30cal 165gr accubond field test.

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silhop

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Good day gents,

Well, I got my first dall sheep a few weeks ago with my first handloaded rounds and I might say it was a great feeling. A fine 13 year old dall sheep fell to my 300wsm. I shot twice, once a miss (atleast I thought), and one broad side at 80 yards to seal the deal.
Upon dressing the animal i found the first shot hit a few inches above the tail, penetrated about 2 inches and came apart..... a complete bullet failure that under different circumstances may have wound up being a run away wounded sheep.
I couldnt believe my eyes as I thought accubonds were alittle more skookum that this! I have made similar shots on a moose with a 30-06 shooting winchester failsafe factory ammo. In that case the bullet penetrated 8inches, the animal was paralysed dropped and a quick second shot finished the job.
Needless to say a visit to the gunshop after the trip was made and some ttsx bullets were purchased.\

ps. i got 80 165gr accubonds forsale, best offer
 
I shot a goat last September with a 264 win mag, 140gr accubond. 80-100yds made more of a mess than a ballistic tip. I find with these bullets, is that you won't wound many game.
 
I've had several experiences with the 30cal 165gn Nosler Accubond as well as the 200gn that are the exact opposite of yours. I was surprised by your account.
A few inches above the tail? Is it possible that it just deflected up and exited as opposed to coming apart?
Did you find actual pieces of bullet?

Below is a cut-and-paste of a previous post by me:

I've shot a moose at just under 100 yards with the .30 cal 200gn NAB:
MV was 3145
3 shots, all exited - 2 through the heart - lungs, one through the shoulders.
No signs of over expansion / breakup.

The previous year I was using the .30 cal 165 NAB:
MV was 3565
I shot 2 deer, both at just under 100 yards, both shots exited with no signs of over expansion / breakup.

I shot a moose at 30 yards, 3 shots if I recall correctly (I keep shooting until they're down. This moose and the one mentioned above were dead on the first shot but still up). All exited but one bullet. It was found under the hide after having penetrated both sets of shoulder bones.

Here's that bullet:

IMG_4665.jpg


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IMG_4667.jpg


IMG_4668.jpg


The impact velocity of that bullet would have been around 3496fps. I don't know what more you could ask of a bullet.

The NAB is every bit as tough as the Partition and offers the high BC and accuracy potential of the Ballistic Tip.

I highly recommend it for higher velocity cartridges. (This was a 300 RUM).


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I have shot 4 animals with the 150 grain accubond (3 deer, 1 bear) at ranges from 15 yards to 270 yards. My velocity is quite a bit lower (2750 fps) out of a 308. All bullets exited, lots of internal damage including a shattered shoulder on the bear. My experiences are positive so far.
 
Thanx for the replies fella, looks like some good performace in your cases. In my senario the shot that hit the lungs functioned as any bullet should just as in your stated situations.... hit sholder blade lungs then another shoulder blade.
I have accomplished this shot many times with cheap blue boxes of federal off the shelf, but I have seen these bullets fail in not so ideal shot placements (ie bakbone) .... That is why I started relaoding, to load premium bullets that keep thier integrity such as a the shot goes threw alot of bone mass. I was hoping to save money shooting premium bullets. The fancy factory failsafe winchesters were costing 60 dollars a box, the fancy accubonds hand loaded ammo was about 25 dollars a box.
The bullet that hit the spline perhaps deflected, but not after shedding about 60 percent of it's mass. I found many shards of copper jacketing and chunks of lead mixed in with the bone and tissue.
In conclusion the barnes bullet doesn't cost much more than the accubond and I have been hard pressed to hear of a tsx bullet coming apart.
 
working in gun shops over the years i have seen accubonds come apart on five different occasions. yes i did see the recovered bullets, even sent some back to nosler for examination... never heard back from them... in every case the lead core and jacket separated... three of the five were .325 cal, one a .30 cal and i dont remember the fifth cal... all animals were recovered thus the bullets as well, but a couple of the shots from 325 required some one elses rifle to seal the deal
i have seen many recovered accubonds that were perfect too, as seen above
 
I do remember reading some complaints when the Accubond was newer on the scene.

Maybe they had (have?) some consistancy problems with the bond between core and jacket.

I've only got 8 examples to go by, but every one of them has been perfect. All with 165 and 200 grain 30 calibers at very high velocity.

There was also an issue early on with the plastic tips falling out. That seems to have been cured. I haven't seen that either but it seemed to happen a lot a few years ago.
 
I just had a Nosler Accubond with the tip missing when reloading the 300 Win Mag. I emailed Nosler and they said they would mail me one. It hasnt shown up yet.

The tip was in the bottom of the box.
 
I have shot one deer with the Nosler Accubond. Penetration was adequate and the recovered bullet weighted 65% of its original weight. That being said the Barnes TSX in my opinion is the best hunting bullet. Penetration has been awsome with none recovered yet.
 
Accubonds expand pretty rapidly, and don't hold together as well as a FS or TSX but if you had shot the ram in the lungs/heart instead of the ass, I am sure the animal would have died quick.

If you want end to end penetration, then the TSX and Failsafe style bullets are where you want to look (although Failsafes have been discontinued)

I don't typically take a Texas Heart SHot as a first shot on an animal, but I will do a frontal if I have a god shot. I put a 180gr TSX all the way through a deer lengthwise a few years ago. I doubt the same shot would have exited the ham of the deer if I was using an Accubond.
 
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