Why Not Use 168 grain Match King BTHP for Hunting?

I am a Board Member for the American Sniper Association and I do a lot of Ballistic testing for Law Enforcement, years ago Federal Ammunition told us years ago that the Match 168 was never intended for anything other than punching holes in paper but some how or another it got adopted by the military and Law Enforcement, probably because its accurate, about three years ago I got tasked to do gelatin test on it because we had so many documented cases of over penetration in LE sniper shootings the round that the Association recommends for LE use is either the Hornady 155 gn TAP or the RUAG limited penetration round

when I did the tests in the Gel it was clear the Sierra 168 match and 175 Match were not what we wanted they both went a full 18 inches in the gelatin block before they had any sign of expansion and did a complete threw and threw on the block and the wound cavity was very small, both the Hornady, RUAG and Black hills rounds were far different results they looked like mini hand grenades going of in the gelatin huge wound cavity and lots of fragmentation

So, pdsniper, your saying from your test, the SMK acted like a FMJ and the Hornady BTHP acted like a varmint type HP?

That is good information, especially when externally, that look near identical.

Thanks,

Rosewood

on the 600 yard shot I watched, a 142SMK was used, the deer was quartering away. It entered at the rear of the rib cage, a small piece fragged off and exited almost directly across from the entry. The remainder went out the opposing shoulder then through both sides of the neck. It was running about 3200 fps on tests with the LabRadar. There was a large amount of tissue damage.

rosewood said:

So, pdsniper, your saying from your test, the SMK acted like a FMJ and the Hornady BTHP acted like a varmint type HP?

That is good information, especially when externally, that look near identical.

Thanks,

Rosewood

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Not to speak for pdsniper, but I think the 155gr TAP load uses the AMAX bullet. Basically a thin jacketed ballistic tip. I think the tip provides a more controlled expansion rather than an open tip, which can close up or deform and cause little to no expansion at all.

I thought it was an FTX type bullet in TAP