Why No High BC Hunting Bullets?

[brotherjack]

Because the vast majority of hunters will never shoot an animal further than 200 yds and BC doesn't play a factor there.

Exactly correct! Heck, even double that range, out to 400 yards, difference due to B.C. is almost non-existent, assuming you're using a bullet of some decent BC to begin with (ie: the 0.5-ish BC of a 180 grain .308 plastic tipped boattail) -- the difference in trajectory between say 0.66 BC and 0.50 (assuming a 3 inch max-height-above-sight-plane zero), is about 1.4 inches. Even if you had a true 1/4 MOA rifle, your group sizes under field conditions (heart rate up, adrenalin pumping, less than ideal rest position, etc) are probably bigger than that at 400 yards -- and honest 1/4 MOA "hunting guns" are (very) very few and far between.

Heck, even 500 yards (a rather dubious range to be flinging lead at any living thing other than enemy combatants) -- the diff between 0.5 and 0.66 B.C. is only about 3 inches. Get out your tape measure and look at it -- 3 inches ain't very far. The killzone on a moose is what, almost 2 feet? If your shot placement is so poor at 500 yards that 3 inches makes a big difference, you need to go back to sniper school.

 

[LongBomber]

BC becomes important from about 300 yards out.

Just an example - Take a factory loaded 300 win mag pushing 180 partition with a BC .379, and a 308 with a berger 195gr VLD, BC of .57. run the numbers for energy and see how close they become. The 308 takes the lead at just under 400 yards! Who would have thought the 308 would outperform the win mag at long range? Bullet selection can turn your mag into less than a 308 and vise versa.

 

[X-fan]

If you are only looking to shoot 400-500 yards a carefully selected hunting bullet will do the job.

If you are looking to shoot longe range the 300SMK it is probably not the bullet for the 338Winchester as I doubt you could even make 2500fps. Unless you run a real long mag box and a fairly long throat I doubt you could seat the bullet without it falling back into the case body.

The 300SMk at 2800-3000fps has few peers in the long range world. At long range the 300 is a nasty hunting bullet...more like a grenade, but floor game it does and it does it with serious enthusiasm.
At 50 yards you are asking for trouble.

We don't care about the bullet with flat trajectory we want the bullet that fights wind and retains velocity (necessary for expansion).

 

[Dogleg]

For the vast majority of hunting, most of the things we love to agonize about don't mean anything. You could probably buy a random bolt action, pick factory ammo by whatever is on sale, get your buddy to sight it in for you and still have a very capable 200 yard big-game rifle.Maybe 300. That's twice as far as most people need to shoot, and is farther than a lot of people can shoot. Nope, nothing matters until it matters. Then it matters a lot.

 

[noneck180]

personally I have never put a whole lot into what bullet I use,, but I use what shoots the best out my rifles, partions, accubonds, Swift sciroccos and Bergers. Shot tonnes of Barnes in every type, but never shot any big game with them because they didn't group aswell, I mean under 3/4 moa.

 

[Johnny_Canuck]

I've had great results in my 6.5x55 pushing 140 gr SGK's, everything from 70-325 yards it performed well on deer for me. My uncle used his Swede with some that I had loaded up for him and he cleanly took an antelope at an even 200 and an 5 point bull elk with the same load at 180. All my stated ranges are lasered, and my Swede loads are "modernized", will not state load numbers, every rifle is different work yours up accordingly. I'll give my thumbs up for the gameking anyday, and that .500 BC is nice to have along.

 

[Duck_Hunter]

We have our own 100yard range and I routinely dig through the mound after shooting to recover bullets.
Because of this habit I would never use a target bullet like the VLD and SMK, almost always these bullets seperate from their jackets and get very unreliable expansion. I fired about 60 nosler accubonds last fall working up a load for deer and didn't have one failure or jacket seperation. Good weight retention(always around 75%) and great expansion. The front of the projectile ecperienced violent expansion while the base holds together.
The B.C. is also quite good on these bullets as well.

 

[X-fan]

We have our own 100yard range and I routinely dig through the mound after shooting to recover bullets.
Because of this habit I would never use a target bullet like the VLD and SMK, almost always these bullets seperate from their jackets and get very unreliable expansion. I fired about 60 nosler accubonds last fall working up a load for deer and didn't have one failure or jacket seperation. Good weight retention(always around 75%) and great expansion. The front of the projectile ecperienced violent expansion while the base holds together.
The B.C. is also quite good on these bullets as well.

For most hunting situations I agree, but the farther you shoot game the more you begin to see there are no absolutes.
For shooting game at extreme range "hard" hunting bullets may indeed be a poor selection.

The longer the range the better a soft, high BC, incredibly accurate "Berger" style bullet looks.