Nosler Ballistic tipped .308 ok to hunt deer with ?

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skinnadoor

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Does anyone know if it's leagal to hunt deer with ballistic tip'd .308 winchester ??? Or hunt at all with ballistic tip'd ammo... Anyone know ?

Do they expand on impact, like the soft point ammo? or are ballistic tip's just soft point with a pointy tip ?



Thanks
 
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You can hunt with the ballistic tip, however what I've found is that it expands rapidly and may not give you enough mass to penerate heavier game. The jacket on the ballistic tip is thinner than and IMO fragments quite a bit. On light thin skin game (ie. small whitetail) it's ok.

My preference would be the accubond or interbond if you want to hunt with the tipped bullet. good luck.
 
Used one on a deer (nosler 150gr), worked well. Never found the bullet. I angled it into the lungs. Should have shot a little bit more forward. Deer ran around 40 feet before dropping. Lots of lung and blood trail. Not sure if it came out the other side. Might have wound up in the body cavity somewhere given the angle.
 
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308BAR said:
You can hunt with the ballistic tip, however what I've found is that it expands rapidly and may not give you enough mass to penerate heavier game. The jacket on the ballistic tip is thinner than and IMO fragments quite a bit. On light thin skin game (ie. small whitetail) it's ok.
My preference would be the accubond or interbond if you want to hunt with the tipped bullet. good luck.
Click to expand...

We used them one year and never again. Had problems with them fragmenting on a mulie hunt. My buddy had a lot of meat damage.

I hit a mulie dead on with a perfect double lung shot, what a mess dressing him out. Bullet fragmented and went right in the gut sack, what a mess, what a mess.

I think I would use an interlock first
 
It's my first choice with my 308 when I am hunting deer and deer only. If I have any tags in my pocket for larger game I use my 300 with TSX bullets. The btip is an excellent killer of deer, I shoot 150 grainers at 2800 FPS.
 
I'm going to switch to something else. I was not impressed by the rapid fragmentation. They work but why not use a better bullet.

What turned me off was a hit square in the neck on a large white tail( 2 inches from the base of the skull at 80 yds). The buck went down but was not killed. A second hit was required. On examination the bullet broke to bits on the spinal column but did not break through completely. A better bullet would have broken the spine completely for a quick kill.
 
I've shot a half ton load of white tails over the years with the 165 grain "screamin' green meenies" in my .308 Winchester. All of them were bang, flop. If you do hit bone like a hip, which I did, there's not much left of the bullet or the hip. Did drop it though, but needed a pumpkin shot to close the deal.

Ricky
 
I have used BTips in a number of cartridges on whitetails, 308,30-06 and 270swith great success I think 3 or 4 kills with no excessive damage. I still like the original Hornady Sp interlock as my favorite soft bullet.

But as mentioned with a 308 @ 2650 fps on deer is a great combo.
 
They worked good for me out of a 6.5x55... One whitetail, one mulie, and one black bear all on the same trip. They were one shot kills at under 100 yards and moderate velocity...
 
I have used the BT for many years for many animals - from 30-06 180 gr at 2700 ft/s to 300 weath 180 gr at 3200 ft/s to 30-378 at 3500 ft/s 180 gr, at close range to very far ranges

Every, and i mean every, deer, black bear, moose, antelope, elk, coyote died with one bullet in them. I have never recovered one bullet.
I have argued about this with many of my hunting friends about the fragmentation (i think the BT is built a bit tougher now) and i come to the same conclusion. They go where i expect them when I pull the trigger and they kill the animal. The rest does not matter to me. The animal is dead, it died quickly.
I have never tracked an animal hit with a 180 gr 30 cal BT, maybe a few feet at best.

Would I use them in 30 cal for large African game -- I have , but they were a bit lacking due to the frag nature if youhad a difficult shot. Deer sized up to elk sized -- perfect. Long range - perfect.

With the largest of game -- a sufficient sized BT in the ribs is deadly.

For large game I now use Accubond as they have the same flight characteristics as the BT and I can interchange them depending on the game.

Then you look at the cost for BT - you can practice withthem for relatively cheap cost compared to other "premium" bullets
 
I've hammered my share deer as well. 20 plus years of hunting in the prairies does give one a bit of experience. A good bullet should not fly to pieces. Bt's are very accurate and will kill. However, my direct observations show that things could be improved greatly with a better bullet with much less meat damage and quicker kills. A deer hit solidly with good shot placement generally does not require a finishing shot. ( There is the rare exception )

Personal observations of myself and friends
300 gr hornady XTP's from BP gun over a dozen bang flops
Speer mag tips. ( 4 shots 4 black bears dropped in tracks. Range 100 -200 yrds)
Nosler partitions. Have observed 6 bulls bang flop
Nosler BT's Spoiled meat, finishing shots required, and some long tracking


I respect your oppinions. However, I have to go with what I have seen and Bt's just don't cut the mustard as performer on game. They will work but why not use the best you can. Clean efficient kills are achieved by considering many factors. By using better bullets thats one less variable to worry about.
 
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riden said:
We used them one year and never again. Had problems with them fragmenting on a mulie hunt. My buddy had a lot of meat damage.

I hit a mulie dead on with a perfect double lung shot, what a mess dressing him out. Bullet fragmented and went right in the gut sack, what a mess, what a mess.

I think I would use an interlock first
Click to expand...


My buddy used them on a moose with the exact same results.His was out of a 30-06 though.Made a mess and ruined a bunch of meat.I shot a moose a couple days later,same distance,same placement but I used a silvertip out of my 30-06 and you could eat right up to the hole.That convinced me not to use the BT's.
 
It really depends on what you want the bullet to do. There are different theories of how a bullet should work.

Some bullets (of which the Barnes TSX is a good example) are designed to retain 100% weight, expand a wee bit, and blow a hole clean through the critter slightly larger than the caliber of the bullet. You can use very "light-for-caliber" bullets at very high velocities when using this theory.

Some bullets (such as the Nosler BT or Nosler Partition) are designed to loose a bunch of weight at impact and throw shrapnel around inside the body cavity. You need a "heavy for caliber" bullet to make this theory work well, because if your bullet looses 50% (or more) of it's weight in the first 6 inches of penetration, you need the remaining bit of bullet to have enough weight/momentum to finish punching that hole clear through to the far side of the critter.

Of the two theories - I kind of like theory 2, myself. I've shot critters with bullets that do the high weight retention+mild expansion thing, and I've shot critters with bullets that came apart on the way through and turned the critter insides to jelly. The ones with the insides turned to jelly hit the dirt a lot faster than the ones that just had holes in their lungs (but all of em died, and none of em ran far enough to be all that hard to find). So what, if under theory 2, you loose a bit of shoulder meat if you didn't get a clean broadside shot - big deal, the front shoulder meat isn't exactly great eating in the first place, and other than moose/elk sized stuff, there's very few pounds meat lost if you loose the whole darn thing.

The other thing, specific to the Nosler BT that should be considered - is impact velocity. The overwhelming majority of the guys I've talked to over the years who swear by the Nosler ballistic tips as being good stuff, do at least one of the following two things: they shoot heavy for caliber bullets at fairly modest velocities (say 2600FPS or less). On the other hand, the majority of the guys I've talked to who say the NBT is a useless explosive piece of junk, do one or both of the following: shoot light-for-caliber bullets at pretty high velocities (in excess of the 2600FPS or so mentioned above, often in excess of 3000FPS).

In conclusion - I would suggest to you that you shoot a 180 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip at about 2600FPS in your 308 Winchester (factory or handloads should come in within 100FPS of that velocity). That particular bullet at that velocity ought to work great on anything you're going to shoot with it (heck, I'd even shoot elk or moose with that load without a second thought).


YMMV.
 
One other side note - I seem to vaguely recall that Nosler makes two different kinds of Ballistic Tip bullets: some of them are designed for hunting, and some for varminting. Assuming both types are available in 30 cal - you want the 'hunting' kind.

:)
 
Every deer I shot with the ballistic tips caused quite a bit of meat damage.
I've switched to the Win Supreme XP3 ammo, with the accubond bullet.
I don't roll my own, or I'd be using TXS bullets.
 
You'll find that the Winchester XP3 ammo will damage just as much meat, I imagine. Using Winchester XP3 180gr bullets in my 300 Win mag, we got EXPLOSIVE expansion on deer last year. Two deer, two through & throughs, with a huge exit hole. Of course, what I consider huge meat loss, you might not. Just food for thought.
On the other hand, one of the deer dropped in it's tracks, and the other didn't make it out of sight. I'd rather lose a few pounds of meat than lose a whole day blood-trailing. I'm going to keep shooting XP3s.
They do a great job on Coyotes that show up at your stand too. :D
Cheers.
Tim
 
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