Picking proper ammunition

Brendan O'Neil   Jun 27, 2025

We often hear customers telling us dissapointing stories about how a certain ammunition performed for them. It's quite rare these days for manufacturers to produce a product that hasn't been tested and proven to some degree so what may happening is selecting the wrong ammunition or caliber for the job.

Every caliber has a "sweet spot" when it comes to velocity and bullet construction. Ideal performace on game would be a round that exits after causing a considerable temporary and permanent would channel. This disrupts the surrounding tissues while transferring energy and casues damage that hopefully leads to a quick recovery. In a self defense situation, a prerfect round would defeat any barriers such as heavy clothing and still penetrate 10-12 inches while expanding. Over penetration in this situation could be disasterous. Lot's of companies spend huge amounts of resources studying this in an effort to pass the FBI protocol test. 

The 6.5 Creedmoor gained huge popularity in the last several years. It has a cool name and hit the market just as PRS matches became a bigger thing. We meet lots of shooters that are not happy with the 6.5 CM as a deer caliber. In this case, odds are it was a bullet selection problem and not a caliber issue. If you look at the 129 and 130 grain options for the 6.5 CM you will see the velocity increases. What you won't see on the surface is that the bullet jackets are normally thinner too which allows for more rapid expansion and larger would channels which leads to more energy being transferred to target.

When deciding on your next caliber to buy, remember there is a ton of cool developments in calibers and there are some old standbys that are proven performers too!