunk of spine missing which I feel was hit with one of the four petals of the Raptor HP. No part of the bullet was recovered. The Raptor lived up to its name.......
Since I did not recover any part of my 280gr HP I give you the weights of the one sent by CEB that they recovered while testing. The shank or main base of a 280gr Raptor weighed 210.5grs while the four petals came in at 17.3 - 17.2 - 16.3 - and 16.0grains. After putting the base and petals on my scale the weight was an even 277.0grs.... Accuracy of the 280gr HP out of my FA`s 475 was outstanding.... no, super outstanding... However, with the length of these bullets, the brand of powder and charge weight becomes very important. I only tested two powders, with 2400 giving the third highest velocities and AA#9 giving the fourth highest according to the printout supplied by CEB. By the way the AA#9 handloads were almost as good as the 2400 with four shots giving a LO of 1346 a HI of 1363 and an AVG of 1352fps and an ES of 16.68 and an SD of 7.41.
Before I finish I just want to add that I have finally made a "first" in my life after the president of CEB informed me that my boar is the first kill made with their bullet in .475 that he is aware of.... I hope it sticks. Also, one of my pictures shows two pigs hanging and the second one I shot with my 500 Wyoming but that is another story....

Lordy that's a lot of revolver. Internal damage was nasty enough. Love the post.

Nice job. I think I need to look into some of those bullets.

Looks like they shoot great and worked on the hogs. For my area though I'll stick with heavier HC. I may look at their solids though.
Dang just looked at the solids,very spendy but a clean kill is worth it.

Congratulations James! Great information on the reloading and the terminals - the bullets have shown superior accuracy, and just like their rifle-based cousins, the harvest results have been nothing but "non-conventional" as well!

I look forward to more field results - and contributing to the data...

Nicely done, James!

I tested H110 -- a little slower than 2400, and got really erratic results from it. The slow powders are just wrong for the bullets as they just can't pressure up enough as they offer little resistence. However, I just landed a can of Blue Dot and plan on continuing testing......

Agin, good job, James!

Great write up!!

Good job James! Nice shooting!!

I think Blue Dot will be a step in the right direction if you're looking for a velocity increase. The accuracy of these slugs is pretty impressive. Look forward to seeing more results. Hurry up Dur, you ain't got nothing else to do!

Great story, and excellent shooting! that is some outstanding accuracy. cool seeing this b@d@$$ bullets in action!

congrats on your "first"

Look forward to hearing more about these from you guys

Nice shooting James,

Guys don't leave out 4100/Enforcer in you're testing, as Wes has shown in the 475 and in my testing in the 44's it has been optimal with velocity and ES.

2400 gave similar results in the 44 though velocity are a bit slower as expected.

Power Pistol is my quickly becoming a favorite.......

Great test results, James! I thought you were also the "first" southern born Yankee!

LOL... Congrats on the first field testing of the 475's; that's purdy cool. For a 280gr bullet at 1300fps; that thing has some great penetration! The seem to act a lot like a Partition.


Whit,

What cartridges have you tried the Power Pistol in? I use it in my 45ACP and really like it, but haven't ventured any further. I was thinking about trying it in 45 colt.

Kim, I am using it in the .480 and so far it really likes it.

Whit,

What cartridges have you tried the Power Pistol in? I use it in my 45ACP and really like it, but haven't ventured any further. I was thinking about trying it in 45 colt. [/quote]


Power pistol has been the performer in the ACP with these bullets as well getting 1300+ with the 150's

Whit - good to hear that the PP is working across the larger calibers too - the QuickLoad data looks very promising for that powder in the "smaller" Magnums. Now if I could find it locally...

Power pistol has been the performer in the ACP with these bullets as well getting 1300+ with the 150's[/quote]

That's interesting, also.

Great story and write up