Successful day. Disappointing bullets!!

[coolluke01]

I shot a buck today with my Savage 111 in .270. The deer was at 377 yards. I had been shooting more lately and was feeling confident that this was a reasonable shot. I had a forked stick I was resting on as well. So please don't harass me about taking a long shot. The deer ran about 100 yards and laid down and I shot him with my .357.

The bullets. I was shooting Winchester 130 grn Power Max Bonded in the .270 and 140 grn Lever Revolution FTX in the .357.

At 375 yards the .270 round will drop 16". At a 200 yard zero which I had. The velocity will be at 2096 FPS. Muzzle velocity is 3060.

I hit him in the lower shoulder breaking the front leg. The bullet passed through the lower chest and out the other side near the opposite leg.

Entrance wound

Exit wound. The hole was just about the same size and the entrance hole.

This looks to me like this round didn't expand! This is not acceptable. I know it lost almost 1000 fps, but it's still was moving at 2096! Shouldn't it expand at that velocity? It even hit leg bone! Disappointing to say the least. I have used Nosler Partitions before with good expansion but they aren't available here locally. I think I'll be ordering some for next year.

After I found him laying in the woods I shot him from about 30' with the .357. He was still holding his head up and looking at me. I didn't wan't to get too close yet. I shot him just under the eye, his head was tipped up a bit so it should have done some real damage. He tried to get up after I shot him!

I then had to shoot him again to finish him off. See the two holes, one under the eye from head on and the other just behind the eye.

As you can see from point blank range there are no exit wounds. The first shot should have exited just behind the head and the second should have exited near the ear. This I couldn't believe! This is a fricking .357! There should have been a golfball sized hole on the other side of both of those! I guess a soft nose bullet would be better for this, huh?

I can't believe bullets with this poor performance are being marketed as deer rounds. I know the Power Max Bonded is Winchesters white tail round.

What gives?

 

[JonathanE]

Last year, I shot a doe with a Winchester Power Max "Protected Hollow Point".
Savage 111 30-06 150 gr at 40 yards.
Without exaggeration, she ran over 100 yards after a well placed double lung shot.
When I saw the exit wound, it was no bigger than the entrance.
At the time, I assumed the lack of expansion was because I was so close. Reading your post, however; maybe we can blame the bullet.

Congratulations on your hunt, anyway!

 

[Pacsd]

I've seen em go further then that with a double lung shot. "specially if you pin hole em (without striking bone).

 

[Kachok]

Never brought power-max hunting, had a primer blow our at the shooting range and left them alone. Now I mainly hunt with my Nosler Ballistic Tip handloads and the results are impressive to say the least. If I was stuck using factory fodder I would opt for core-lokts or Winchester Ballistic tips, both have proven effective.

 

[nathan]

Corelock might be better performer.

 

[Texaszach]

I have actually used these in the .30-06 a handful of times. They always give me quite nasty exit wounds.

Last year I shot a buck at 225 and he took off in a perpendicular line from where I shot him and where my stand was. The way he was running I thought "maybe I missed?" but once he made it within range I saw that his whole side was covered in blood, but he still ran 125 yards give or take.

They leave nasty looking wounds with my '06 but they haven't put them down like good ole corelokts as of yet.

 

[Andrew Leigh]

Hi Coolluke,

A couple of observations. I would think that at 2100fps the bullet at best would open to twice it's diameter. At 2100fps you only have 1400f/lbs of energy so I would not expect wonders on the expansion front. Also at that speed and energy would not expect a massive exit wound.

I shot a Kudu recently at about 80yds on the shoulder with a 30-06 and 180gr. Accubonds, the bullet zipped stright through with the exit hole marginally larger than the entrance hole. Dropped like a ton of bricks. Do not confuse the exit wound for the internal wound cavity, the wound cavity will generally be much larger than the exit wound due to the pressures created. As was the case with this Kudu.

You ask that we do not speak of the distance but we must. Bullet performance obviously diminishes with distance and shot placement becomes more difficult. Did your first shot actually hit any vitals?

Your coup de grace shot was taken at 30ft. I suppose in hindsight one should have gotten closer and made sure. In both cases shot placement was not optimum, if you hit where you aimed then you were purposefully avoiding a brain shot? Were you wanting to save the horns? If you shot below the eye then the bullet would have gone into the neck and therefore no exit, not sure about the other shot angle.

I think the ammo is probably more than adequate, had you taken the deer through the heart your post would have been significantly different. I think no bullet is good enough to compensate for marginal shot placement.

 

[coolluke01]

I understand what you are saying about no magic bullet that will make up for poor shot placement. I did get the edge of one of the lungs I believe and nearly got a double shoulder shot. The main problem I have is that the exit wound was so small that I didn't see any blood for a good 50 yards and the. It was only a drop every 20-30'. Lots of circling around trying to find his path. Most shots are not going to be DRT's. Tracking them for 100 yards is commonplace. But there should have been more blood. He even fell down twice and only left a little patch of blood there. The exit would looked just like the entrance wound. There was little to no internal wound cavity. Very little blood in the body cavity.

The finishing shot under the eye was a good placement to hit the brain from that angle. His head was tipped up with nose in the air a little bit. I really expected more from the .357.

 

[Andrew Leigh]

I have similar problem with my Accubonds. Not to hijack your thread but the principles are the same.

I have yet to recover a bullet from any animal I have shot. The Accubonds always zip straight through so I cannot tell you how much they mushroom, the exit wounds are always small but I have been fortunate that they have not run far and tracking was no necessary.

Friends have similar problems with Barnes type bullets which zip through and the wound litlerally closes up once through leaving no trail. If you are in thick brush you could be in real trouble.

I once shot a Kudu full frontal in the chest from about 70yds with a 180gr. SGK, now that left a bloody soup in the chest cavity as the bullet simply breaks up. The wound cavity was massive. Perhaps this is a little unfair as the chest is solid muscle and one would expect the bullets to mushroom immediately. The wound cavitity in the chest wall was golf ball diameter.

My personal opinion would be that unless a bullet hits into a reasonable muscle mass then the bullet will not deploy as intended, or as shown in ballistic gel. A double lung shot through the rib cage I don't believe presents sufficient resistance to peel back the copper and lead let alone on a mono metal bullet.

Personally I have yet to see the benefit for the more expensive bullets. I wish someone could tell me how buying a premium bullet has benefitted them

 

[Charles S]

I appreciate your thoughts and do understand your disappointment, but I often have to temper my own judgement of performance with a Carmichael quote.

"at what point in time in the death and recovery of your animal do you feel your bullet did not perform?"

Charles

 

[Andrew Leigh]

Great quote, gonna use that one myself however; would the primary reason for premium bullets not be to kill as efficiently and quickly as possible and not to eventually kill. The end result is the same but it what happens inbetween the shot and death that I find particularly important as a hunter.

 

[blarby]

I'm very sorry that poor bullet performance made your kill less than humane.

I know that that makes for a very unnerving hunting experience.

As someone else has mentioned, the energy calculations for your bullet at 400 yards aren't stellar. Reliable expansion is only possible in the best of circumstances north of the 2000fps line in rifle bullets. I personally would be hesitant to take a distance shot of that nature with such a small round, but hindsight is always 20/20, and thats a tough call to make with dinner in your sights.

As to the FTX- you aren't the only one with mixed results on these bullets. Seems like they either slide right through, or explode on impact- there doesn't really seem to be a rhyme or reason to it. I know that hydrashock 158g bullets perform well at the range/velocity your FTX should have... I would suggest using those until you are more confident in the performance of the FTX.

Congratulations on your successful harvest. My apologies that it was not the clean kill we all hope for.

 

[squarepants33889]

We are in the middle of discussing .270 bullets on this pagehttp://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=683576
Drop your opinion about it over there. There a couple of gentlemen who have a ton of experience with what your talking about.

 

[courtgreene]

I just saw the OP's post on the thread about MN hunters. I'm not attacking so don't take this that way, but given your description of where you hit, I'd say give the bullets another try with less extreme shots. I've also taken a shot, got the animal and then measured the distance to exclaim, "holy crap that was way further than I thought," so again I'm not attacking here, but based on what you said over there, about being close to 2" below the heart, those bullets did not have much of a medium through which to pass forcing expansion. Try them at a shorter distance or even at a known distance (range finder) and put them through the lungs to see if that gives you better results. As for the handgun bullets, maybe try something else.

 

[Patocazador]

I shot a small doe (~80 lbs.) with a 7x57 and a Nosler Partition 140 gr. bullet. It was a forward shot like yours and only clipped the most anterior part of the lungs. It broke the off leg on exit. This little doe went over 250 yds. into a logged cypress pond and my 32 lb. Boykin had to track her and jump her because she was still alive 40 min. later. The dog caught her in a deep hole and I shot her in the neck to finish her. I am blaming my poor shot NOT the bullet's construction.

 

[coolluke01]

I appreciate the comments and responses. ^^^I feel for you man. That's a miserable day.

I may have to find a better caliber if this is a place I'm going to continue to hunt if the velocity will be too low for proper expansion. I'll research other bullet types and see if any will expand with lower velocities.

"at what point in time in the death and recovery of your animal do you feel your bullet did not perform?"

Thats easy. The point is when I'm tracking a deer though the woods with little to no blood.

I think that there was indeed plenty of meat to cause proper expansion. Much more than a lung shot. Chest is thick right there and should provide great resistance.

I couldn't get that link to work, but I'll try and find that thread about the .270.

I have used Nosler partitions before with great results. I've shot a deer with a soft point at 30 yards where the bullet fragmented and only penetrated about 2". It knocked the deer down and then he ran. I was able to get another shot on him when he stumbled again, otherwise he would have been gone!

 

[wyohome]

I shot this guy yesterday with a 150 gr Nosler BT, .308. Offhand at about 190-200 yards. Double lung shot, he went down got back up and semi trotted 20 yards before piling up. Very small exit hole, he is hanging up and I have not performed a post mortem.

 

[Art Eatman]

I've always had excellent performance with Sierra bullets. In a .270 for longer shots I'd likely try a 130-grain boat-tail, if they make one in .270. They don't have quite as thick a jacket as the flat-base, according to the Sierra folks. I found that the 150-grain SPBT in 30-caliber can be driven a bit too fast; had one blow up on a 25-yard buck. (Neck shot, so he never moved. 26" barrel '06; probably around 3,100 ft/sec.)

Odds are, then, that the bullet would expand at any velocity above 2,100 or 2,200.

 

[coolluke01]

^^^ nice one.

I was just looking at other calibers with a ballistic calculator.

400 yard velocities.
.270 2039
.270 WSM 2206
.300 WSM 2159
7mm WSM 2276

For how expensive and painful to shoot I hardly see much benefit of these other calibers. Impact would be just about the same for the WSM's about 2-3" higher than the .270.

 

[jmr40]

Bonded bullets, Accubonds, Partitions, Barnes TTSX, are all bullets designed for max penetration, and less expansion than traditional bullets. They are designed for game larger and tougher than deer. I think the bullet performed as it was designed, and did a pretty good job. The deer was recovered very near where hit if I read right.

There is no perfect bullet for every application. A bullet that expands quickly might kill more dramatically with a good hit, but fail much more dramatically with a poor hit. Given the choice between less expansion and overpenetration, or dramatic expansion and the possibility of under penetration I'll err on the side of over penetration.

 

[Kachok]

I have similar problem with my Accubonds. Not to hijack your thread but the principles are the same.

I have yet to recover a bullet from any animal I have shot. The Accubonds always zip straight through so I cannot tell you how much they mushroom, the exit wounds are always small but I have been fortunate that they have not run far and tracking was no necessary.

Friends have similar problems with Barnes type bullets which zip through and the wound litlerally closes up once through leaving no trail. If you are in thick brush you could be in real trouble.

I once shot a Kudu full frontal in the chest from about 70yds with a 180gr. SGK, now that left a bloody soup in the chest cavity as the bullet simply breaks up. The wound cavity was massive. Perhaps this is a little unfair as the chest is solid muscle and one would expect the bullets to mushroom immediately. The wound cavitity in the chest wall was golf ball diameter.

My personal opinion would be that unless a bullet hits into a reasonable muscle mass then the bullet will not deploy as intended, or as shown in ballistic gel. A double lung shot through the rib cage I don't believe presents sufficient resistance to peel back the copper and lead let alone on a mono metal bullet.

Personally I have yet to see the benefit for the more expensive bullets. I wish someone could tell me how buying a premium bullet has benefitted them

There is no advantage to super penetrating premium bonded bullets on deer class game, in fact they are often a handicap! Traditional cup and core SP or cheap poly tips can cause more damage thanks to their partial fragmentation creating secondary wound canals (my BTs do it every time) this means more damage done through the vitals for a given speed/caliber/rate of expansion. The improved penetration of bonded bullets is no advantage on deer sized game because it is all wasted out the far side of the animal. Save those for elk and the sort.
I will make one notable exception to that in that extreme high speed calibers beg for a bullet that will stay together, so for 7mm Rem mag, 270 WSM, 257 Wby...etc premium bonded bullets have their place.

 

[R.W.Dale]

I would like to chime in on this as well and point out that its being assumed that velocity given by the ammunition maker is what the op is getting.

As we all know this is seldom seldom the case. Especially with bottleneck high power rifle rounds.

It would not be unrealistic for the actual MV to be as much as 200 fps under published wich would really stack the deck towards bullet failure at the ranges involved




posted via that mobile app with the sig lines everyone complaints about

 

[coolluke01]

I have been thinking that a soft nose would have given me more of the exit wound I was expecting. The only problem with those is that I hunt in areas from 10 yards to 377! lol
As I have said I had a very bad experience with a soft nose at close range. That's why I like the idea of bonded/partition bullet.

I was also thinking that loading my own me provide me better velocities than what I'm getting with factory ammo. I'm familiar with loading as I have loaded 9mm and .357 for a little while, before we moved and I sold my equipment. A simple single stage press would allow my to load hunting loads with the bullets I like best.

Anyone know of any test that has been done with bullet expansion at 400 yards or so? It would be really neat to see what different brands do at that distance. I suppose it would be easier to load one down to shoot at 1800-2000 fps and shoot it close range. That would yield the same result.

Anyone load .270 for hunting?

I have been looking, but I can't find minimum published velocities for bullets where you will still achieve proper expansion. I saw a pic of a nosler partition at 2000 fps but no sizes or anything.

 

[Kachok]

I load 270 WSM, but I only use that for my long ranged gun so high BC poly tips are called for. Ballistic tips are my #1 bullet in my Savage, hits hard at range and somehow holds together (enough) on close ranged shots. The short mag is great, but I rarely hunt anywhere 400yd shots are called for so my 6.5x55 is my go to gun

 

[interlock]

I shot a Kudu recently at about 80yds on the shoulder with a 30-06 and 180gr. Accubonds, the bullet zipped stright through with the exit hole marginally larger than the entrance hole. Dropped like a ton of bricks. Do not confuse the exit wound for the internal wound cavity, the wound cavity will generally be much larger than the exit wound due to the pressures created. As was the case with this Kudu.

i agree with this and the shot placement thing being key. 270 is a proven game getter. The bullets performance seems ok.

despite what we read on the internet and the magazines a bullets performance on game is really variable. there are huge amount of factors. I have seen deer run 50-100 yards with the heart turned to mince. i have seen a bullet hit a humourous and ricochet out of the animal knocking a big "scab" of deer off. I have head shot a deer and seen it run with half its head missing (my last headshot)... so if one of these things happens once dont worry. I shoot 30-50 deer a year, these oddities are unusual but they happen sometimes. just yours happenned with the first one.

I have to say the finishing shots were poorly placed.