The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Hi All

Simply I believe the GS Customs to be the BEST bullets in the world - bar none!

On Skype Gerard tag line is "Bullets - Not heads, tips, points, bulletheads or bulletpoints - Bullets"
That is as clear as anything!

Best I declare an "interest / history" here - I bought my first gun from Gerard Schultz and I was on his dealer licence for 6 years.
I also was dealer for his bullets for 3 years prior to emigrating to the UK

http://www.gscustom.co.za/

Gerard has EXTENDED certain ballistic boundaries in firearms ballistics
Read his Technical Articles
http://www.gsgroup.co.za/techdata.html and http://www.gsgroup.co.za/08articles.html

Just remember the context of the bullets and its application.
It will challenge certain concepts that you may have!

Application of Hunting Bullet
This is the link to an Eland that I shot with a 160g GS Custom at +- 220m
Typically Eland are in Bushveld and most shots are 75m or less
An Eland on the hoof is about 1 Ton (Think big bull)
Took 7 people to drag the field cleaned carcass onto a Toyota bakkie!
"At the butcher the meat result turned out to be a welcome 420kg."

http://www.gsgroup.co.za/galtimstewart.html

Very, very interesting. Particularly like the look of the specs for this one http://www.gsgroup.co.za/257090SP196.html Could be a bullet to consider for my 257 Roberts AI once I get to the load development and testing stage - any idea who stocks them in the UK?

BTW that Eland is some beast! :goodjob:

EUROPE the distributor is
http://www.t2ammo.com/

I dont know the 257 Roberts that well - but for relative comparison

257 Weatherby Magnum 257085HV129 : 3725 fps wtfwtf



They are awesome bullets!
I cannot do justice until you have experienced them!

Sandgroper wrote:Particularly like the look of the specs for this one http://www.gsgroup.co.za/257090SP196.html Could be a bullet to consider for my 257 Roberts AI once I get to the load development and testing stage - any idea who stocks them in the UK?

That is the SP bullet - Sharp or Spire Point - that is for Paper

If you plan any hunting you must look at the HV range

Performance
To but it in context - lets choose a 308 in 1:12 twist you will get 3,175 fps at STANDARD pressure in 24" barrel (powder based)

The rule of thumb is that GS Customs fly at the speed 1 weight class lighter and hit 1 weight class heavier
So in GS 308 / 130 grain - you get the speed of a standard 110/115 gn and the performance of a 150 grainer.

Those SP bullets look fantastic the BC on them should be something else, but alas yet again we are not allowed to use monolithic bullets on MOD ranges for target shooting due to their unpredictable ricochet characteristics

ENS,
I saw the difference between the SP and the HV. Although, most .257 bullets are mainly designed for hunting, I'm going to be awkward :roll: and have this rifle primarily for punching paper out to 600-800m with hunting as it's secondary role.

I'm wanting to run this rifle "lead free" and see what I can achieve with it. According to my calculations and data from the Barnes website (and others) I should be able to get about 3050/3150 fps from the Ackley Improved case with a 90 grain bullet from the 22 inch barrel (1 in 10) I have. In theory I could push it harder but this is project is taking my skills to the next level, so I'll be going easy to begin with.

I was going to go with Barnes bullets, but the BATF has declared Barnes Banded Solids as armour piercing which has dried up stocks, but if I can get these bullets from Holland, bonus! I had a look at the prices , but it seems they should be well worth the extra cost.

pe4king wrote:Those SP bullets look fantastic the BC on them should be something else, but alas yet again we are not allowed to use monolithic bullets on MOD ranges for target shooting due to their unpredictable ricochet characteristics

That's another thing I'll to check - if they're OK to use at Cawdor.

Monolithic, turned-from-solid bullets have been around for a very long time (becoming more popular with the advent of CNC machining) and the "bore riding" or "driving band" concept isn't new either. They're an interesting idea, but never really seem to have taken off.

The last major manufacturer I know of (Lost River Ballistics, a US-based outfit) went out of business in 2007 if I remember correctly (although, this may be for completely different reasons than their bullets!) There also seemed to be reports of very variable accuracy in some rifles.

There are several major issues with monolithics:

1) The ban on using them on UK ranges, as they behave completely differently on impact to normal bullets;

2) They are frequently MUCH more expensive than a comparable lead core/gilding metal jacket bullet, which appears to be the case here. A 30 cal 155gr Sierra is about 28p a bullet, whereas these are about £1.12 for a roughly equivalent bullet from info on the t2 website;

3) They frequently (but not always, depending on the material) suffer from major copper fouling problems and accuracy can degrade after only a few shots.

All of these things said, they do have amazing ballistics and some of these problems have been partially or completly solved by experimenters on small scales. The Hopton Match Rifle Championship was won with monolithics a few years ago, shortly before they were banned. I'll be interested to see what happens.

Cheers,

GazM

PS - I seem to remember RGC talking about monolithics on the fullbore list a few years back. Perhaps he might weigh in?

Monolithic bullets are out at Bisley, I don't know about other ranges but I suspect that there will be a few, certainly the military ones.

I believe that it is because there are (were) no ricochet charcteristics known as no research had been done.

Someone will know, sadly, Colonel Hatcher isn't around any more.

stgeo

I believe monolithics are banned at Bisley as they MAY ricochet outside of the range danger area.

Sounds like there is an echo in here. :lol: