Great Hunting bullet performance?

[H&Hhunter]

I guess everybody has their own idea about what makes a bullet good. But I saw something last week that made me a little sick.


I took a friend of mine out Antelope hunting here in Northern CO, he just had to use my new R-93 Blaser in .300Wthby. I suggested a nosler partition or an accubond or an X bullet in the 200gr range or in the 180 range loaded down to about 2800 FPS or so.

My buddy being an avid gun-mag reader and having a case of magnumitis deluxe insisted on a maxed out 180gr ballistic silver tip. So I figured what the heck it his goat so I reluctantly loaded up some ballistic tips at about 3200fps for him.

He like many gun-mag advocates asumed that since he was hunting antelope that he'd be shooting at about 3gozillion yards so he'd need the B.C. of the silver tip and it would be slowed down enough not to do too much damage.

On day one he took a shot (against my advice) at over 700 yards and guess what.....Yep you got it he missed clean, like way clean.

On day three we put a sneak on a herd and the buck decided to commit scuicide as they often do dring the rut and upon seeing us lying in the grass at about 300yards decided to come and investigate. This buck ran up to us and pulled up broadside at about 80 yards quartering on to us.

My buddy let fly with my eargasplitenloaden boomer sending this 180gr hypersonic pill into the on shoulder. Well you can probably guess the outcome. On impact I saw fur, blood and assorted clock work spray about 50 yards out the back of this poor deflated goat. Amazingly Mr. Lope turned and ran about 60 yards before pilling up.

When we got to the goat and turned him over he had an exit wound the size of ..... how can I even describe it...... A jagged beach ball sized hole, his whole darn right side was gone from the shoulder to the diaphram. My buddy upon seeing carnage declared "Wow great bullet performance!!"

I have never liked ballistic tips for game hunting unless your using them in a slower caliber like a .308 or an 06. But they are absolutly useless in a high velocity round on anything but stuff you just want to disintigrate. they blow the living H*&l out of smaller game and they don't penetrate worth a darn on heavier game. A complete failure as a hunting bullet in my opinon.

I've said it before and I'll say it now if your going to use a .300 or a 7MM or some other hot rod that's fine but you have to use a good hard controlled expansion bullet. I perfer to use a 200 gr bullet in the .300 or a 180gr X if I'm needing some reach. In either case the bullet ain't going to blow up and the carcass may actually have a few edible parts left on it.

It just amazes me that anyone could call what happened to that poor old goat good bullet performance.

 

[Art Eatman]

H&H, I ain't even gonna TRY to answer that one!

Walks away, mumbling and shaking head...

Art

 

[esheato]

Reminds me of a gun store clerk up here in No. California that stated just last week that ballistic tips are better for larger/thicker skinned game than any of the partition/a-frame/x bullet types.

He made a point to show me a picture of a ballistic tip and said, "the space between the bottom of the ballistic tip and the lead core allows the bullet to penetrate more before the bullet upsets," along with a bunch of other BS. I couldn't help but call over a rifle friend and we had a few good laughs about it. BTW, thanks, I'm going to bring this in to show him....I can't imagine what excuses he's going to come up with..

esheato...

 

[Dr.Rob]

I had a catatrophic failure of a 180 gr 30-06 Bronze point up in Wyoming. Biggests antelope doe I ever shot too. The bullet killed her outright, she dropped right where I popped her, but there was a serious problem.

I was using the 180 BP because I didn't have time to re-zero for the 150 bp's I always used. Ah so what I figured, dead is dead and I'll be using the 180's for elk anyway...

So fast forward I've got a big uncommon doe walking into my scope.. center just behind the shoulder and BOOM she spins around and falls dead.

Super nice animal. Even caped her for a taxedermist that had asked me to as a favor. (I was just meat hunting).

Now as I go to field dress her out.. I notice three things immediately. I have a very small ugly meaty wound right where its supposed to be.. but no exit wound. There is NO blood in the chest cavity. There is NO HOLE in the chest cavity. There is a line of ribs on her right side broken in a straight line from shock. ????

I'm thinking the bullet "blew up" on impact and caused a 'cratering" wound like I've heard that varmint bullets can cause. That bullet was moving at a modest 2700 fps. Should have poked a nice clean .30 cal hole through her ribs and deflated both her lungs. It did not.

Bottom line she was dead right there and I've never had a BP fail to kill a lope.. but had I had that same shot on an elk I would have lost an animal.

I returned to using Sierra 165 game king sbtsp for all my hunting in Colorado. Wonder bullets do NOT make up for bad shooting.

Antelope are not hard to kill (a .243 will do it) but lots of folks overpower them with flat shooting magnums.

 

[St. Gunner]

I used to shoot 100gr speer hotcores out of a .270 at maxed out IMR4350 velocity, I don't remember what it was, but it was way beyond 3,000fps. For deer it was the most potent round I have ever seen. Shot something like 20 Texas whitetails with it and never had one take a step with behind the shoulder shots. I never had an exit wound, and you never ate heart or lungs, cause they where all mixed in a nasty mush, but all that got torn up was some rib meat.

Then I tried some Ballistic Tips, If I say how I feel about them it wouldn't be up to the standards of the highroad. Suffice to say, they did fine on deer, but performance on hogs was less than desired. First hog with ballistic tips was a 200lb boar, I was shooting a Cetme .308 with 150gr Ballistic tips, I delivered four shots to the front shoulder running and never got to the vitals, 2 to behind the ribs, and finally got one in the head. It was not good. One shoulder was ruined, the ribs on one side toast, and the animal was not happy with the performance.

I switched to Sierra game kings, great on hogs, I had to start tracking deer, always dead, but they would run a 100yds or more.

When I bought a .280 the guy I bought it from insisted I shoot some Hornady SST's. I have even less nice to say about them than I do the ballistic tips.

I shoot Remington Corelokts in factory for the .280 and my .270 Sendero is still looking for a load, probably end up shooting 135gr matchkings, because I have had great luck with them in .308 in the 168gr config on hogs and deer.

 

[Art Eatman]

In a thread at TFL about bullets and performance, a person from Sierra chimed in. To keep it simple, their boat tailed bullets in .308 (for the 150- and 165-grain weights) have jackets which are somewhat thinner than the flat based equivalents. The 180-grain SPBT has a somewhat thicker jacket.

If you drive their 150-grain BT above around 2,900 ft/sec, you can get a "blowup" at ranges inside 100 yards. Apparently, for the 165, you can add another 100 ft/sec or so before entering "problem country". The flat bases won't come apart as easily; they have slightly thicker jackets.

I found that the .308 diameter 150-grain Bronze Points always gave me an exit wound on a cross-body shot on deer with a live weight of around 150 to 175 pounds. Once, even out at 350 yards.

Art

 

[HankB]

This thread just shows that bullets, cartridges, and game, ought to be matched.

Now, I usually use just one hunting load in my .30/06, a Nosler 180 Partition at around 2750. Accuracy is consistent at about 1 1/4" to 1 3/8" for five shots, which is not too bad for a rifle that probably has over 5000 rounds through it.

This load has accounted for game from deer and oribi on the small end, up to kudu and zebra on the large end, and performance is so predictable it's almost boring.

When Nosler introduced their Ballistic Tips, I tried their 180s . . . five shot groups shrank to 3/4 inch, so I took some of these loads to Zimbabwe in the early 90's.

I got involved in some night culling of impala, and found that expansion was violent . . . but the impala went down RIGHT NOW. So I used the same load on a leopard, and performance was everything I could ask for. Shot through the lungs, broadside, the bullet left an exit hole easly the size of a silver dollar, and internal trauma was massive, showing the bullet expanded very rapidly. (A leopard's chest is pretty narrow, so the bullet HAD to expand quickly.)

So 180 grain Ballistic Tips are fine for game that's on the smallish side, and they'd be my choice were I hunting small Texas whitetails, mountain lion, pronghorns, or similarly sized game with my .30/06.

But if the possibility for taking game over 200 lbs existed, I'd choose Partitions for my '06 . . .

And if I had a .300 Mag and were loading it to full power, I wouldn't use Ballistic Tips anywhere except the target range.

(BTW, I tried X-bullets and dropped them like a hot potato. In my rifle they were about as accurate as a fat man spitting out watermelon seeds at a picnic.)

 

[H&Hhunter]

And if I had a .300 Mag and were loading it to full power, I wouldn't use Ballistic Tips anywhere except the target range.

Yep good point. I like the Ballistic tip in a slower moving caliber but they just won't hold up to the velocity of a thunderboomer. I just wish I could convince people that this is the case. I watched a guy very nearly lose a grand old bull elk becuase he was shooting for B.C. and not construction out of a magnum. Always use good bullets on elk anyway!

BTW, I tried X-bullets and dropped them like a hot potato. In my rifle they were about as accurate as a fat man spitting out watermelon seeds at a picnic.)

Funny thing about X bullets is that if you try them out of a gun that isn't perfectly clean And by that I mean of jacket fouling your going to have problems. I've had several friends who's rifles wouldn't shoot X's untill I cleaned the jacket fouling out of the bore with a combination of Sweets 7.62 followed by JB bore cleaner and every one started shooting like a house of fire after that.

 

[Dr.Rob]

Art in all my years hunting with the Sierra 165 I've only seen one parital jacket seperation. Most often there just isn't enough animal to make the bullet open up and you get a clean through and through shot with a dime sized exit wound.

The bronze points always exited, often leaving a half dollar sized hole. One exception was a neck shot, another was a heart shot in which I found the bronze point, but no other part of the bullet. I still love the accuracy of that bullet.

 

[HankB]

Funny thing about X bullets is that if you try them out of a gun that isn't perfectly clean And by that I mean of jacket fouling your going to have problems.

H&H, besides the usual copper solvents, I took care to clean my barrel with Outers' Foul Out II, so it really was squeaky clean. But what kept happening was that if I fired a five shot group, I'd get several in a tight cluster, but one or more fliers would open the group, sometimes to as much as four or more inches. (!)

And the odd thing is, the fliers weren't necessarily the last rounds, they could be the first, third, or anywhere in the string.

The rifle behaves very predictably with all other bullets from 130 to 220 grains, producing groups from 0.75 to 1.5 inches in diameter (depending on load) so I figure it's not bedding, 'scope, or anything else I can put my finger on.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Hank,
You got me buddy..Maybe your rifle ain't got the twist rate to handle an X that's the other thing the X bullet is longer than a standard bullet and it takes a faster twist rate to make them really shoot. Or so I'm told.

In any case no big deal sounds like it shoots plenty of other juicy stuff just fine.

 

[St. Gunner]

Hank,

Maybe you got the same lot as me, I bought some .270 bullets a few years back, loaded em up in a shilen barreled tack driver and was getting 3-4" groups. I tried everything, then I weighed the bullets, I had everything from 125-136gr bullets in one box that was supposed to be 130. I have never bought another box, probably never will though they ought to be the perfect medicine on hogs, but 9-12" groups at 300yds just won't cut it.

Now I grouped 10 of them that weighed the same and got good groups, 1" at 100yds, out of a rifle that shoots 130gr sierras into 1/2" with carefully crafted handloads. So I wasn't impressed by what I saw, but 1" is plenty good for hogs. If you still have those bullets, try weighing them, see how much difference you find.

 

[lycanthrope]

Please don't lump a bullet design as a general rule. Sectional density is EVERTHING.

I toss 140 gr Ballistic silvertips through whitetails at nearly 3500 fps out of my 7 STW. They pass through with a quarter sized exit hole.

 

[Art Eatman]

Now, lycanthrope, you reckon sectional density matters during a 200-ground prairie dog shoot-session?

And not everybody thinks that sort of cartridge is necessarily a Good Thing if it's a seven-pound rifle that's one's Favorite Pet.

, Art

 

[H&Hhunter]

Please don't lump a bullet design as a general rule. Sectional density is EVERTHING.

I toss 140 gr Ballistic silvertips through whitetails at nearly 3500 fps out of my 7 STW. They pass through with a quarter sized exit hole.

7MM Ballistic silver tip 140gr sectional density is .248

.308 Ballistic silver tip 180gr sectional density is .271.

So in conjuntion with your statement my bullet should have expanded less especially since it was at a lower velocity..

Your theroy trys to state that given two equal bullets lets say a 180gr .308 B.T. and a 180gr Barnes x both in the .271 S.D. class that they will have exactley the same performance as far as expansion and penetration when fired at the same velocity??.............I think not.


I agree that S.D. is an important factor but it is in conjunction with bullet construction.

For instance when hunting thick skinned animals such as Cape Buffalo or Hippo it is always recomended to use a quality controlled expansion or solid bullet in the .300 S.D. or higher range. That is your best combination for penetration.

And probably the reason that they don't make ballistic silver tip bullets for the .458 or the .470 Nitro.

I can't ever remember seeing or reading about anyone thunking a pair of "900gr ballistic silver tips" into their Wesley Richards to go sort out "terrible Tembo" the man smasher.

 

[Keith]

I've been back and forth through all of this for too many years. When I started reloading, I went through all the data and tried most everything that was out there. I shot lots of game, with lots calibers, loads, bullets.

I keep coming back to a few core principles;

1. Use the appropriate weight bullet for the game being pursued. Shooting heavy bullets at light game will work most of the time, but ... sometimes it doesn't. Catch a deer between two ribs with a 180 grain bullet from a .30, and it may just poke through like an arrow. You may not even realize you hit it! You will probably not find it even if you realize you did hit it. Seen it happen too many times. Spent too many mornings helping others find their game.
If you're hunting deer sized game, use a 150/165. If you're hunting elk or moose, use the 180/200.

2. Bullets - for me personally, I always come back to Nosler Partitions. I'm sure some of the other controlled expansion rounds work well. I've used many of them, but "there's always something". X's are terrific, but are a pain because of the copper fouling. Some of the other brands are hard to find when you want them "right now", but you can always find the Noslers, in a variety of calibers and weights. And dammit, they work!

Keith